Tony Stewart's Actions on Pit Road Dangerous, Further Damage His Reputation

Things got a little wild at the end of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday night thanks to a little hard racing between Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth and their tempers bubbling over afterward.

After Kevin Harvick had taken the checkered flag as the race winner Keselowski and Hamlin got into a little banging back and forth before heading into the pits. Upon heading into the pits Keselowski and Kenseth then showed their displeasure with each other after making contact on a restart earlier in the race.

Keselowski’s retaliation toward Kenseth on pit road got a little out of hand and led to the No. 2 driver accidentally slamming into the back of Tony Stewart’s Chevrolet. Stewart, taking umbrage to this, threw his car in reverse, gassed it and slammed into the front of Keselowski’s Ford causing significant damage.

Both Hamlin and Kenseth wanted a piece of Keselowski after the race ended with Hamlin being corralled and taken away by a crew member and Kenseth tackling Keselowski in between haulers in the garage area, before a small fight took place between crew members of each team.

While Keselowski, Hamlin and Kenseth engaged in the “fun stuff” after the race I believe that everything they did fits into what NASCAR likes to call “boys have at it.”

What Tony Stewart did on pit road was a little bit more than “boys have at it” and something that doesn’t help his “hothead” reputation within the sport, especially given the tragic circumstances between him and the late dirt track racer Kevin Ward Jr. in New York in August.

NASCAR likely won’t do anything to punish Stewart, because they are probably more concerned about the actions of Keselowski, Kenseth and Hamlin, as are the NASCAR media and fans. But, I believe what Stewart did during this post race incident was the most unacceptable moment of the whole melee.

Drivers throwing their vehicles into reverse and gassing them into parked cars behind them is incredibly dangerous and should not be accepted in the sport. Not only is it incredibly dangerous, but this action (whether rightfully provoked or not) shows that Stewart is quick to anger, which is the exact thing that he doesn’t need to be seen as at this moment, even if he wasn’t charged in the death of Ward.

Keselowski, Kenseth and Hamlin are going to get the headlines after tonight’s race, but it’s the momentary lack of judgment by Stewart that really should take some of the focus.

Mark Martin: More Than Just a Runner-Up in Everybody's Book

Mark Martin is going to go down in the history of NASCAR as the sport’s Ted Williams, Karl Malone and Dan Marino … the best of the sport to never experience the glory of a championship title. But, despite the fact that it’s this blog post’s lede and will undoubtedly and unfortunately be synonymous with him for the remainder of his life and long after it ultimately doesn’t matter, because he (and the others like him) will still remain legends and all-time greats despite never reaching their sport’s summit.

Martin always seemed to be the runner-up in NASCAR – finished second in the point standings a record (and whopping) five times. He also never seemed to be the best driver at any one point in his long and successful career – but, only because he was being bested by truly iconic names like Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. But, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t get the job done (NASCAR is a team sport, just like baseball, basketball and football) and sometimes your failed by other things like your pit crew or just dumb luck. Martin, in fact, had not one, but two championships essentially taken from him by rules infractions seemingly out of his reach.

Championships should never be a measure of a true sports legend, period. Mark Martin may not have a championship, but won 40 premier series Sprint Cup races in his career and almost 100 races when you add up his victories from the three NASCAR series (he’s second in all-time Nationwide Series wins and the only driver in the history of NASCAR with 40-plus wins in both series). Bill Rexford won a NASCAR premier series championship, in 1950, but only won one race in his career. No offense to the late Rexford, and granted he only ran 36 career NASCAR races, but you tell me which driver is the true legend of the sport. Hint: It’s not the one with the championship.

Mark Martin is not just a true NASCAR legend and an all-time great because of his skills on the racetrack. He’s also a legend, because of the man he is. I’ve been watching NASCAR for 12 years and in that time there has never been a more respected man within the NASCAR garage and among race fans than Mark Martin. Few, if any, drivers in NASCAR history have probably been as respected and liked as Martin. This is because Martin was the ultimate gentleman racer who didn’t ruffle feathers on the track by beating and banging or off the track by running his mouth about fellow drivers. Drivers knew that Martin was going to race them clean, so they had better return the favor … and they always seemed to do just that. I can’t remember a single time in my 12 years of watching this sport where I ever saw Martin and another driver have a spat either on or off the track. Everybody simply liked Mark Martin.

