Don’t look now, but we have a NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie rivalry on our hands. In Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 250 at Kansas Speedway, Jesse Little was sent crashing out of a top-15 position during a first attempt at an overtime restart.
Instead of continuing his recent wave of momentum (entered the day with three straight top-15 finishes), Little’s day was over with a disappointing 33rd-place finish.
Turns out, it was an incident of some kind between Little and Graf that caused Little’s race to end prematurely and Little took exception to Graf’s driving style after the race and even offered to fight Graf during the off-week in a Tweet.
Hey @Joegrafjr I’m not about to start wrecking johnnys cars or Bobby’s for that matter so with all our free time next week let me know where you wanna meet & you and I can handle whatever problem you seem to have with me
— Jesse Little (@jesselittle97) July 26, 2020
Wow.
But it didn’t end there. A few hours later, Graf shot back a pointed two-tweet response of his own. Graf accuses Little of being scared to talk to him face-to-face in Texas a week ago after the two were involved in another on-track incident. He accepts the fight invitation for the off-week and he went on to say that he accepts an apology text that Little sent him before Saturday’s race about the incident at Texas.
@jesselittle97 Now all of a sudden you want to talk? You hid in your hauler last week at Texas after the race when I tried to talk to you about you trying to wreck me. I didn’t hide in my hauler after the race today, you could have come talk to me the whole hour after. (1/2) https://t.co/0bFlwIpEaX
— Joe Graf Jr (@Joegrafjr) July 26, 2020
(2/2)Instead you stared at me for an hour from 4 haulers away. Are you more interested in starting drama, than coming and talking to me like a man? BTW, I accept the apology you texted me today before the race about trying to wreck me at Texas . I consider this settled. Thanks.
— Joe Graf Jr (@Joegrafjr) July 26, 2020
Well, yeah, that’s a full-fledged feud. I wonder if they will broadcast their off-week brawl on pay-per-view?
Little and Graf are two of six drivers battling it out for the 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie of the year honors. Currently, Little holds the third spot in the rankings, while Graf is behind him in fourth.
Little has a best finish of 10th this season, which came at Pocono Raceway a few weeks ago. In all, Little has eight top-15 finishes through 17 starts this year.
Graf has a best finish of 13th, which he has accomplished three times this season.
UPDATE: July 26th 2:20 PM ET
On Sunday morning, Jesse Little tweeted his regret over starting the public Twitter battle between he and Joe Graf Jr.
Sun came up. Gonna get some turns in. Should have stayed off Twitter last night, was definitely frustrated but not an excuse to be immature. We’ll resolve it and move on. Time to focus on making our race cars faster ?? https://t.co/QBxe8zqIRn pic.twitter.com/IFJnP2UlRR
— Jesse Little (@jesselittle97) July 26, 2020
