by Darrell Waltrip

Updated: August 24, 2007, 9:57 PM EST 44 comments

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A fight is when somebody gets hurt and punches are thrown. There was no way that was a fight. They were still wearing their helmets, HANS Devices and earplugs. Each one probably couldn't even hear what the other guy was saying. It was just two guys that were angry and had a serious disagreement. Quite honestly, they are probably two of the most passionate guys out there. No two guys drive harder and are willing to lay it on the line more than Montoya and Harvick.

It's interesting that you watch hockey and baseball, and they pretty much fight all the time. There are disagreements in football with pushing and shoving. In almost every sport, there's always some aggression from one team or another. Nobody says anything about it; it's no big deal. I saw a whale of a fight the other night at a baseball game for Pete's sake. It was on the news the next morning, and that was it. It's just part of the game.

But in our sport, every time two drivers get into it, people respond, "What is our sport coming to?! These guys have lost their minds." When our guys have a disagreement, it's like the worst thing that could happen. You just had passionate guys putting it on the line, and I like to see them get up in each other's face.

After they got back to the pits, it would have been helpful for the drivers to see the wrecks. On FOX telecasts, pit reporters Doc Berggren, Steve Byrnes, Krista Voda and Matt Yocum carry a pack with them so they can show a replay before drivers make a comment. In a number of cases, drivers have been upset with someone until they saw the replay. Then, they realized what had happened. Watching the replay might have defused the situation because Harvick could have seen that Montoya got driven into him, and Montoya didn't just drive into him.

Gordon shows passion, too

I was absolutely going to refuse to talk about what happened in Canada anymore because I thought it was poorly handled. I understood Robby Gordon's position, and I agreed with him. If it had been handled in the appropriate way with Robby put back in the lead or in second place at worst, there never would have been a problem.

But I do have to remind all of us fans that when an official makes a call, you have to live with that call. You cannot take control of a race and run it the way you think it ought to be run. You've got to comply with whatever the officials tell you. Even though Robby had been done wrong, he still had to follow the direction of the officials. If he had abided by the rules that we've all abided by for 50 years, it wouldn't have been a big deal, except to him. But it turned out to be a big deal to a lot of people, particularly Marcos Ambrose, and that's unfortunate.

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I understand Robby's position, and I agree with him. NASCAR says drivers have to maintain pit road speed. Think back to Talladega when Tony Stewart was wrecked on the last lap in the spring, he couldn't maintain any speed. Once he got turned around and headed in the right direction, Robby could maintain pit road speed. He just got spun out under caution so he should have been allowed to go back to his position before the caution.

I'm not arguing or ignoring the officials, but I like the passion that Robby Gordon demonstrated. He had been done wrong. He was mad as heck, and he wasn't going to take it anymore. He didn't handle it correctly, but I can certainly understand where he was coming from. I've been in positions before where I would have liked to have done the same thing, but I let my better senses keep me from doing it on most occasions. I usually had Rick Hendrick, Junior Johnson or somebody watching over me to tell me, "Hey, do what they tell you to do. We'll fight this battle later." Robby needed that person in this case.