September 3, 2012
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
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Last week at Bristol Motor Speedway, Tony Stewart made headlines when he chunked his helmet at the No. 17 car of Matt Kenseth as he drove it down pit road.
The altercation came after the two drivers had been involved in an accident and of course, tempers flared. Stewart was still furious after the race
"We weren't that great of a race car. But we were definitely faster than that after that restart," Stewart was quoted as saying after the race. "I checked-up twice to not run over him (Kenseth) and I learned my lesson there; I'm going to run over him every chance I've got from now 'til the end of the year, every chance I've got."
The two have since settled their differences because they are both championship contenders with too much on the line to be worrying about each other on the track through the end of the year.
In today's world of NASCAR, feuds may flare up for a short time, but they usually fizzle out pretty quickly. Gone are the days of the long standing feuds.
It was a fist fight at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500 between Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison that launched NASCAR into the mainstream. Drivers rarely go to such extremes today. There would be fines and suspensions involved.
Yet, the most popular drivers in NASCAR are those who display emotions that the fans can identify with. Tony Stewart has always been one to express himself, as is Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and several others.
Through her career in both Indycar and NASCAR, Danica Patrick has never been afraid to express her displeasure with another driver on the track. In last week's Nationwide race, she was involved in a wreck with Regan Smith. She said the fans wanted her to relate.
"I think what matters is the fans love it. I think the fans love it. They were cheering like heck for me to go up the track and do something awesome, or at least it was awesome in their eyes," Patrick was quoted as saying this week at Atlanta. "I was just glad I didn't give him the finger, because that's what I was going to do. And I heard that was a fine. I'm glad I had an epiphany at the last second to point my finger instead of raise the middle one."
The most popular driver in NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt Jr., certainly understands why fans like the controversy. He said that even other drivers enjoyed Stewart's helmet toss.
"I think you do get entertained. What’s funny to the majority is going to be funny to a race car driver. Especially if you had a history with either one of the guys involved in the deal it definitely makes it a little more personal," Earnhardt said this weekend at Atlanta. "It could be even, it doesn’t have to be anything as extreme as that. We don’t seek out but we run across each other’s quotes and you see things that happen in the Nationwide Series or the Truck Series and yeah it’s just as entertaining to me as it is to you or anybody else."
Everyone says that a feud would be good for NASCAR, even several drivers, yet none of them want to get involved in one because they don't want to ruin a possible championship run. So they best fans can hope for is a little more emotion displayed on the track.
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