Battling ‘Mates: Part III - Whose Line Is It Anyway? Edition
In the third and final portion of the “Battling ‘Mates” series, I want to talk about a couple of drivers who aren’t actually teammates at all. Well, they are … but, not really. For years, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. – drivers of the Joe Gibbs no 20 and the DEI no 8 cars, respectively – have hooked up with one another at Daytona and Talladega on several occasions and have billed themselves as “unofficial official restrictor plate track teammates.” Additionally, Stewart has driven Junior’s car for him on several occasions in the Busch Series, and vice versa, and they even appeared in a 3 Doors Down music video together at one point. The two NASCAR stars have apparently developed quite the off-track friendship and have never really tangled with one another on the track beyond the point of just some good, clean, hard racing … until Martinsville, that is.
Somewhere around the middle of the race this past Sunday, the field was frozen under caution, and out of nowhere Dale Junior took a swipe at Stewart, who was running in the position ahead of the 8 car at the time. Now, when I was watching this at the time it happened, I damn near lost my mind. I literally jumped up out of my seat, and I believe I was attempting to pull my hair out. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing, yet I search for some follow-up information online, and I swear I just cannot find a thing about it other than a few people simply acknowledging that it happened. Not a mention of it on Stewart or Earnhardt’s websites, either … it’s almost like they’re trying to cover it up to make it appear as though it never actually took place. So, my question is why? Why did Junior take a swipe at his good buddy, and why the cover up afterwards?
If memory serves me, I think that ABC actually cut into the radio feed from Junior’s car after the incident, and I believe he was saying something about Stewart running in his line, and I think I heard something else eluding to Stewart getting into the back of Dale. Well, running in someone else’s line is just a part of racing. If Junior was faster than Tony, I doubt that he was THAT much faster, and even if he was, there’s only so many places you can move your car to at any short track, let alone Martinsville. And, getting into the back of him? C’mon, I doubt there was a car in the field that left the track without having a mark that they didn’t enter Martinsville with. Again – it’s just part of short track racing. So, while that may have been the immediate reasoning for Junior’s actions, I seriously doubt that’s the whole story, and if it is, there’s absolutely no justification there on his part.
So, what are the other possibilities? It could have something to do with Tony’s latest feud with Junior’s DEI teammate, Paul Menard, but I doubt it. I could be wrong, but I’ve never known Dale and Menard to be all that close to one another – at least, not tighter than he is with Stewart. No, I believe that what we witnessed at Martinsville this past Sunday was just a couple of drivers feeling the pressure. Earnhardt’s leaving DEI at the conclusion of this season, and he hasn’t won a race since 2006. He’s heading to an organization that will already boast two of the best drivers in NASCAR while he failed to qualify for the Chase field in 2007. He also has just four races left competing under the banner for the organization that his father built, and he would like nothing more than to get at least one more win for the team before departing them for good. Stewart’s case is nothing like Junior’s, but a frustrating situation nonetheless. Stewart failed to finish the 2006 season in the Top 10 in points for the first time in his Cup career. He made a solid rebound in ’07 and appeared poised to make a legitimate run for his third NASCAR Cup Championship during the race at Kansas. However, since the time that it quit raining and the red flag lifted for the final time that Sunday afternoon, things have gone nowhere but downhill for the no. 20 team. While he continues to make solid finish after solid finish, Chase leaders Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson continue to stink up the competition and widen the gap between them and the rest of the field each week. The number of races left on the schedule have dwindled down and Tony’s been in panic mode for weeks now.
In all reality, with both team’s refusing to make any sort of public knowledge of the altercation, we may never know exactly what led to the incident at Martinsville. That’s fine … with the close relationship that these two have had over the years, I think that it’s better left as a forgotten mystery. In the meantime, I’ll chalk this one up to being nothing more than end-of-a-long-season tempers and frustration and hopefully it won’t change the way these two run together at Daytona in February.
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