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2B ♦ SATURDAY, JULY 29, 2006 lIMSCMI Point Standings |H Green Flag * 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 l! MSCAP [kZ.kurJjJ cur si hus 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 Kovln Harvlck L$ j* "1 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 •Balt & Tackle •Deer Processing WE CLEAN FISH 6am-7pm * 7 days a week 333 Hwy 96 • Bonaire | !• 478-922-1819 SPORTS Behind Leader -»7 •318 •357 -376 W 7/ NASCAR I( &1/SCJY jjjjßNfcrrj, ML BWWt anwß—l aBfIjHHBBv m W 7772, 'IZLak 3^'- NT*" , Jfl JjKjl 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 lljifP Behind Leader -348 •402 -450 •508 Tcrrftsmrn l Rwt/C* SERII^M 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 GOT TINT? Beat The Heat This Summer With Custom Window lint By LLumat WINDOW HIM ****?-«* ***** »**t**9W* jF THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL 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. VARNER ROBOd SUPPLY §f pmm We Rent! 612 Ball St. Perry, GA 987-2334 ~~ "——X I Iff / jH gfe*. .. jjß 582 Ctrl llßSon Hw* WaraerßoMußA 329-8110 Behind- Loader •117 •163 •231 •246