It’s this respect and attitude that Martin showed that stands out the most to me about his career, even more so than winning races, despite having seen almost a quarter of Martin’s career wins in the Cup Series, including one of his most successful seasons in 2009 when he won five races, including the last of his career at New Hampshire Speedway, and finished runner-up in the championship for the fifth time in his career. Mark Martin was 50 years old that season and was better than anybody on the track, including drivers half his age.

Mark Martin is going to be missed on the racetrack for many reasons, some of them including the fact that he won’t be there to show the younger drivers the right way to race and treat each other and that he’s maybe the last throwback to the good old days of racing when the sport featured workingman-like legends like Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarbrough, Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett and on and on.

Mark Martin is truly a beloved relic of the sport of NASCAR. His career spans more than 30 years and multiple eras of the sport. He’s a guy who entered his first race in an event won by the legendary Richard Petty and finished his career in a race culminating in a championship for Jimmie Johnson. If there was a legend in the sport of NASCAR the odds are that Mark Martin not only drove side-by-side with them, but also beat them.

It’s going to be weird watching NASCAR without Mark Martin in the field, but it was a damn pleasure doing so for all of those years.   

NASCAR's Punishment of Michael Waltrip Racing, Clint Bowyer Not Harsh Enough

NASCAR’s credibility and integrity were degraded on Saturday night during the final laps of the Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway, the series’ final race before the 10-race Chase for the Championship playoffs. The penalty handed down by NASCAR was likely the most severe in its long history and yet it still seems unsatisfying and only halfway done.

With less than 10 laps to go in Saturday night’s race it appeared as if Ryan Newman was on his way to Victory Lane and a playoff wild card berth clinching second win of the season. It appeared as if four-time champion Jeff Gordon was going to drive his way into the Chase for the second straight season with a solid run at Richmond. It appeared as if Joey Logano would just miss the playoffs by finishing outside of the top 10 in the standings and with his one victory not good enough to clinch a wild card berth with Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman having multiple victories. It also appeared the same thing would happen to Martin Truex Jr., the driver of the Michael Waltrip Racing number 56 Toyota Camry. 

This is when a plan that had to have at least been somewhat pre-planned was set into orchestration by members of the Michael Waltrip Racing organization, at least led by general manager (and spotter with MWR number 55 driver Brian Vickers) Ty Norris and Brian Pattie, crew chief for the number 15 MWR car driven by Clint Bowyer.

With nine laps to go Bowyer’s spotter Brett Griffin said over the driver’s radio, “The 39 (Ryan Newman) is going to win. Well, that kinda sucks. Nine more (laps) right here. This transmission was followed by Pattie saying, “Is your arm starting to hurt? I bet it’s hot in there. Itch it.”

Bowyer responded to his crew chief with an “oh yeah.” Bowyer’s in-car camera caught him wildly jerking at his steering wheel in a fashion that no professional stock car driver would ever do. His number 15 Toyota then spun out bringing a late race caution that would completely shuffle the running order, the finishing order, the point standings and the playoff seedings. 

Through the late race sequence of pit stops Newman lost the race lead. Paul Menard would restart the race first. Carl Edwards would restart beside him on the front row. Edwards would eventually go on to pass Menard on the restart, that he quite possibly illegally jumped, and go on to win. 

The shuffling wasn’t done. 

On the restart of the race Bowyer hit the pits despite having little to no damage from his spin. He would also creep down pit road at an unusually slow speed, according to a clip from the race broadcast. Meanwhile, the other MWR team car Vickers restarted the race behind the lap car of Logano, despite being on the lead lap. Vickers would also come down pit road on the restart at the behest of his crew. 

This would be the piece of evidence that would later do MWR in.

