The animosity between Pro Stock racers Tanner Gray and Alex Laughlin didn’t take long to reach full boil in full view of fans and the television audience.
 
In just the first Pro Stock appearance this year for Laughlin and only five races into Gray’s rookie season, the two exchanged combative words at the top end of the track during Sunday’s first round of the NHRA SpringNationals at Baytown, Texas. That confrontation led to a melee later in the pits at Royal Purple Raceway.
 
They were close on the track. Gray nipped Laughlin by a mere .0292 of a second in their opening-round race. However, once they climbed from their cars, they couldn’t have been farther apart.
 
This hostility toward one another and between their teams had been brewing since last August at Seattle and heating up at the start of this year. Finally, the gloves were off at the top end of the racetrack Sunday after Gray’s victory. And it didn’t stop there.
 
Laughlin had been an engine-program customer of Gray Motorsports until a few weeks ago, and what sparked the friction is the way that association spiraled into bitterness. Laughlin has used social and traditional media to charge Gray Motorsports treated him unfairly. Tanner Gray contends his family’s company and the race team went beyond normal measure to help Laughlin when he joined the class. Gray said Laughlin pled poverty yet continued to accept valuable work and parts from Gray Motorsports and tied up manpower while lying that he was preparing to switch to Elite Motorsports.
 
Gray, 18, admitted he confronted Laughlin, 28, when they picked up their time slips Sunday, and the two exchanged heated words then. They agree that Gray approached Laughlin and sarcastically asked about the team switch, “How did that work out for you?” and that Laughlin shot back, “These people [at Elite Motorsports] have already done more for me than you guys ever did or ever will” – to which Gray replied, “Yeah, it shows.”
 
Laughlin told FOX Sports he is “absolutely happy with the choices I’ve made” and said the Gray team’s “sportsmanship is absolutely the worst ever.” In a press release, Laughlin was quoted as saying he told Gray, “Let me explain something to you. You're 17 years old, you show zero sportsmanship, and you have a lot to learn about racing at this level.”
 
He said, "There was just mouthing back and forth after that.”  Once Gray’s crew arrived, Laughlin said he told them, “This kid has a lot to learn, so someone please get ahold of him.” He said, “And then it was, 'To get to him, you're going to have to get through us,' and it went downhill from there.”
 
Gray said Laughlin and his team continually stare at him and make “smart-ass comments.” He said he has “been getting tired of them staring at us, just mean-mugging us. They’ve been mean-mugging us all weekend and all year, really. I’d had enough of it and enough of all the comments on social media, stepping on our guys’ toes that worked their butts off for him, to give him a good race car, to give him good engines. And he just continued to bad-mouth us. I’m the type of person who’s not going to put up with it very long.”
 
He said he “patted” Laughlin on the back, and Laughlin said Gray “slapped” him on the back. Laughlin said, “I had absolutely nothing to say to him. He grabbed his ticket before I got mine, and then he slapped me on the back and [landed his verbal jabs]. I told him, 'If you touch me again, we are going to have a problem.'”
 
Gray said, “If he considers that a slap, then I’d have to say he’s pretty weak.” He denied Laughlin’s claim that he swore at him, too.
 
But Gray said Laughlin told him “if he caught me alone he would personally beat my ass. To me, that’s a threat. I told him, ‘Let’s go.’ He wants to make threats, I’ll do what I got to do. I’m not really too scared of him, especially him.”
 
Later in the pits, where they were parked near each other, tempers flared again. “We came to an agreement in the pits we didn’t want to talk anymore [trash],” Gray said, “but apparently it started back up with him.”
 
Gray said [Elite Motorsports team owner] Richard Freeman and Laughlin kept looking his way so he motioned to Freeman to come over to his pit so they could iron out the problem. He said Freeman “kept looking at me and kind of threw his hands up. I called Richard over and told him, ‘Let’s talk.’ When I did that, Richard just started to run over at me, and I think that’s when it got out of control. Both teams came together. I actually got pulled out of the middle of it.” 
   
Laughlin’s version differs. He said, "We got back to the pit and I was telling Richard the story, and Tanner is standing over there, smiling at us from his pit. Richard said, 'What are you looking at?' and Tanner throws his hands up, like 'Bring it on,' and that's when the crews came together.
 
"The whole thing is just stupid and could have been avoided if he just grew up a little,” Laughlin said. “He's going to have a very hard career if he acts like a spoiled kid every race. At the end of the day, he’s 17 years old. I’ve got to just take it for what it is. He’s got a lot to learn. We’re out here having fun. We’ll put him in his place on the racetrack."
 
