NASCAR: things heating up in nascar fight on pit road

when tony stesart put kasey kahne in the wall at the chicagoland track things got out of hand it the pits, will be interesting to see how nascar will handle the latest incident involving stewart this year

Multicar crash leads to scuffle on pit road
By Mark Aumann and Lee Montgomery, Turner Sports Interactive July 11, 2004
6:04 PM EDT (2204 GMT)




JOLIET, Ill. -- An incident on the track between Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart during Sunday's Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway spilled over onto pit road.

On a restart on Lap 127, Sterling Marlin led the field to the green flag, followed by Kahne and Stewart. As the field headed for Turn 1, Stewart's car appeared to tap Kahne's car from behind, spinning the No. 9 Dodge sideways into the outside wall.

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Contact between Stewart and Kahne leads to a scuffle in the pits
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"As I put it into fourth gear, my car turned right, right into the wall," Kahne said. "Obviously, (Stewart) was right in the back of me. I don't know why he did that, or what happened there.

"He had the car to beat all day. All he need to do was go through a couple of corners and he would have probably passed us."

Shortly thereafter, Kahne's crew chief, Tommy Baldwin Jr., went down to the No. 20 Chevrolet pit stall and a scuffle broke out between members of both crews, with several crewmen being knocked to the concrete. As Nextel Cup officials attempted to separate the combatants, Baldwin was led away, his face crimson and his shirt unbuttoned.

"Tony Stewart's doing what he's been doing all year: driving like a moron," Baldwin said. "There's no reason to do that stuff. He gets away with it all he wants, and all NASCAR does is fine him. He's got plenty of money. The guy needs to sit out a race. That's it.

"I was going to talk to (Stewart's crew chief, Greg Zipadelli) and tell him his driver's a moron. I got off the pit box, and he started pushing me. Then the official grabbed me. I don't know what happened after that."

Ray Evernham was equally was livid about the incident.

"NASCAR refuses to do anything about it," Evernham said. "(They) had the perfect opportunity. You've got a guy that does it week in, week out, and nobody's doing anything. He gave Rusty the finger (at California).

"I'd like to have 10 minutes with Tony Stewart. I'll handle it myself. What happened there was unnecessary. NASCAR needs to do something about it before somebody gets hurt."

At least seven other cars including John Andretti, Dave Blaney, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Scott Riggs and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were involved. Blaney and Kahne were treated and released from the infield medical center.

"All I saw was the 9 car sitting sideways," Burton said. "Obviously, someone got into him or something, and there was just nowhere to go."

"I had it pretty much cleared. The guys behind me didn't get slowed down. They didn't do anything wrong, behind me, it's just one of those big wrecks."

why is Stewart being such an a$$ this year? You'd think a driver from a top team would be better than that.

he is driving out of control, in the old days this whole thing would have been settled by now, some of the drivers would have taken him out back for a little talk and he would have seen the error of his ways, if nascar doesn't do something about this soon someone will put him into the wall hard

well, he deserves some kind of retribution.

We should start a pool to see which driver is first to either a) give Stewart a left hook, or b)run him into the wall next race.

Stewart is definitely out of control, and this is the 2nd time this season that he has spun Kahne out.

Out of control?...maybe...maybe not.

It is working in his favor though. Maybe he found a niche to use his attidude with, in order to intimidate the other's into making mistakes.

Too bad he is focusing on Kahne this year.

And how about Evernham, stating he wants to kick some ....

Just had to add a thought, Kahne will make or break his driver attitude. Either tony will run him out, or Kahne will become stronger and aggressive himself.
Hope he keeps his cool though.

[Edited on 04/10/03 by smirkley]