Emotion overcame Patrick at Lap 206 of the 400-mile race when Earnhardt — who had been battling brake problems all night — ran into the back of her No. 10 Chevrolet. Patrick retaliated by shoving into the No. 88 car on pit road. Earnhardt reciprocated the gesture immediately by cutting her off.

“I didn’t have any brakes,” Earnhardt told his team on the radio after the incident. “I don’t even know why we’re out here.”

This didn’t appease Patrick, who colorfully expressed her fury on her own radio.

“(Expletive) 88,” Patrick said to her team. “Did he (expletive) hit me? Go (expletive) yourself. Really?”

For Junior, the reasoning behind the collision came down to one simple fact: He couldn’t stop.

“We cooked the brakes real fast,” Earnhardt said on pit road after the race after finishing 21st. “… They got worse and worse and worse and I probably shouldn’t have been racing as hard as I was when we ran into the back of Danica. But I went into that corner and just mashed the brakes to the floor, pumped it three times all the way to the floor and then ran into her.

“There wasn’t nothing I could do. It sucks, I don’t like running into Danica cause it gets a little too much attention. But I’m sorry for that.”

Earnhardt recognized and understood her anger, saying it’s “hard not to (retaliate) if you’re in her shoes.” Nevertheless, the No. 88 driver exasperatedly questioned Patrick’s thought process during her retaliation, as the duo hadn’t had any issues prior to the squabble.

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