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♦ SATURDAY, JULY 29, 2006
lIMSCMI
Point Standings
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* News and Notes
Stewart apologizes for
rough driving at Pocono
Tony Stewart look responsibility for
last weekend's accident at Pocono
Raceway that knocked Carl Edwards
and Clint Bowyer out of the
Pennsylvania 500.
“I’m taking 100 percent responsibili
ty." Stewart said in a statement released
by Joe Gibbs Racing. “It was totally my
fault."
Stewart intentionally bumped
Bowyer 32 laps into the race in retalia
tion for Bowyer squeezing Stewart's car
up against the wall. The contact between
Stewart and Bowyer sent Bowyer’s car
out of control and into Edwards’ car.
Tile incident resulted in Edwards fin
ishing 39th and slipping to 14th place in
the points standings. Bowyer finished
41st in the 43-car field.
Even Stewart’s biggest supporters
criticized him for the incident, including
close friend and fellow driver Kenny
Wallace.
'Tony is a good friend of mine off of
the racetrack, but there's no doubt that
there's two Tony Stewarts," Wallace said
on a Tuesday teleconference. “The Tony
l know is the guy who is giving $1 mil
lion to the Victory Junction Camp and
holding races at his dirt track and drink
ing a beer with at Paducah, Ky. The
Tony I don't know is when he gets so
damn mad .”
Busch Series to test
unleaded fuel in race
Unleaded gas makes its Busch Series
debut Saturday in the Silver Celebration
250. The race at the Gateway
International Raceway is the first of four
during which NASCAR will test the use
of unleaded fuel in stock cars.
The sanctioning body will evaluate
the performance of the fuel following
those races with the hope of switching
from leaded gas to unleaded in the
future.
The biggest issue teams face with
unleaded gas is keeping the engine
valves lubricated, said Chris Robinson,
who builds engines for Robert Yates
Racing and Roush Racing.
Busch driver Hines
resigns from team
Tracy Hines has announced his res
ignation from Fitzßradshaw Racing.
Hines’ announcement comes after
Ihe team replaced him in its No. 12
Busch Series car for this weekend’s
race.
Wallace:
Veteran Kenny Wallace
is not your typical Busch
Series racer.
First, he’s racing on
NASCAR’s developmental
series at age 42. Second, he
is one of three drivers in the
series’ top-10 who don’t race
full-time on the Nextel Cup
circuit.
In fact, Wallace has fin
ished in the Busch Series’
top-10 in each of his nine
full seasons on the circuit.
Wallace heads into this
weekend’s Silver Celebration
250 10th in the points stand
ings after finishing seventh
last year. The race will be
held in St. Louis, not far from
where he and his famous
racing brothers Mike and
Rusty grew up.
Wallace talked about his
place in racing in a national
teleconference earlier this
week. Here are excerpts of
that interview:
Question: What exactly
can you attribute such
consistency to over the
long haul?
Wallace: I would say a mix
ture of things. The very first
thing when I started was
Dick Trickle told me one day
and it hit me like a ton of
bricks was you must first
finish to finish first.
So in other words, if it’s a
250-lap race at Martinsville,
you can’t be tearing your
fenders off because you’re
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Rebirth of the racing rivalry
Tale of the Tape
Jeff Gordon
Experience: 14 years
Team: Hendrick
Titles: 4
Wins: 75
2006 twins: 2
Points standing: 9th
PHOTO BY SHSHHYL ORttKMOHfc/NASCAH
Matt Kenseth (No. 17) and the Jeff Gordon
(No. 24) race along with Kasey Kahne (No.
9). A rivalry is brewing between Kenseth
and Gordon, two high-profile drivers and
past champions, something NASCAR has
n’t seen in recent years.
Gordon, Kenseth embroiled in recent rarity: A feud
By Adam Van Brimmer
Morris News Service
Bill France effectively outlawed
NASCAR rivalries two decades ago.
