Tony Stewart Gets Some Comeuppance While NASCAR Chickens Out

A little-noticed occurance happened during Tony Stewart's pop-off about push-drafting at Daytona - he got a bit of comeuppance in the form of a writer asking, "Aren't you overreacting?" Stewart of course popped off along the lines of "Why don't you drive the car instead of me?" He even threatened to take Wednesday practice off.

Seeing Stewart pop off is a reason why, for all the improvement in his public deportment in 2005, he still can't be fully embraced as an ambassador for the sport. He still has a streak of overpaid underworked prima donna in him, and he's certainly not alone. When he played the death card with regard to push-drafting racing, not only was he overracting, he was insulting the intelligence of racing.

"Trust me, I did my share of push-drafting out there," Stewart acknowledged - which wasn't much given the all-too-obvious reality that he was as guilty of it as anyone else. But it does point to a level of hypocrisy involved - if he's so scared of that kind of racing, then why does he keep doing it? The old answer is "We're forced to do it." No, they're not, they do it of their own volition - because it is the best way to pass on the racetrack.

Too bad more of the NASCAR press corps doesn't take more drivers to task for acting like cowards in this fashion. Being taken to task is what the drivers need.

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Unfortunately, NASCAR has once again chickened out and taken some aggression out of the racing with the announcement that they will establish "no bump" zones in the corners at Daytona and presumably Talladega. Mike Wallace cuts to the chase - "How are you going to enforce it? What's the difference between bump-drafting and someone checking up in front of you?"

More to the point, will favoritism come into play as it does with NASCAR's yellow-line rule? Few forget that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got an indefenisbly favorable call on a pass below the yellow line at Talladega in 2003, solely because he is Dale Earnhardt Junior. Meanwhile, Mike Skinner, Tony Stewart, Kenny Wallace, and now Carl Edwards have been shafted by NASCAR calls on passing below the yellow line.

The yellow-line rule has never been plausibly defended by NASCAR or anyone else, and efforts to defend this new "no bump zone" rule will invariably strain credulity, because the whole controversy about push-drafting is overreaction by certain drivers.

And then there is research by NASCAR into a softer front bumper to dissuade teams from push-drafting without hurting the nose's aerodynamics. Softening the bumper is never a good idea for safety and is just more overreaction to Tony Stewart acting like a drama queen. The more NASCAR takes aggression out of racing, the worse the sport gets. It can't defend this rule or the yellow-line rule, and it makes taking drivers to task for cowardice all the more necessary.