Tony Stewart is many things, but the Emily Post of NASCAR etiquette is most certainly not one of them.
Stewart wants to preach a give-and-take attitude on the race track. Yet when it comes time to practice it, NASCAR's champion only wants to take as much as he can get.
What's not so clear is who and what Stewart is thinking these days.
As the defending Nextel Cup champion, the platform is Stewart's to do and say what he wants and he's repeatedly used it this season. But his messages are so mixed that he's struggling to keep his audience.
His dire warning at Daytona that someone was going to be killed if NASCAR didn't curb aggressive driving certainly caught everyone's attention, including the sanctioning body, which implemented a policing system.
But Stewart was the very first violator of the new guidelines, intentionally crashing into Matt Kenseth during the season-opening race.
He then spent the first quarter of the season feuding with Kyle Busch, whom he accused of being too wild on the race track and tuning out Stewart's veteran's advice.
And just last week, the driver who wants everyone to give-and-take on the race track refused to give Ryan Newman an inch of space to pass him.
So he says one thing, then stubbornly - and often out of anger - does the other.
"He's one of the best race car drivers I've ever raced against," four-time champion Jeff Gordon said. "The only thing Tony has going against him is he's got a little bit of a temper and sometimes that gets the best of him."
Add in the pressure to make the Chase for the championship - the spotlighted 10-race postseason where only the participants matter and everyone else is a nobody - and NASCAR has created a template for aggressive, angry and sometimes desperate driving.
So he gets angry and does his talking on the race track - and that's not unlike Earnhardt, either. But if Stewart could just stick with one message, and find a consistent way to deliver it, he someday might be able to get his point across.
Until then, he's just a hypocrite.
At Pocono Raceway after rookie Clint Bowyer pinched him into the wall very early into Sunday's race, After waving a menacing fist out his window, Stewart slid back into Bowyer to start a chain-reaction crash that collected Carl Edwards.
After speaking with Bowyer on Monday, Stewart issued an apology.
"I'm taking 100 percent responsibility for the final incident that occurred on lap 32 between myself, (Bowyer) and (Edwards). It was totally my fault," Stewart said in a statement.
"At the same time, there were circumstances that led up to that wreck, and after talking with Clint this morning, we both have a better understanding as to what happened. I reacted, causing the wreck that I take responsibility for and regret."
Stewart's action earned him a one-lap aggressive driving penalty, and it almost certainly eliminated Bowyer and Edwards from championship contention. Both drivers were fighting mad after the race, but Bowyer couldn't get close enough to Stewart to do anything and - much to the dismay of garage insiders - Edwards thought better of it.
"If it weren't for the respect of the sport and the people watching and his team, he'd be out there bleeding right now," fumed Edwards, who was also penalized one lap for his retaliatory spin of Stewart.
If there's one thing that's certain, it's that the portly Stewart doesn't want any part of Edwards and the six-pack abs that landed him on the cover of several magazines.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Last Lap: Where there's Smoke, there's ire
By Marty Smith, NASCAR.COM
July 25, 2006
02:16 PM EDT (18:16 GMT
There is the selfless Tony Stewart, humble and compassionate, described so eloquently by Pattie Petty five days ago in this very cranny of cyberspace; he of genuine altruism whose grace, generosity and love for the Petty family, and for the initiatives they champion, had helped suppress the pain of an incurable emotional wound.
Then there's the other side, the selfish Tony Stewart, the polar opposite; he of the 3,400-pound body slam, seemingly unable to differentiate between that which he preaches and that which he practices.
He incessantly complains about others' unwillingness to "give-and-take," yet for the second consecutive week refused to give an inch early in the race and damaged a Home Depot Chevrolet potentially capable of going to Victory Lane.
I understand it's racing, and ultimately its fundamental premise is going faster than, and passing, the next guy. But there's a bigger picture here, and if Stewart isn't careful he'll not find himself in it.
See, last year he let adversity ride, didn't let it get to him. Come December he was the champion. This year he's letting it get to him, and it could potentially mark his demise.
At New Hampshire, Ryan Newman was a lap down and on new tires. But instead of letting Newman scurry off to try to get a lap back, Stewart raced him as if it were the final turn of the final lap. He wanted to make a point: I'm tired of the way you're racing me.