The caution and resulting pits and loss of spots would result in Newman not winning the race, giving him the same number of wins as Truex Jr. The ensuing pit stops by both Bowyer and Vickers allowed Logano to gain two spots on the track thus re-passing Gordon for the tenth and final playoff spot in the point standings and ensuring that Logano wouldn’t have to use his win to grab the final wild card spot away from Truex Jr. In almost the blink of an eye Newman and Gordon went from playoff bound to wondering what the hell had happened. Truex Jr. was playoff bound because his team orchestrated his positioning. Logano, the luckiest guy in the sport evidently, was playoff bound because he was a pawn in MWR’s game. 

Fans instantly took to social media sites like Twitter claiming something fishy had taken place with Bowyer’s spin. Things would get even more obvious when the evidence of Bowyer’s and Vickers’ pit stops and final lap times came to light.

The next day NASCAR announced that it was going to investigate the happenings of Bowyer’s spin.

On Monday, NASCAR announced that they would be taking Truex Jr. out of the playoffs and placing Newman into the playoffs. They also announced an indefinite suspension for Norris. A 50-point loss in driver points for all three MWR cars (Truex Jr., Bowyer and Vickers) and a $300,000 fine, the largest in the sport’s history.

The deduction of championship points meant that Truex Jr. would fall behind Newman, thus giving Newman the final wild card spot. The deduction of points would have absolutely no penalty on Bowyer because he had already locked himself into the playoffs and points are reset for the 10-race playoff. Thus, the guy who began the entire travesty essentially got a non-penalty penalty.

NASCAR had decided to punish the organization rather than any driver (except they sure as hell ended up punishing Truex Jr. who really had no doing in any of his team’s shenanigans) because they said they didn’t have conclusive evidence that Bowyer had spun out intentionally, but did have conclusive evidence that MWR manufactured the ending of the race by pitting their other two team cars.

The conclusive evidence essentially came from Vickers’ confusion over why his team wanted him to pit. Vickers asked his crew if he had a flat tire despite not feeling it. Seemingly not wanting to pit Norris told the driver that he needed to pit because the team needed that one point, clear proof of fixing the finishing order.

Michael Waltrip Racing probably gets away with the entire thing if it wasn’t for Vickers’ dumbstruck response to being asked to pit so late as the race was going back to green flag racing and Norris having to explain to him why he was to pit.

NASCAR’s reaction and punishment toward MWR is frankly surprising to me, because I didn’t really expect for them to do anything at all. After the race on Saturday they claimed not to have seen any improprieties in how the race ended. Also a non-action from NASCAR wouldn’t have been unusual as the sport is only consistent in its inconsistency. NASCAR seems to make up and follow its rules when it pleases, something that seems to be commonplace in all forms of motorsports (see IndyCar and Formula 1 as other examples).

But, despite NASCAR’s punishment, that many in the press are calling “severe,” it doesn’t seem severe enough.

Why?

Because the guy who essentially put the orchestration into the playing field, Bowyer, is the only one who truly comes out of the punishment unscathed. And, because only half of the duo wronged by MWR’s actions (Newman) is given justice; Gordon still remains out of the playoffs, when he had a spot all but locked up.

Some are saying that Bowyer doesn’t deserve punishment because he was just following orders, but it comes down to the old “if you’re friends asked you to jump off a bridge, would you do it” cliché. Bowyer has to be held accountable for his own decisions and actions and know what’s right from wrong and immoral, but he hasn’t been.

NASCAR did well to punish the Michael Waltrip Racing organization and did right by putting Newman into his rightful place in the playoffs, but they failed immensely when it came to punishing the main culprit in the race fixing (Bowyer) and it failed to give Gordon the playoff spot that he rightfully earned.

NASCAR could’ve easily made everything right by also kicking Bowyer out of the playoffs and placing Gordon into the playoffs in his place, thus ensuring Logano, an innocent in the entire situation, would not also be punished. That is the main problem with NASCAR’s punishment, although I do think race owner Michael Waltrip, Pattie and Bowyer all should’ve been suspended for at least one race, with Pattie likely serving a longer suspension, for their parts in the act.

