September 21, 2006

By Rebecca Gladden

Rebecca Gladden

After finishing third in the Bud Shootout back in February, Tony Stewart turned a post-race press conference into the champion's bully pulpit.

Stewart was distraught over what he considered extra-rough bump drafting in the Shootout, and he wanted everyone to know it - especially the NASCAR brass.

"I was sitting there watching TV before we came down here, and they were talking about the tribute to Dale Earnhardt," said Stewart, referring to the five-year commemoration of Earnhardt's death in the 2001 Daytona 500. "Well, five years from now we're probably going to have to do another tribute to another driver, because we're probably going to kill somebody from Wednesday through Sunday - and it could be me, it could be Dale Jr., it could be anybody out there."

Stewart said he was bumped so hard in the Shootout that "it should have knocked a filling loose," and described the practice of rough bump drafting, also called slam drafting, as "absolutely out of control."

As the reigning Cup champion, Stewart was putting NASCAR on notice.

He expected them to take action - and act they did.

Shortly after Tony's harangue, NASCAR officials announced that they would closely monitor aggressive driving during the Daytona 500 and would place additional spotters in zones around the track who would report bump drafting violations. At NASCAR's discretion, offenders would face stiff penalties.

It appeared that Stewart had NASCAR's ear, and as a result, many in the media anointed him the natural - in fact the only - driver in the garage capable of filling the leadership void left by Earnhardt's death.

Indeed, other drivers had complained about slam drafting for years, but most were diplomatic in their approach.

It took Stewart's blunt, outspoken delivery and his warning of impending doom to grab the headlines and spur NASCAR into immediate action.

Just a few days later, however, Stewart lost credibility after running Matt Kenseth into the infield grass during the 500. Kenseth said the hit was intentional, and Stewart didn't deny it. He argued that Kenseth had gotten him loose a few laps earlier, and the hit was retaliatory.

"He started the whole thing, and I finished it," said Stewart.

The same media that had just crowned him King of the Garage now labeled him a hypocrite.

That was seven months ago, and it's been nearly that long since Stewart has corresponded with NASCAR officials by way of a reporter's microphone.

But he did just that this weekend at Loudon after finishing second in his first race since missing the Chase cutoff last week.

It was also his first Chase race in three seasons as an outsider looking in.

"It's the first time that we've been in this situation, being on the outside of the Chase," Stewart said on pit road. "I finally have the answer to the question, when people always ask, 'Well, if you could change one rule, what would you change?'"

Stewart then floated a radical plan for changing the Chase and detailed the rationale behind it.

"I'd have made this day a two-race deal. I'd have had 11th to the rest of the field in points run their own 200-mile race, and then I'd have had the top-10 guys run their own 200-mile race. Because it's very nerve-wracking to race those top 10 guys in points and race them hard for position and feel comfortable. You're so timid around them and scared that you're gonna - you know, if you make one little mistake around them and cause them to have a wreck like the 48 had today, you've just ruined a guy's chances of winning a championship. And I know what that felt like last year and I appreciated all the guys around us. It just makes it really frustrating to have to race those 10 guys. You know, you respect them and that's why you race them with such caution. But it makes it really hard to go out and race for wins when you have to worry about that."

He elaborated in a second post-race interview, adding, "It's not like a typical playoff-type situation, where both teams are just going for it to try to advance. You've got 10 guys on their own program and 33 guys on another program, and they're all racing on the same race track at the same time."

Stewart admitted that during the race he almost spun himself out to keep from getting into a Chase contender. "We had a situation where I was underneath my teammate Denny in (turn) two, and I got really loose and I just started tugging on the wheel to the left, and about that time it started coming back to me. But I was prepared to just spin to the inside, just to keep from getting into him and ruining his Chase hopes. So it's just a weird situation."

Extreme as it is, there is some logic to Stewart's suggestion.

Consider a presidential race in which only the two main candidates have a realistic chance of winning, but with several others on the ballot who could affect the outcome of the election (think Ross Perot in 1992).

Some would argue that it is unfair for a spoiler to alter the course of history. Still, we would never exclude legitimate candidates from running for office, even if they have no chance of winning the election.

Why remove 33 drivers from a race simply because they are not competing for the title?

Some have proposed a separate points system for the two sets of drivers - Chasers and non-Chasers - as a solution to the problem. While NASCAR has promised changes to the points format in 2007, they are apparently considering tweaks to the system, not a major overhaul.

Still, it will be interesting to see whether Tony Stewart carries the same clout with NASCAR this time around.

I'll be very surprised if he does.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.