They wrecked. Did Stewart make his disdain for Newman's advancement tactics known? Absolutely. Was it worth it? I'd venture to say not. It was Lap 91. And the 12 couldn't run with the 20 that day, anyway.
But instead of battling Kyle Busch for a victory, Stewart's emotions got away from him and he paid for it with a 37th-place finish.
Fast forward to Pocono. It's the old "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" deal. Did Clint Bowyer pinch Stewart into the wall off the corner? Possibly. Was it blatant? No way. Was it worthy of retaliation? Absolutely not.
To his credit, Stewart took full responsibility Monday afternoon once he'd studied the replay and discussed the evolution of the collision with Bowyer.
The Pennsylvania 500-mile race was just 78 miles old. Stewart's heat-of-the-moment, rash decision effectively ruined an innocent bystander's opportunity to run for a championship.
Then, following the race, he again discussed others' unwillingness to race as they'd like to be raced.
"It's just the first-year and second-year drivers that don't understand that there needs to be a little give and take. There is only a handful of guys that don't get it, but the problem is they are in good racecars and they don't run up front enough to learn from the rest of us how to race up front."
To close, a few e-mails on the subject:
D. Critch: After [Sunday's] race, let us hope that Mike Helton and the powers that be also dock Tony at least 25 points. (Unfortunately to be fair they will have to dock Carl Edwards.)
Tony has been very busy preaching this year about rough driving, yet he is in the thick of it 90 percent of the time. He gets on his high horse and lectures and makes false claims.
Please teach him a harder lesson than he received at the race (especially in lieu of giving the finger to another driver.) Edwards' penalty was harsher. He had to start at the back, not double-file.
Again, Edwards lost the most in the altercation. One man's frustration at another for a perceived transgression, from which Edwards was completely removed, ultimately sealed his season's fate.
So here he sits, one year removed from finishing 30 points short of a championship, virtually eliminated from the 2006 Chase for the Nextel Cup.
How's Edwards supposed to feel? He made it clear how he'd prefer to react. But even if he'd gotten the chance to "make [Stewart] bleed," he'd still be racing for 11th come New Hampshire.
It's that big picture thing, again.
And as ridiculously unfortunate as Sunday proved to be for Edwards, one good thing did come of it -- one of the greatest quotes in NASCAR history, a tirade by Edwards' docile standards:
"Man, I've got to choose my words carefully. Let me just say this, if it weren't for respect of the sport and the people watching and his team and everything, he'd be out there bleeding right now. How can a person make it this far in life being that much of a jerk?
"He ran into Clint. I saw it on the big screen. He turned into Clint and took both him and I out and probably made it just about impossible for us to make the Chase, and then when I pull up beside him and wave my hand like, 'What was that about?' He gives me the finger. I mean, what a jerk. I don't even know what to say. It's amazing to me that someone can be that special.
"I want to like Tony. He's a hard racer and all that, but how can you like somebody like that? It's just amazing. If you hold that guy up, like if he thinks you held him up, he gets so upset and then he can wreck two guys and give you the finger. That's spectacularly self-centered. I can't imagine being like that."
You can't make this stuff up.
Kenny Wallace: Stewart a "loose cannon"
Wallace said Stewart, who was penalized for aggressive driving after running into Bowyer, who then crashed into Edwards, remains NASCAR's loosest cannon.
"Tony is a good friend of mine off of the racetrack, but there's no doubt that there's two Tony Stewarts," Wallace said. "The Tony I don't know is (when) he gets so damn mad. That's the Tony I don't know. .. I just don't know why he reacts so harsh."
He has had a frustrating start to the season, dominating several races but failing to find his way to Victory Lane. He was the class of the field at Daytona and Bristol, only to lose those races because of a wreck and mechanical failure.
He also lost a race in Atlanta when a debris caution came out while he was leading with 25 laps to go and the field pitted. Jimmie Johnson passed him for the victory with three laps to go.
Stewart was so frustrated after wrecking in Texas two weeks ago -- an accident caused by hard racing with Juan Pablo Montoya and criticized because Stewart ultimately wrecked Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- he threatened retirement.
The 35-year-old Stewart had calmed by the time he hosted last week's radio show, when he said he talked of retiring out of frustration.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
he keeps losing, and blaming everybody except himself, when he is at fault