NASCAR’s founder invited feuding driv
ers Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine out
for dinner and gave them a lecture for
dessert The sport had become too big for
the bumping and banging of the old days,
France said.
Rivalries have gradually disappeared
since. Sponsors frown on them. NASCAR
fines over them. Technology and the dan
gerous speeds it produces discourages
them.
But fans love rivalries, driver Matt
Kenseth said. He and Jeff Gordon are giving
them one, with Tony Stewart and Carl
Edwards ready to join the fray after a scrape
last weekend at Pocono.
“I think any time there’s any kind of con
flict in which I don’t like being in any of it
but any other conflict when other people
are in it, I think it’s interesting to watch,"
Kenseth said.
Tile Kenseth-Gordon feud broke out ear
lier this year when Kenseth spun out
Gordon in the final laps of a race at Bristol
Motor Speedway. Gordon reacted after the
race by shoving Kenseth on pit road.
Flaring tem|>ers are nothing new on the
racing circuit Drivers do and say things on
race day that they regret and apologize for
once the adrenaline wears off. Rarely do
they carry personal grudges over from
week to week.
Recent NASCAR rivalries have been
‘You must first finish to finish first’
going to need those at the
end of the race. I’ve wrecked
plenty of times on lap 50 and
looked up and the guy I was
racing earlier is leading the
race.
So that’s biggest thing that
has helped me. The other
thing I’ve learned is that
if your car is not good that
day, take the best finish you
can get; and I learned that
from the late, great Dale
Earnhardt.
The reason Earnhardt
was a seven-time champ was
when his car was good, he
would race you, and when
his car was bad, he took the
best finish he could get. I’m
the same way.
If I’ve got a really good car,
I’m going to fight you for the
lead. If I’ve got a really bad
car, I’m going to get the best
finish I can get without tear
ing my race car up.
Question: You are one
of three Busch Series
regulars in the top-10.
What will it take to fin
ish there.
Wallace: The Busch Series
is really exciting right now.
It’s the biggest and the
best it’s ever been. We go to
Kentucky on a stand-alone
event and sell out 70,000 peo
ple. So that’s really inspir
ing. But then we just went
to Bristol and there wasn’t
that many people there, so
that was kind of confusing.
Driver
Jimmie Johnson
Mott Kenseth
Jeff Burton
Kyi* Busch
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Matt Kenseth
Experience: 7 years
Team: Roush
Titles: 1
Wins: 12
2006 wins: 2
Points standing: 2nd
Great NASCAR Rivalries
Richard Petty vs. Bobby Allison
• Feud culminated in a demo derby-like showdown at North Wilkesboro Speedway in 1972.
Petty won the race but both drivers’ cars were badly battered. Petty told the press afterwards
the on-track roughhousing should stop before one of them got killed.
Cale Yarborough vs. Donnie Allison
• A fist fight between these two, plus Donnie’s brother Bobby, after they wrecked each other
on the final lap of the 1979 Daytona 500 introduced NASCAR to the masses. The race was
NASCAR’s first on national television.
Darrell Waltrip vs. Bobby Allison
• Wattrip’s brashness is legendary, and he alienated the veteran Allison so much the two
resent each other to this day. The rivalry reached its apex in 1981 and 1982, when Waltrip
beat out Allison for the points title.
Darrell Waltrip vs. Dale Earnhardt
• The top-two drivers of their generation loved to rub fenders. Waltrip was a favorite target
for Earnhardt and Waltrip refused to be intimidated by "The Intimidator.”
Dale Earnhardt vs. Geoff Bodine -
• The movie “Days of Thunder” is loosely based on this feud. Bodine came up driving modi
tieds, which are a cross between a stock car and an open-wheel car. He joined the Winston
Cup ranks in 1982 and quickly established himself as one of the series' top drivers. He won
his first race in 1984 and followed it up by winning the 1986 Daytona 500.1
fleeting. A 2003 spat between Kurt Busch
and Jimmy Spencer drew passing interest.
