Hotmail
Charting the Chase: Two wrongs don't make a right
|
I caught a little bit of flak for my Race to the Chase midterm report card, but I use several criteria to grade drivers. I base it on where they are in points, for example how many points they're either out of 10th in one direction or the other.
And I base it on how they're running. I base a big part of Jeff Burton being locked into the Chase on how he's running. I realize that he's only 159 points to the good of 11th, but he's posted 14 consecutive top-15 finishes since Texas and has scored more points — 1,464 — in the last 10 races than any other driver.
I would color Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Mark Martin half green and half blue, which means that they better dot every i dotted and cross every t. I would color Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Greg Biffle solid blue, which means they are still in contention.
Kurt Busch would be two-thirds red and one-third blue. From Carl Edwards on down, I'm afraid they are in the red. Sunday's wreck at Pocono was probably the final nail in the coffin as far as the No. 99 team making the Chase for the Nextel Cup this year. It's just too far to go — 235 points out of 10th place — with too little time — to do it. I know six races is a lot, and I don't want to write him off, but it's going to be a tall order to overcome when you look at the drivers that he has to leapfrog: Earnhardt, Biffle and Kurt Busch.
|
|
Two wrongs don't make a right, and spinning out Tony Stewart on pit road was absolutely wrong. In my book, what Edwards did was worse than what Stewart did. I feel his frustration, but as I've preached for years, drivers should not use their race cars for retaliation. When they do, the only people who suffer are the people that have to fix the cars, and the people that have to fix the cars are not the ones in the wreck.
Park your car after the race and confront the other drivers nose to nose. NASCAR's penalties have highly discouraged off-track confrontations, but I think the sanctioning body was way out of line for fining Jeff Gordon at Bristol for shoving Matt Kenseth.
Two sides to Tony
 |
 |
|
|
Programs of the week
Sunday, 3/22 on FOX 1:30 pm: Food City 500 This week on SPEED Friday, 3/20 Noon: Cup practice 1:30 pm: N'wide practice 3:00 pm: NASCAR LIVE 3:30 pm: Cup qualifying 4:30 pm: N'wide practice 7:00 pm: Trackside Saturday, 3/21 11:00 am: Cup practice 12:20 pm: Cup practice Sunday, 3/22 11:00 am: NASCAR in a hurry 11:30 am: NASCAR Raceday 8:00 pm: Victory Lane All times ET | ||
 |
||
There's a great side to Stewart that isn't noticed or talked about enough. He has a heart as big as the moon. His recent $1 million to the Victory Junction Gang Camp is in line with a lot of other things that he has done for charities, including his first $1 million donation to the camp a few years ago. And the way that he presented the donation was very special. He convinced Pattie Petty that she needed to return to Loudon, N.H., where her son Adam died in an on-track accident, to provide closure. He was absolutely right, and Pattie will tell you that it was a great move on Stewart's part.
When you see all of these things that are great about Stewart, it's sad when you see his other side. He's much better than he was two or three years ago, but he still struggles to control his emotions in his race car. His emotions override his better judgment, and he's his own worst enemy at times on the race track. If he could just figure out that balance...
Whether it was something Joe Gibbs, J.D. Gibbs, his p.r. person Mike Arning or Home Depot suggested that he do or not, I was very impressed that he put out a release on Monday night, accepting full responsibility. Hopefully he went home, watched the replay and saw how a little bit of give and take — as he continues to talk about — could have avoided the Pocono wreck, a lot of heartache and grief for himself and his race team and certainly a lot of heartache and grief for an innocent bystander like Edwards.
| Speed Mail Larry McReynolds |
|---|
|
|
Stewart is preaching give and take, but two weeks in a row, he has not even come close to practicing what he's preaching, especially early in the race. He's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When Jeff Burton caught Stewart much later in Sunday's Pocono race, Tony waved at Jeff all the way down the front straightaway to pass him on the inside. He was being smart and realized that Burton caught him for a reason because the No. 31 car was faster. He figured out the best way for both of them to lose the least amount of time and waved Burton to the inside. But then you go back about 75 to 100 laps, and he gets into Bowyer, who had caught him, coming off of Turn 3.
It makes no sense, but that's been Stewart's deal this year. After the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona, he was banging on the roof of the car that NASCAR has to do something about drivers slam-drafting and wrecking each other. "We're going to kill someone" were his exact words. Seven days later, he wrecked Matt Kenseth in the middle of the straightaway during the Daytona 500.
Stewart's claim to the broadcasters has been that we don't see what led up to the contact. Well, you know what? Nothing should lead up to a driver wrecking somebody in the middle of the straightaway. If it's that bad, handle it after the race when you and your race team are going to suffer the least. But after he watched the race and put out his release on Monday, I hope that he thought to himself "while Bowyer made a bonehead move, he's a rookie. I'm a two-time champion. I've been here for eight years. It was a pretty bonehead move on my part, too."
FOX race analyst Larry McReynolds has more than 25 years of NASCAR experience as a mechanic, crew chief and broadcaster. He and his fellow Crew Chief Club members take you behind the wall at www.crewchiefclub.com.
"How to Become a Winning Crew Chief" is on bookstore shelves, or you may order your own autographed copy from www.DWStore.com.
Add a comment
advertisement
