Three thoughts about Dover
* Good for Martin Truex Jr. He had been starting to run well, and it was good to see him in victory lane. The story line has been that Truex's emergence (he's 13th in the standings) means DEI will remain standing after Junior loses. But how soon before someone dangles some mad free-agent cash at him?
* Bad for Kurt Busch. You and Tony Stewart can bang into each other all day long - I don't care. But trying to run over a guy's crew member - totally not cool. And now you've made me completely regret my pick-to-win-it-all in 2007. I can blame only me for that. Expect NASCAR to blame Busch to the tune of 50 points or so. Tony Stewart's verbal woodshedding, courtesy of the GM PR machine, are after the jump.
* You'll note that Michael Waltrip has cracked into the positive side of the points ledger. (He's has 52 points and is 55th in the standings.) But because Dover was postponed till Monday, he still hasn't raced on a Sunday since the Daytona 500.
TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT IMPALA SS - FINISHED 40TH
ON RACING WITH KURT BUSCH:
"He just wasn't clear off of (Turn) 4. It's a shame because we've been racing him how he has raced us for a whole year. He's raced us every lap like it pays a million dollars, so I've kind of adopted Matt Kenseth's policy of racing guys the same way they race me. He never was clear and came off the corner and crashed both of us."
WHAT WAS YOUR VIEW OF WHAT OCCURRED ON PIT ROAD?
"I didn't see him until the last minute, but he about hit one of our crew guys. So that was self-explanatory I think."
IS THAT SOMETHING YOU'D GO TO WAR FOR TO PROTECT YOUR GUYS?
"Yeah, because they'd go to war for me. It didn't make much sense."
DID YOU ACCOMPLISH YOUR MISSION OF WRECKING HIM DURING THE RACE?
"No, I've never tried to wreck him. I've had plenty of chances to wreck the guy. That's not what it was about. It's about racing people with respect and he hasn't done that with anybody for a year. You finally get to the point where you're tired of giving guys positions. Most of the guys are pretty good. There are only a couple of bad apples out there and he's one of them. When you've got guys that you let go every time they get to you and they don't do the same thing when the roles are reversed, you finally get tired of it. You finally learn to race those guys they way they race you. You don't see me having problems with Mark Martin and the guys that run up front every week. His brother figured it out and his brother and I have gotten along great and have no problems. This is a sport that is so competitive that you can't afford to give guys positions all the time if they're not going to do it back for you. I'm just going to race guys the way they race me. Like I said, I don't have problems with 95 percent of the guys out there. It's only a couple."
Comments (2)
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I've enjoyed watching Truex, Jr.'s steady rise over the past 5 years. It makes me happy when someone from my "hometown" racetrack, Wall Stadium, has success.
I was just starting to tolerate Kurt Busch, but that's over after yesterday. I thought maybe he had turned over a new leaf.
Posted on June 5, 2007 3:16 PM
Roush was quoted as saying something to this regard with respect to the Busch incident, "He's Penske's problem now..."
Busch never should have did what he did in the pits, but at the same time "wear it on my sleeves" Tony should have given up the spot in light of the fact Kurt had a better car and it being early in the race. Something about big picture racing.
Posted on June 6, 2007 10:13 AM