But, despite both audio and video evidence that Bowyer intentionally spun out his car NASCAR didn’t have “conclusive evidence.”

Other sports have banned athletes for life for fixing sporting events. NASCAR didn’t even so much as slap Bowyer on the wrist. Bowyer still has a shot at winning NASCAR’s premier championship. Wouldn’t that be damning for the sport? And, NASCAR gets to regain some of its integrity and credibility, but it’ll never be able to recoup all of it, because the punishment simply wasn’t harsh enough and frankly the sport didn’t have all its credibility to begin with from numerous past controversies.

Bowyer, previously one of the sport’s most popular drivers, however, will see some punishment in the public eye as he’s lost at least partial, if not complete, respect from many fans of the sport, as well as likely from some of his comrades in speed.    

  

Tony Stewart's Mortal and He Needed To Learn It

Safety workers load injured Tony Stewart into ambulance

The ever-stubborn Tony Stewart stood surrounded by a group of media and defiantly didn’t seem too concerned about his mortality.

“You mortals have got to learn. You guys need to watch more sprint car videos and stuff. It was not a big deal. It's starting to get annoying this week about that, so that was just an average sprint car wreck. When they wreck they get upside down like that. That was not a big deal." – Tony Stewart speaking to reporters at Pocono Raceway last Friday after flipping his sprint car twice in two weeks.

Less than four days later Stewart flipped his sprint car once again; this time at a dirt track in Oskaloosa, Iowa breaking his leg – both his tibia and fibula – and was transported to a local hospital where he underwent surgery. Two days later Stewart remains in a hospital waiting on a second surgery. The timetable for his return to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is undetermined, with many experts saying he could likely miss the remainder of the season. Despite his win earlier this season at Dover International Raceway and him currently being in one of the two wild card spots for the NASCAR Chase for the Championship playoffs he is certainly going to miss the Chase by falling out of the top 20 in points by missing multiple races.

I wonder if Tony Stewart still thinks he’s immortal.

Racer’s race is a phrase I’ve heard many times this week regarding Stewart both before and after the incident resulting in his injury. I understand this and when the word “racer” is thrown around it is Tony Stewart who comes to mind first, with all due respect to great champions like Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. However, I also understand that the more times a racer races the more times he puts himself at risk for injury or worse, especially when the extracurricular races he’s running are in equipment or at tracks that are seemingly more dangerous than the one’s he runs and runs at in his full-time job. It is the business of the driver, his team owner and his sponsors as to whether or not he should or shouldn’t run extra races throughout the season – and either decision is perfectly fine by me. All parties know the risks and should weigh them heavily when deciding. Stewart’s decision to run all of these races on the side is not something I would want to see him do if I were his car owner, which he happens to be for himself, or his sponsors, but that’s ultimately his business.

The part of Stewart’s “that was no big deal” quote to the press that I took umbrage too was “you mortals have got to learn.” Stewart has been no stranger to insert-foot-in-mouth comments over his career in motorsports and his hatred and condescension toward the media has been a recurring theme over his years in NASCAR. However, the term “mortals” – one that was likely flippantly used without much thought – came off as incredibly offensive given the recent sprint car accidents that took the lives of fellow NASCAR driver Jason Leffler and National Sprint Car Hall of Famer Kramer Williamson, who granted died after Stewart’s comments were made. I wonder if Leffler even crossed Stewart’s mind during his “mortals” comment? I wonder if Williamson crossed his mind in the days after? They should have.

Stewart knows all too well that wrecks like the ones he was in and walked away from and the one he was in that left him on a stretcher and on his way to a hospital bed are more than just “no big deal.” He knows that every time he puts on his helmet, straps in his belts and fires his engine that it could be the last time he ever does so. All racers know this. Most don’t seem to like to talk about it. However, I’ve never seen a racer as defiantly careless about it.

