Austin Thaxton had the best seat in the house to see the incident between Lee Pulliam and Forrest Reynolds on Saturday at South Boston Speedway.
Thaxton was the next car in line under the red flag behind Pulliam. He said he saw Reynolds coming up through the pit area and after experiencing a similar incident with another driver, he didn’t want Pulliam to be helpless in the car. Thaxton rolled up from a stop to keep Reynolds from going in through the driver’s window.
“The main thing is I had an incident similar happen to me,” Thaxton told RACE22.com. “It was actually in almost the same spot. We were racing with a guy and the guy got all pissed off and said I wrecked him. It was a racing deal and he came out on the track and started whaling on me while I was on the track.”
“He comes through the window net, he didn’t go through the right side. I saw Forrest coming from pretty good ways back. It’s a helpless feeling strapped in, you see them coming but it takes a while to get out of those things. It wasn’t any fun for me, so I knew it wasn’t going to be fun for Lee there.”
Thaxton thought that Reynolds would go through the driver’s window, not the right side.
“Like I said it ain’t no fun when you’re helpless strapped in. That’s kind of a chickenshit move in my opinion. To mess with a guy that’s strapped in a race car whether we’re talking about this deal or any deal really. If you want to get out and fight about then by all means. I’ll tote an ass-whoopin’ or he totes one it really doesn’t matter. As long as it’s a fair fight. I’m good going home and licking my wounds but I ain’t good with someone hitting someone in a strapped in a racecar.”
Thaxton said he would have done the same thing as Lee.
“If I would have had it to do over again, I would have done the same thing when it happened to me. Especially if they come in on the right side, if they come in on the driver’s side you got a little bit better perspective of what’s going on. With these full containment seats that we have now, you can’t hardly turn to the right at all.”
He says with Reynolds it’s a trend and it’s getting worse.
“You don’t know what this guy is going to do. I think everyone in the Late Model Stock Car world has seen this guy progress and get a little bit crazier each time he pulls one of these stunts.”
Thaxton says he told the track that he didn’t feel safe for his family with Reynolds there.
“I told them before I left the race track there that if he was going to be at the track that I don’t really feel safe going back over there. My wife and my grandma come down and sit in the truck and trailer. He comes storming right by my wife. When somebody is that mad it doesn’t take anything to set them off anyway. I don’t know man it’s a crazy deal for sure.”
Thaxton thinks an indefinite suspension is harsh but thinks that what Reynolds did was too.
“The guy made a bad decision. I think an indefinite suspension is pretty harsh but at the end of the day going into somebody’s race car while they’re strapped in is pretty harsh too.”
Thaxton is thankful it wasn’t worse than it was.
“It very well could have been very bad. I literally watched him bounce off the race track two or three different times. In a situation like that if I was Lee I would have hit the gas a little harder. That’s just the way it is. It’s a bad deal. It makes all of us look like a bunch of rednecks when it’s just one jackass doing it.”
Thaxton feels as if Reynolds is the common denominator.
“There’s a common denominator. If you go back and look on your website, the last three races that Forrest has been a part of, there’s a common denominator. Martinsville he gets to fighting, South Boston he gets to fighting. This is not a random thing. This happens every week.”
Thaxton also questioned how Reynolds could leave his team.
I’ve never really had a lengthy conversation with him but I don’t really want to. The old saying is you take your friends with you to the track but how are you going to leave a man at the race track? How are you going to look like a reality tv show? You need to call the Kardashian’s, they might want to get in on this.”
Reynolds continues to await the decision from NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and South Boston Speedway officials but may have more work to gain the respect of the racers when he returns to the track. We will post the penalties as soon as they’re made available.
