NASCAR: Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson go at it in Vegas (and btw, Joey Logano won)

Joey Logano earned a chance to compete for his second Cup Series championship.

Ross Chastain seems to have fully recovered from his summertime funk.

Denny Hamlin is still very much alive in his hunt for that elusive Cup title, and the same for Chase Elliott, who wants a second big trophy.

Also, a former champ, Kurt Busch, delivered an emotional goodbye to full-time racing over the weekend.

But forget all that. All anyone wants to talk about is Bubba’s shoves.

So guess where we’ll start, in recapping the weekend in Las Vegas . . .

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First Gear: Kyle Larson deals a blow at Vegas, Bubba Wallace doesn't fold

“I don’t lift.”

There’s your money quote from Sunday’s wall-banging affair involving Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson.

Oh, and Christopher Bell, whose championship hopes became collateral damage.

It began with Larson making an aggressive pass through Turn 4. His Chevy drifted up and pinched Bubba’s Toyota into the outside wall.

These things happen, and when they do, the outside driver usually has two choices: Get off the gas to let Mr. Aggressive go by, then try to eventually repay him later with a similar move; or do what Bubba did.

What was that again, Bubba?

“I don’t lift.”

Bubba said he’s aware the frontrunners aren’t completely accustomed to him being up there among them. In fact, he led 29 laps Sunday before Lap 95, when he came off the wall and bee-lined toward Larson’s right-rear quarter-panel (ahem, for the record, Bubba said he’d lost his steering).

With both cars now junked, Bubba bee-lined toward Larson again, this time on foot. Larson was shoved a few times before a NASCAR official arrived and Bubba walked away.

Anger, bad-mouthing and even a finger to the chest are occasional happenings after such things, but actual physical contact is pretty rare at the big-league level.

Considering the high-profile nature of the two drivers involved, this one blew up quickly in the world of 24/7 media.

Second Gear: Christopher Bell is collateral damage at Las Vegas

Yep, we’re staying with it a bit longer.

"I know I'm kind of new to running up front, but I don't lift,” Bubba said afterward. “I wasn't even at a spot to lift, and he never lifted either, and now we're junk. Just a piss-poor move on his execution.”

Kyle, the floor is yours.

“I obviously made an aggressive move, got in low, got loose and chased it up a bit. I knew he was going to retaliate. He had a reason to be mad, but his race wasn't over until he retaliated. Just aggression turned into frustration and he retaliated.”

Competitively speaking, the biggest news out of all this was Mr. Collateral Damage, Christopher Bell, one of eight remaining playoff drivers. After getting caught up in this, he’s in the eighth-place hole, 23 points out of fourth place, which is where you need to be to make the championship final at Phoenix.

Unless he wins, of course, as he did a week earlier to keep his hopes alive.

“We got the short end of the stick,” Bell said.

Can we move along yet?

Of course not . . .

Third Gear: Kurt Busch, Alex Bowman 2 examples of the dangers

For the sake of argument, you know, let’s go all hypothetical and consider the possibility Bubba’s steering wasn’t damaged and maybe, just maybe, he hooked Kyle’s right-rear purposely to retaliate.

He certainly wouldn’t be the first racer to do such a thing. And sometimes there’s a rightful time and place for frontier justice.

Kurt Busch’s weekend retirement announcement, and Alex Bowman’s continued absence, have many suggesting this wasn’t the time and/or place for high-speed retaliation.

“I think with everything that's been going on here lately, with head injuries ... I don't think it's probably the right thing to do,” Larson offered. “I'm sure with everything going on, he'll know that he made a mistake in the retaliation part and I'm sure he'll think twice about that next time.”

Bowman announced last week he’d miss three more races due to concussion symptoms. He plans to return for the finale at Phoenix, but frankly, there are no guarantees when the brain is involved.

Saturday, Busch said his official goodbye to full-time racing, with hopes of making a here-and-there return, assuming he fully recovers from the concussion symptoms that have sidelined him since his Pocono crash in July.

“I know I am not 100% in my ability to go out and race at the top level,” he said.

Fourth Gear: And by the way, Joey Logano has shot at NASCAR championship

Now let’s talk racin’ instead of retaliation.

Logano, the 2018 Cup champ, regardless of what happens this week at Homestead and next week at Martinsville, will go to Phoenix in November as one of four drivers competing for the 2022 championship.

Under caution at Vegas with 25 laps left, Logano was running seventh but was 12th when the green flag returned. Between there, however, his pit crew fit him with new right-side tires, and that right there was the difference.

He caught and passed Chastain with three laps remaining and ran away, unthreatened.

“We had a really fast car. That’s what made it all work,” Logano said.

Yep, “have a fast car” is right there in the instruction manual.

But let’s give a tip of the officially licensed cap to the runner-up, Ross Chastain. Ross The Boss went into a big-time slump this summer as his reputation took hit after hit (after he had delivered hit after hit, coincidentally).

He’s been gathering points with solid finishes over the past six weeks (except for a wreck at the Roval), and now sits second in the standings behind Logano and ahead of Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin. The current outsiders, sitting fifth through eighth, are William Byron, Chase Briscoe, Ryan Blaney and Bell.

Next up is Homestead, as the clamps further tighten on the 2022 championship chase, and that will surely be the main topic of conversation, right?

Right?

No chance.

— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Bubba Wallace "don't lift," Larson shoved, Joey Logano wins | NASCAR