Tony Stewart will return to NASCAR, knowing him, probably sooner than many people think he will. Also, knowing him, he’ll probably return to sprint car racing at local dirt tracks around the country, too. He’ll probably even end up going end over end again at some point in one of the two. I say good for him. He’s proven time after time over the years that he’s one tough sonuvabitch. It’s a good part of his allure. It’s part of what makes him an all-time great.

I just hope this time spent in a hospital bed and out of the driver’s seat will get him thinking about stupid remarks like “you mortals have got to learn” and “it’s not a big deal.” Stewart was reminded Monday night in Iowa of his mortality – hopefully it’ll take.         

Nothing Could Hurt NASCAR More Than Drivers Using Racist Language

Early Wednesday evening (Feb. 27) NASCAR announced an indefinite suspension for Nationwide Series regular Jeremy Clements for violating the sport’s Code of Conduct for actions detrimental to stock car racing. Soon after it came to light that Clements was suspended for using a racial slur.

On Thursday (Feb. 28), Clements confirmed the racial slur in an interview with ESPN.com’s Marty Smith, but claimed that he didn’t mean any offense by the term. The slur came in a conversation at Daytona International Speedway prior to the Nationwide Series race on Saturday, Feb. 23 with an unnamed reporter for MTV and a female NASCAR employee. It’s unknown whether the reporter or NASCAR employee notified NASCAR of the incident.

In the ESPN.com interview, Clements said: “When you say racial remark, it wasn't used to describe anybody or anything. So that's all I'm going to say to that. And it really wasn't. I was describing racing, and the word I used was incorrect and I shouldn't have said it. It shouldn't be used at all.”

Here’s the thing … I actually believe Clements when he says the term wasn’t meant to be offensive, but he’s obviously too ignorant to realize that a racial slur in any context is almost certainly going to be offensive. One major problem with this story is that nobody knows what exactly was said. Clements isn’t saying, NASCAR isn’t saying and the reporter thus far hasn’t come forward and said. I have a pretty good feeling that I know what the term was, especially given the context of Clements’ statement to ESPN. Since he was referring to racing and not an individual I’m willing to bet that the term used was “n*****rigged.” Again, that’s just my observation and estimation, not in any way a fact.   

No matter what racial slur Clements in fact used or what context it was in the suspension from NASCAR is warranted and needed. NASCAR drivers can’t go around using offensive and racist terms no matter what the intent behind them is. In fact, given the already stereotypical and oftentimes negative (some deserved, much of it undeserved) reputation and image that NASCAR has a driver using racial slurs is the worst possible thing NASCAR could face. I’m 100 percent serious when I say that a driver using racist language is more detrimental to NASCAR than multiple car parts flying into the stands and injuring numerous spectators, like we saw last Saturday at the end of the Nationwide Series race at Daytona.

NASCAR has come a long way in terms of diversity through its Drive for Diversity program which has seen female drivers like Danica Patrick and Johanna Long competing in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series respectively, Kyle Larson of Japanese-American descent competing full time this season in the Nationwide Series and Darrell Wallace Jr., who this season becomes just the fourth African-American driver to compete full time in a NASCAR series as he races in the Camping World Truck Series.

However, in the minds of many all of these positive steps the sport is making can be undone by drivers using racially insensitive language like Clements did, again no matter the context intended. Another thing that can help to set the sport back many years is the way many fans have come to Clements’ defense claiming that he shouldn’t have been suspended for his ignorant slip of the tongue. These fans and their passionate defense of Clements’ racial slur do a lot of damage to NASCAR and the stereotype that ignorant rednecks are all that follow the sport. The stereotype is drastically untrue, but if you go to Twitter right now and type the name Jeremy Clements into the search bar you might not think so.

It’s unfortunate that a NASCAR driver had enough ignorance to use a racially offensive term, even when offense wasn’t intended, but it’s absolutely disgusting to see the support given to him by fans, who claim that NASCAR should have let the slur go unpunished.

A NASCAR driver using racial slurs is a black eye for NASCAR, but letting it go unpunished could’ve been the knockout punch.