Gray said, “It’s a very unfortunate thing, all in all. It’s kind of a never-ending deal with them. They don’t know how to shut their mouths. I think if they would shut their mouths, then all this probably would come to an end. But you know, it seems to me like they don’t want it to come to an end. I can play this game as long as they want to play it.”
 
But he said, “It takes away the fun of racing. You don’t want to be out there, spending your time fighting. It sucks to have to worry about this kind of stuff when you just want to go out there and race and try to win races. But I’m not going to let the Elite team bully us. They try to do that with everybody they’re around. They think since they’ve won two championships that they’re something. And you know, to ‘be honest, I really don’t feel like that. It’s not like we hate the whole Elite group. We’ll see how it goes. If they want to continue to play this game, then I promise I can play it better than they can.”
 
The Gray Motorsports folks have been irked at Laughlin because of what they call his dishonesty in failing to disclose his intention to leave.
 
“It’s OK if you want to switch teams,” Gray said. “That is OK. Maybe you get along with those people better. Who knows? But you don’t have to bad-mouth the people who helped you and got you started and taught you how to drive a Pro Stock car. We definitely did a lot for him as a group. For him to turn around and bad-mouth us is a slap in the face.
 
“Alex raced with us for about a year and a half. We had my dad, Dave Connolly, Larry Morgan, and all three of them tried to help Alex. But Alex kind of pushed the help away, didn’t really want the help. For whatever reason, he thought that he had it all under control. We gave Alex good motors and gave him good power, and I believe we let him use our shocks all year for nothing. They were coming to our trailer and taking parts and stuff they needed, and they didn’t get charged for that. I’m not sure if there’s [another] rental program out there that does stuff like that. At one point, Alex came to us and said they couldn’t afford to race. So we dropped the price for them so they could afford to race. Alex went out to St. Louis t race and won at St. Louis. He ended up being in the A/Fuel car, but then again, he couldn’t afford to race. He really stepped on our guys’ toes. They were really busting their butts for him. The shop was losing money helping him race. After he won St. Louis, they didn’t offer to give any of it back.
 
“We still had people building him manifolds because we were under the impression he was still racing [as a Gray Motorsports associate]. We were under the impression he didn’t have the money right now, that as soon as he had the money he was going to come back and race with us. This whole thing could have been avoided if they had been completely honest and up-front and not beat around the bush and just come out and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to run with Elite. We feel like thy can help us.’ We respect that. But don’t go around behind our back and go talk s--- about us. Be up-front. If you have something bad to say about our program, say it to our face.”   
 
According to Gray, Laughlin last year “lost 21 races on holeshots, then he comes out and blames our engines. There was always an excuse for Alex when he lost, always an excuse. It was always the car’s fault. Everybody tried to help him, and he never wanted the help for whatever reason.” He said Laughlin “couldn’t drive very well.” Moreover, he hopped into Laughlin’s car and said he tested it at Bradenton, Fla., this winter when Laughlin was struggling in it and proved the car wasn’t the problem. “He got pretty upset at that and left the test session early,” Gray said.
 
“From there on out, they made the excuses they didn’t have the money to race in Pomona. That excuse transferred over to Phoenix. While this was going on, we were told they were trying to get a deal with Elite. It went on and on and it comes to a point where it gets old. My dad [Shane Gray] and my grandpa [Johnny Gray] straight-out asked if they were going to Elite. They lied directly to our face and said no and that if they did anything they were going to do stuff on their own. My grandpa made a deal with Alex’s dad: ‘If you’re going to do anything, at least respect us enough to tell you’re going to go with Elite. Just give me a phone call and let me know. It’s fine if you want to do that, but let me know.’ The next thing you know, there’s a press release out that Alex is racing with Elite,” Tanner Gray said. “And this press release is stating that he didn’t have a fair chance at Gray Motorsports, that it feels good to finally be with a team that’s going to help him.”         
 
So several factors were at play by the time Laughlin and Gray were paired because the Pro Stock field being three cars short.  Whether Laughlin continues to call Gray “The Million-Dollar Kid” or Gray “plays the game” and aggravates Laughlin, whether both hold grudges all remain a mystery. But it’s no mystery how they feel about one another. And that’s something they can agree on.
 
Meanwhile, Shane Gray had an idea: "The whole thing was kind of blown out of proportion. The emotions got the best of them. I think the best thing both parties can do is close their mouths."