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Written by:
Ben Blake
http://www.racer.com
04/26/2007 - 07:00 PM
Talladega, Ala.
NASCAR "wouldn't want to speculate" about whats and ifs in the aftermath of driver Tony Stewart's $10,000 fine and probation, announced Friday. NASCAR vp Jim Hunter said so as he tried to cool the crowd between afternoon practice runs at Talladega SuperSpeedway.
All that said, let's speculate. I'm speculating that NASCAR would have had a real problem on its hands had Stewart decided not to back down after inflammatory and accusatory statements he made on his Sirius Satellite radio show Tuesday night, on which he compared NASCAR with pro wrestling and complained that NASCAR has not "run a fair race this year."
Stewart set the pace again in happy hour. (LAT photo) MORE NASCAR PHOTOS ยป More Photos
Tony at times behaves like a spoiled 4-year-old, especially when frustrated, so you have to weigh what he says accordingly. He may have felt he was jobbed by debris cautions last week at Phoenix (although what brought out the decisive yellow was a genuine wallbanger), but to come out and rip NASCAR a new one for rigging races was . . . was . . .
. . . well, exactly what a lot of us have been saying for 20, 30, 40 years, joking, of course. It's what the customers, bless their hearts, speculate about on any Sunday or Monday -- all week, sometimes, depending on the attention span. He said WHAT? Well, I guess he won't make it through inspection at [fill in next week's tour stop].
The fine and probation, as announced, was for Tony's skipping of post-race press obligations at Phoenix. That's in the entry agreement and, Stewart admitted, in his contract with Joe Gibbs Racing, in some form or other.
Yet, as Hunter spoke Thursday, conversation turned markedly away from the press obligation and more toward Tony's rant on his eponymous radio show, and Hunter did not suffer great pains in attempting to distinguish the two issues, and most in the room speculated that NASCAR's displeasure was much more with what he said than with what he did not do.
NASCAR called Stewart to a 6 a.m. meeting with three of its high-ranking principals at the speedway Thursday morning. Hunter said that NASCAR president Mike Helton had talked with Tony Wednesday night. The meeting lasted somewhere between 40 minutes and an hour.
During that time, the No. 20 team was told not to unload its car. No particular reason, team members said off the record. "They just said to keep it on the truck," one crewman said. Just speculating here, but that sounds a little over-the-top for the driver's having missed a podium conference at Phoenix.
Stewart came to the press room late Thursday morning, and before the announcement of his upcoming charity race at Eldora Speedway, sat for a mea culpa to the crowd. He said he was sorry, that he hadn't meant what he said, and that NASCAR had shown him how
Now, let's really speculate. Suppose Tony, believing he spoke for the garage, had refused to back down. You almost dread to wonder. Would NASCAR have taken Stewart's dare and told him and his team to keep the car loaded, and further, to leave the lot immediately?
Would we have come to it -- 20 paces at high noon, eyeball-to-eyeball in the center of the ring?
Would Tony Stewart have been willing to risk damage, "in the court of public opinion", to an organization which has made him rich and famous? Would NASCAR then reform certain of its double-secret policies and put its rules out in black and white for all to see?
Or, would NASCAR have been willing to expel its second- or third-most-popular competitor (up there with Junior and Gordon), a two-time champion with a quantity of color the sport badly needs right now? How would it explain such a move to the 140,000 or so at Talladega and the however-many nationwide? How would it play in court?
One close associate of Stewart pointed out that NASCAR always wins these things. Curtis Turner was kicked to the bushes in 1961, presumably for life, when Bill France objected to Turner's attempts at organizing the racers (under the aegis of the
Teamsters union). Curtis was not invited back until 1965, a down year for NASCAR attendance due (it is said) to Richard Petty's short-lived defection to drag racing.
Petty himself risked the wrath of NASCAR as head of a stillborn drivers union at Talladega in 1969. Petty and most of the rest of the top stars left the premises due to concerns over the tires, but France ran the race with a home guard of racing schlubs, and the union crumbled.
What could have happened this weekend? We can only speculate.
A few minutes after Stewart's press conference, three young women were standing behind my work station talking. Apparently, they were managing some sort of product function.
Is this your first race? one asked the other two. The other two giggled excitedly and said it was.
Who's your favorite driver?
All is thus well in NASCAR fairy land. All is well and good.
Spare parts:
* Talladega qualifying, scheduled for Friday late morning, has to be the most boring show ever presented as entertainment -- one car circling twice, making 50-second laps. What could be done better? Maybe front-row and heats, as at Daytona. Six at a time in drafts, with best overall time for the pole? Not bad, but somebody'd complain about something.
* Joke of the day: Rename NASCAR "Junior and Friends."
Ben Blake is a Senior Writer for RACER magazine.
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