Richard Petty, center, hugs Tony Stewart in the garage as they talk to Greg Biffle, left, after a first round of practice for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup auto race at Richmond International Raceway in Richmond, Va. Stewart, who has been out with a back injury, ran his first laps of the season in practice Friday. “Smoke” missed the first eight races of what is his final season, recovering from a broken back suffered in a pre-season all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accident.
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Meanwhile, Stewart’s peers will pay the $35,000 fine NASCAR levied against him for criticizing the series about a potential safety hazard during races. NASCAR dropped the practice at the start of the 2015 season as part of a pit road technology initiative that reduced the number of live officials on pit road.
“From a competitor’s standpoint Tony is one of the fiercest competitors in the sport”, said Carl Edwards, the man who lost the 2011 championship to Stewart by way of a tiebreaker.
Tony would finally break through at Richmond in the Exide NASCAR Select Batteries 400, dominating the race by starting second as leading 333 laps.
Hamlin: “I don’t know where the line is, I don’t know if there is a line – obviously there is a line, but obviously we just believe that you should be able to express your opinion as long as you’re not just totally trashing the sport itself or anything like that”.
Tony Stewart began his days with the now top-fleet Joe Gibbs Racing team, driving the No. 20 Home Depot Pontiac. The sanctioning body has put the teams in a box with the lack of monitoring the lug nuts.
“I know I’ve been guilty of being too honest at times or too opinionated at times and it costs you a nickel or two”.
Frankly, what Stewart said wasn’t even that inflammatory. But few could have foreseen that all this talk of lug nuts, of safety concerns, of fines, and free speech, and shifting power dynamics within racing, that it would all end up overshadowing the return of one of the most decorated drivers in history. “It really has nothing to do with lug nuts or no lug nuts or anything like that”. “This is not a game you play with safety and that’s exactly the way I feel like NASCAR is treating this”.
Rookie Ryan Blaney said, “Well, I grew up kind of idolizing him and really looking up to him as a driver, and he has always been really great to myself and my family”.
“We had made a decision to come into the weekend and approach qualifying a little bit different just for the way that the race tracks have been and the timing of our practices, and things”, Harvick said.
“It wasn’t one of those scenarios when you just turn and jump on the gas wide-open. Dialog is very good with the teams and we’ll work internally and with them to move forward from here”.
“From the way it finished previous year, I hope it finishes the same way”, Harvick said. “While we do not condone drivers lashing out freely at NASCAR, we do feel Tony was in his rights to state his opinion”. Two driver efforts to organize were met with sharp rebuke from NASCAR in the 1960s with Hall of Fame nominee Curtis Turner receiving a later-rescinded lifetime ban from series founder Bill France. “Safety… that’s the most important thing we have to achieve”.
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“Our meetings with NASCAR have changed the sport and will continue to change the sport for many years”.
