Incidents of irate motorists beating the life out of each other aren’t always limited to road rage encounters and the occasional NASCAR beatdown. Anyone who witnessed Brazil’s 500 Milhas de Kart race Saturday night likely saw Rodrigo Dantas put the proverbial paws on fellow driver Tuka Rocha after a minor collision.
You can see the heated exchange in the video above, and you don’t need to be able to speak Portuguese to understand things quickly got out of hand.
It appears driver Felipe Massa was in the lead, while Rocha was close behind attempting to overtake Massa. Dantas was positioned between both Massa and Rocha but actually one lap behind in the standings. At approximately the 1:18 mark in the video above, you can see Rocha push Dantas into the barrier with his car. This was reportedly one of many kart-to-kart incidents during the race.
Both Rocha and Dantas exited their cars looking like they wanted some smoke of the non-exhaust variety, and they ended up tussling with helmets on while the cars around them continued zooming around the track.
For those keeping score at home, it looks like Dantas clearly won the exchange, as he pinned Rocha to the ground at the 1:36 mark and landed some blows to his helmet. If the goal here was to reenact the Ricky Bobby versus Jean Girard scene from Talladega Nights, mission accomplished.
“We will take appropriate steps to banish the culprits from these unfortunate scenes,” event organizer Felipe Giaffone told Autosport.com after the race.
For what it’s worth, Rubens Barrichello’s Hero # 71 team was declared the winner after the race was called with 18 laps remaining due to the brawl.
