NASCAR Media Misses the Mark in Teammate Scuffle

February 29, 2008

By Rebecca Gladden

Rebecca Gladden

For 2008 Daytona 500 champion Ryan Newman, the watchword of the race was teamwork.

That's because Newman knows that realistically, without the massive push he got from Penske Racing teammate Kurt Busch down the backstretch, he would never have gotten past two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart who was leading the race at the start of the white flag lap.

Though Busch seemed an unlikely candidate for such an unselfish gesture, he received lavish praise for playing the part of the helpful teammate at Daytona this year.

On the other hand, there were at least two pairs of team members who did not end the day at Daytona on a harmonious note.

For Roush-Fenway Racing drivers Matt Kenseth and David Ragan, the cause of the discord was obvious. Ragan inexplicably lost the handle on his racecar on Lap 161, slamming the wall and proving to be an unavoidable obstacle in the path of Kenseth, who finished the race six laps down in 36th place. "l got tight on the bottom or bottomed out and shot straight up the track," said a forlorn Ragan after the wreck. "By the time I lifted, I drove straight up the track into him and pushed him into the wall."

Kenseth did not talk to reporters before leaving the track that day, and a week later said that he had still not spoken with his teammate about the incident, admitting that Ragan had left phone messages for him earlier in the week.

The second incident took place much later in the race and involved Richard Childress Racing teammates Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer. The two had worked their way into the top 5, Burton from a 36th-place starting spot and Bowyer from 31st. With 20 laps to go, Clint was running second and Jeff fourth. Bowyer took the lead on Lap 181 but was punted just two laps later by Juan Pablo Montoya, sending Bowyer through the infield grass and bringing out a caution.

When the race went green again on Lap 187, Ryan Newman had the lead with Montoya in second and Jeff Burton in third. Burton passed them both to move into first on the following lap, holding the lead for several laps until he was passed by Tony Stewart.

It appeared at the time that Burton was shuffled out of the draft on a subsequent restart and had no one helping him stay up front. Though he led nine laps late in the race, Burton finished a disappointing 13th. Bowyer led four laps and finished 24th.

In their comments to reporters after the race, neither Burton nor Bowyer indicated any particular problem with the other's actions on the track. "On that last restart, we weren't fast enough to run up front," said Burton. "We were in a bad spot. I knew we were going to get passed for the lead, but it's always fun to lead at Daytona. Finishing 13th isn't a bad start to the season."

For his part, Bowyer expressed frustration only with Montoya, the driver who had sent him spinning: "We had a car that was capable of winning the race. The Jack Daniel's Chevrolet was as fast as anything I've ever driven. It's pretty hard to stomach being taken out when you're leading the Daytona 500."

Later in the day, as reporters recapped the race for the SPEED channel, an alert camera person shot some video of an apparent verbal confrontation between the two Childress drivers in the garage. At first, it appeared that they were just talking, but things escalated when Bowyer started to walk away, apparently delivering a parting comment that angered Burton. Burton followed after him, grabbing his sleeve and spinning him around. Bowyer then grabbed Burton's sleeve, more words were exchanged, and they parted ways.

That evening on SPEED, and for the next several days, members of the NASCAR media speculated as to the cause of the conflict, since there was no accompanying audio. To a person, everyone felt that Burton was angry with his teammate for not helping him in the draft when he could have. This opinion was echoed throughout the week, both on the air and in print.

Apparently, we were all wrong.

Late last week, Burton commented at length about the altercation. Though he declined to specify what he and Bowyer did discuss, he was very clear on the topic of what they did not discuss - the very thing that everyone in the media believed it to be. "Clint and I were mad, but we weren't mad at what people thought we were mad at," he said. "The conversation that Clint and I had, we'll keep to ourselves. There's no strife amongst the drivers, there's none of that. We did have a discussion and it is clear that you can't have productive conversations as soon as the race is over. That just can never happen, never has happened, never will happen. But there's nothing leaving Daytona that we have any concern about whatsoever."

Asked if he thought Bowyer should have helped him more during the race, Burton replied, "To be honest, I haven't watched a replay of the race, and until I go back and really analyze what we could have done differently, I don't know. I never at any point felt like Clint did anything to jeopardize my opportunity to win the race. That's all I know. On the surface of it, when the race was over, I never once felt - I think everybody thought I was mad at Clint, like Clint did something to me that I thought he shouldn't have done, but that was the furthest from the case. I never once felt like Clint did anything to negatively affect my race. And by the way, you know, I've said this for years, I don't expect my teammate to help me if it's going to hurt him. I never expected it and I don't expect it now. So any thought that I was mad at Clint and that I felt like Clint could have done something to help my cause - that's totally misconstrued. I don't think Clint did anything wrong in that race at all in regards to running with me."

"I think we were both frustrated," Burton continued. "I'm sitting there leading the Daytona 500 with three to go (and) he's leading it with 20 or 25 to go. Clint had a good car and I finished 13th and he finished 30-something. I think we were both frustrated and we should've been. If we're going to skip out of Daytona finishing where we finished and be happy, then we are in the wrong business."

So there you have it. While the subject of the Burton-Bowyer brouhaha remains a mystery, we now know that it wasn't what everyone thought it was - not even close. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there.

Speculation is sometimes the purview of journalists, but in this case, we simply got it wrong.

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