The NASCAR-ization of Tony Stewart
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Yes indeed, you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well it may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody — Bob Dylan
It’s been about a month since Tony Stewart shot from the lip on his Sirius radio show and sprayed the airwaves with barbs at NASCAR’s capability to run races and mysterious debris cautions. [I applaud whoever set Tony up with his own radio show – that was a gutsy call.] In the weekly news cycle that is the norm in NASCAR, his on-air outburst has been put on the back pages for some time now. I think it’s worth returning to his pointed comments.
I guess he and his PR folks have to be thankful that Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced he was leaving DEI at the end of the year in the interim. That amazing news blew everything else off the reporting radar and will make everyone’s Top 10 NASCAR news items of 2007. As of right now, and if I were making my list today, Tony’s NASCAR harangue would be #2.
To quickly review, what did he say that created such a maelstrom? Tony came about as close as I have ever heard in my multiple years of covering NASCAR to publically saying the racing was fixed, without actually saying it. To wit, his commentary on caution flags thrown for dubious debris on track at Phoenix – or phantom yellows as we’ll call them:
"To me it's not all about the money, it's about the integrity of the sport, and when I feel our own sanctioning body isn't taking care of that, it's hard to support them and feel proud about being a driver in the Nextel Cup Series when they're throwing debris cautions.
"It's like playing God. They can almost dictate the race instead of the drivers doing it. It's happened too many times this year. You get so frustrated ... but enough of it's gone on that fans are writing in and talking about it. At what point does NASCAR get the hint? I guess NASCAR thinks, 'Hey wrestling worked, and it was for the most part staged, so I guess it's going to work in racing, too.
“I can't understand how long the fans are going to let NASCAR treat them like they're stupid before the fans finally turn on NASCAR," he said. "I don't know that they've run a fair race all year.”
Now that is the kind of Mel Gibson-like tirade that might have you on camera in front of a rehab facility saying you’ve had a relapse of your addiction(s) and were out of your mind at the time. I’m still mightily impressed at his comments even now.