But Spencer’s anonymity—he hasn’t won a
Cup race since 1994 failed to hold fans’
attention.
Jimmie Johnson’s driving early last sea
son upset many of his peers, including fel
low star Dale Earnhardt Jr., who at one
point said Johnson drove “like an idiot." Yet
the disagreement never escalated.
The Kenseth-Gordon feud has. Gordon
didn’t hesitate to avenge the Bristol inci
dent, spinning Kenseth out of the way in the
closing laps of a race at Chicagoland
I don’t know what that was
all about, but I do know that
everywhere we go, we’ve got
a hell of a crowd.
Of course, I’ve got as many
Cup starts as do I Busch
starts, so I consider myself
just an overall race-car driv
er, and the Busch Series is
where everybody wants to
be right now.
If they don’t want to be
there, I don’t know why, but
there’s so many Cup teams.
It’s not about the drivers.
You know you’ve got (Cup
owners) Roger Penske and
Richard Childress and Robert
Yates and Rick Hendrick,
every top notch Cup team,
running the Busch Series
now. I just basically think
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that pretty much says it all.
Question: There’s been
a lot of talk lately about
a lack of give and take
among drivers, particu
larly on the Cup side. Is
it the same way in the
Busch Series?
Wallace: There is, but
the difference is that in the
Busch Series, everybody is
just trying to be a hero.
I would say once you get
from 15th, 18th on back,
you’ve got guys trying to
fight for superiority, trying
to get recognized.
And then in the Cup series
you’ve got guys that are
really hard-headed and they
want their space and they
want respect. And that’s the
Driver
Kevin Harvlck
Carl Edwards
Clint Bowyer
Denny Hamlin
J.J. Yalay
Speedway earlier this month. Kenseth said
the contact was unnecessary Gordon’s
car was faster and would have passed him in
the next corner.
The two met the following week, with
Gordon offering what Kenseth character
ized as an insincere apology. Neither of
them wants a feud both are former
champions vying for sjM>ts in the Chase for
the Nextel Cup but both have had
enough of being the nice guy.
"J think that we are setting examples by
going out there and showing everybody
that we're going to race everybody really
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difference. In the Cup series,
everybody wants respect
because they are big time.
And the Busch Series,
everybody just wants to be
noticed because their careers
are starting out.
compiled by Adam Van
Brimmer
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Driver
Todd Bodino
David Rautlmann
Johnny Bonson
Rick Crawford
Tod Musgravo
aggressive and hard," Gordon said when
asked if, as a veteran, he felt a responsibility
to set an example for the other drivers.
The rivalry’s escalation might be better
for the sport. Television ratings are down
approximately five percent nationally this
season after exploding in recent years. And
with the start of football season approach
ing, N ASCAR could use the boost
“Rivalries really add to it. They add a
lot,” said Benny Parsons, the 1973 Cup
champion who now works as an analyst for
NBC-TV. “It's not good for the people
involved, but it’s good for everybody else.”
Parsons raced during an era in which
rivalries dotted pit road. Those feuds even
launched the sport’s mainstream popularity.
NASCAR’s first superstar, Richard Petty,
feuded with several drivers in the 19705,
including Bobby Allison and David Pearson.
Fisticuffs between Cale Yarborough and
Bobby and Donnie Allison in the 1979
Daytona 500 made NASCAR a national sen
sation.
The Earnhardt-Bodine feud raged
throughout the mid-1980s. The movie
“Days of Thunder'’ which includes a re
creation of the dinner date with France
was loosely based on the rivalry between
the two drivers.
“Rivalries like those kind of died out,”
Parsons said. “1 don’t think the Gordon-
Kenseth situation is nearly as big a deal as
those rivalries were. The Petty-Alfison thing
went on for years.”
The Gordon-Kenseth feud won’t,
Parsons said. Enjoy it while you can.
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