I <3 Tony Stewart
Man, I love Tony Stewart. If Dave Blaney eventually gets screwed out of NASCAR all together, because of al his bad luck, I believe I'll be a Tony Stewart fan. Reason being, no one speaks their mind like Tony Stewart. I just read his post-race comments, mostly answers to questions about getting into the back of Jeff Gordon on lap 41...subsequently putting Gordon in the outside wall and ending his day.
What happened with the #24?
"I got into the back of him. It doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to figure that out, now does it?"
Was he in the way? Should he have moved?
"Everybody else was doing a pretty good job of give-and-take. It's just when you get around Jeff (Gordon) I guess the rules are different with him. He does more taking than he does giving. But the intention wasn't to knock him up out of the way. I just wanted to get behind him close enough that he knew I was there to say, 'Hey, you know, let us go and if you're faster we'll let you go.' And we've always done that with him. I don't know why it is with him and Jimmie (Johnson) and Ryan (Newman), but it's a group of them that think that the roads are named after them - one way."
Jeff said the next time your in the way you'll get the same thing.
"That's fine. Jeff's always whining like that. If somebody does something to Jeff it's always their fault. That's just Jeff Gordon. That's the way he's been ever since he's been down here. So, that's fine. We can get into a car crash. It really doesn't matter to me."
Are all of these incidents happening week to week with various people because it's so tight and competitive on the race track?
"No, it's happening week to week because people are forgetting how to… you know they were talking about it today on the pre-race show about people being respectful. I remember when I started, I mean the best thing that could happen to NASCAR racing is Mark Martin give a seminar on give-and-take, because it didn't used to be like this. Now guys… I mean, you've got to race them to the death just to get by them, and if you have to do that then that's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to get behind guys like that and then when Jeff (Gordon) checks up like that and I run into him, then it's his fault and not ours. All he had to do was move up and let us go and 20 laps later if he was faster we would've let him go right back by."
He said that he had a slower car.
"Then why didn't he move?"
He said he expected more patience.
"Yeah, he expects more patience on everybody else, not himself. Instead of him doing it he expects us just to let him go and wait until his car gets better."
Kevin Lepage said this week just what you said, that NASCAR should call all the drivers together and just talk to them about being respectful.
"Yeah, I mean, I didn't have any problems with Mark Martin. I didn't have any problems with Jeff Burton. The only guys I had problems with were Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. It's the same guys every week. Eventually, you finally got to stand up for yourself. You give so much that they expect you to just give it to them all the time. Well, by gosh, if I got a fast race car they're going to have to start giving me some now."
Ouch. You won't hear stuff like that from any of the other sponsor-happy, politically correct drivers. What he says is true, too. And he's the only one with the balls to say it.
What happened with the #24?
"I got into the back of him. It doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to figure that out, now does it?"
Was he in the way? Should he have moved?
"Everybody else was doing a pretty good job of give-and-take. It's just when you get around Jeff (Gordon) I guess the rules are different with him. He does more taking than he does giving. But the intention wasn't to knock him up out of the way. I just wanted to get behind him close enough that he knew I was there to say, 'Hey, you know, let us go and if you're faster we'll let you go.' And we've always done that with him. I don't know why it is with him and Jimmie (Johnson) and Ryan (Newman), but it's a group of them that think that the roads are named after them - one way."
Jeff said the next time your in the way you'll get the same thing.
"That's fine. Jeff's always whining like that. If somebody does something to Jeff it's always their fault. That's just Jeff Gordon. That's the way he's been ever since he's been down here. So, that's fine. We can get into a car crash. It really doesn't matter to me."
Are all of these incidents happening week to week with various people because it's so tight and competitive on the race track?
"No, it's happening week to week because people are forgetting how to… you know they were talking about it today on the pre-race show about people being respectful. I remember when I started, I mean the best thing that could happen to NASCAR racing is Mark Martin give a seminar on give-and-take, because it didn't used to be like this. Now guys… I mean, you've got to race them to the death just to get by them, and if you have to do that then that's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to get behind guys like that and then when Jeff (Gordon) checks up like that and I run into him, then it's his fault and not ours. All he had to do was move up and let us go and 20 laps later if he was faster we would've let him go right back by."
He said that he had a slower car.
"Then why didn't he move?"
He said he expected more patience.
"Yeah, he expects more patience on everybody else, not himself. Instead of him doing it he expects us just to let him go and wait until his car gets better."
Kevin Lepage said this week just what you said, that NASCAR should call all the drivers together and just talk to them about being respectful.
"Yeah, I mean, I didn't have any problems with Mark Martin. I didn't have any problems with Jeff Burton. The only guys I had problems with were Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. It's the same guys every week. Eventually, you finally got to stand up for yourself. You give so much that they expect you to just give it to them all the time. Well, by gosh, if I got a fast race car they're going to have to start giving me some now."
Ouch. You won't hear stuff like that from any of the other sponsor-happy, politically correct drivers. What he says is true, too. And he's the only one with the balls to say it.
posted by James at 9:54 PM
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