by Darrell Waltrip

Updated: March 19, 2006, 12:36 AM EST

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Darrell Waltrip: Oh, by the way, Tony Stewart really needs to think about chilling out just a little bit. He needs to stop racing people and start racing cars. When you start getting aggravated with people, you're going to beat yourself. You've got to race the cars and not let the people driving those cars — whether they're a rookie or a veteran — bother you. You've got to put those distractions out of your mind, take care of your stuff and don't race people that can't beat you.

When you've got a dominant car and start getting knocked around or pushed around — or you start doing the pushing — you take yourself out of contention. If it continues, he'll be right back like he was a couple of years ago. Your team works its butt off to build a winning car, and you only get so many opportunities. You're not going to have the best car every week so when you do have the best car, you need to take advantage of it.

Don't break my golden rule. I preach it all the time. I'm going to put it on my dash when I run the Martinsville Busch race, I guarantee you that. And I would tell Stewart to put it on his dash. Don't beat yourself!

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We see it every week and everywhere we go, the cars out in front in clean air handle much better than the cars back in traffic. When you get caught in traffic, you've got to use all of your resources. You can't just knock people out of the way because they're holding you up. Everybody is getting held up so you've got to use your ability and rely on your pit crew and your strategy. There's always going to be a late caution so when you get that quick stop, you'll have great track position, and you can still win the race, But you can't win a race in a beaten-up racecar.

You can't win a race if you smack the wall or knock the fenders in on it playing games with somebody that can't beat you or at a time in a race when it's not necessary. Stewart has to refocus and take advantage of the opportunities that he's been given. He had great cars at Daytona and Las Vegas. He obviously had a great car at California, but there's a perfect example of something out of a driver's control taking him out of a race. You need to control those things that you can control.

Stewart is off to one of those ragged starts that he's been known for. He and crew chief Greg Zipadelli need to put their arms around each other and say, "Look, take care of the car, and we can win some races."