--(Cont'd From Front Page)-- That’s probably the best way to describe Sunday’s crash between championship contenders Scott Speed and Ricky Stenhouse during Sunday’s ARCA RE/MAX Series Hantz Group 200 at Toledo Speedway – you could see it coming a mile away.

The race was barely 30 laps old when Stenhouse shoved Speed down the backstretch and into the turn three wall. Speed’s No. 2 Red Bull Toyota was heavily damaged with the right front tire shaking and the rear end no longer straight. Yet Speed’s crew quickly went to work replacing the tires and pulling the fenders out. After losing just one lap on pit road Speed was back on the track.

Once the green waved it was painfully obvious Speed didn’t have the pace to run the rest of the day. But that wasn’t his plan.

The first time the lead pack caught Speed was coming out of turn four to complete lap 34. Speed gave plenty of room as his Eddie Sharp Racing teammate Justin Lofton passed to the outside. When Stenhouse followed by a second later Speed’s car darted sharply right, getting the No. 99 AflacLife.com Ford out of shape.

It was a warning shot.

Moments later as Stenhouse slowed to enter turn one Speed barreled into the back bumper at full speed, hitting Stenhouse in the left rear and sending him into a wild spin. Stenhouse backed hard into the turn one wall with the driver’s side while Speed went slamming into the turn one wall at virtually full speed. He glanced off and crossed the track before nosing into the inside wall.

The entertainment didn’t stop there for those watching at home.

SPEED’s cameras were on the spot as soon as Speed got out of his wrecked car and he told America what they just witnessed was a payback.

"He was on my bumper and he pushed me flat out into the wall," Speed told The Speed Channel. "The car was completely undriveable. I couldn't do anything with it. He started it. He ain't going to win the championship with that attitude. That's ridiculous. That was the most blatant thing I have ever seen in my life."

Stenhouse, on the other hand, tried to play it off like the initial contact was an accident.

"Last time I was here (Toledo) I got into the rumble strips and that caused me to press down on my brakes and ride up the racetrack," said Stenhouse. "That's the same thing that happened today. I hit the rumble strips in [turns] one and two and that made me get into the brakes in three and four. Speed was there when my car rode up the racetrack, but it really wasn't intentional. I didn't really expect him to come after me after that but when I saw him slowing down on the track I knew that I was in trouble."

Apparently the initial incident on Sunday was a long time coming. Speed and Stenhouse got together at Salem last month and some garage rumblings have Stenhouse guaranteeing Speed after that incident that he wouldn’t win the championship. And then Speed’s feathers were apparently ruffled after Stenhouse exited his car at ARCA’s only road course, New Jersey Motorsports Park. Stenhouse had a rough crash in a USAC race at Eldora and was replaced after taking the green flag by road racing expert Colin Braun.

Whatever the root causes were, as soon as the 99 made contact with the 2 on Sunday it raised the entertainment value for those in the grandstands ten fold.

There are expert commentators who say retaliation with the racecars is bad news. The teams work too hard, they say, and crashing the cars is a slap in the face to them. I disagree. Today’s racecars aren’t like they were when Larry McReynolds or Jeff Hammond were building them. In the 1970s and 1980s, a team might have six or eight racecars and if they had a good one it was used in the majority of the races regardless of the track configuration. It might run for years too, and losing it in a crash was a somber occasion.

Today’s Sprint Cup teams have over a dozen race ready cars to go, if not more. Most have fabrication shops that run at least two shifts building new cars from the group up. Even today’s top-level ARCA teams have access to relatively inexpensive equipment because the switch to the “Car of Tomorrow” obsoleted hundreds of good cars over night. Like it or not, racecars are now a throw-away item.

When Speed decided to throw one of Eddie Sharp’s Toyotas away it wasn’t the first time two drivers have been involved in an incident followed by retaliation. But it was the first time it was among two championship contenders in the last race of the year with the title on the line.

Bad for them. Good for us.

The ARCA discussion threads on several motorsports message boards are still growing as race fans have something truly interesting to talk about. My own YouTube channel, with video of the incident from my perspective in turn one at Toledo Speedway, has had nearly 2,000 visits in the past 24 hours. Speed and Stenhouse have both been in the media discussing the incident and those flames haven’t died down one bit since Sunday afternoon.

How many times have you seen two combatants for a NASCAR championship take each other out in the final race of the year with the title on the line? The only similar instance I can recall was when Aryton Senna intentionally speared title rival – and teammate – Alain Prost in the final Formula 1 race of 1988 in Japan.

Most NASCAR championship races are settled with the drivers racing cleanly and respectfully. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it sure does get fun for those of us watching when the respect goes out the window.

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