All-star race in Charlotte has a history of confrontations
Stewart's feud with fellow drivers harkens back to an earlier NASCAR era
By Mike Mulhern
JOURNAL REPORTER
If Tony Stewart had half as much fun as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and some of the rest of NASCAR's Nextel Cup drivers, his life might be a lot happier.
He has ticked off Kurt Busch, Terry Labonte, Rusty Wallace and Kasey Kahne in the past few weeks, and more recently Jeff Gordon, and Stewart has even been taking big verbal jabs at Darrell Waltrip, who isn't even on the track any more.
How all that aggression and anger might play out in Saturday night's Nextel All-Star Challenge is anybody's guess, but it sure looks as if Stewart is running out of friends out on the track.
And the all-star race has a history of angry drivers and career-altering confrontations, beginning in 1987, when Dale Earnhardt made an amazing pass-in-the-grass to win, in a street-brawl of a race with Bill Elliott and Geoff Bodine.
Pit road afterward was almost a war zone:
Car owner Richard Childress: "Ernie Elliott walked right up to me and said 'That's really chicken.' I told him if he wanted to keep his face looking the way it did, he'd better get the hell out of my pit stall."
Bill Elliott: "Earnhardt cut me off there, and he cut me off again. Then he ends up almost running me into the wall. That ended up knocking the fender in and cutting the tire down. He hit me several times. If a man has to run over you to beat you, it's time for this stuff to stop. What he did wasn't right.
"When a man pulls over and lets you by and then tries to run you into the wall, I'd say that was done deliberately. I've been beat on at Watkins Glen, Talladega and here by one car, Earnhardt's. If somebody doesn't do something about this, we're coming back next week and we'll see what happens."
Earnhardt: "This whole deal is between me and Bill, and it has nothing to do with our teams. We knocked each other around, but it's all over now as far as I am concerned. But if Bill still wants to do something about it, then I'll stand flat-footed with him any day."
Today, Rusty Wallace says, "That's about the nearest you could get to good old grass-roots racing. The only thing better would have been if it were at night.
"Earnhardt was like a man possessed. and he drove like an absolute madman. He was always aggressive, even in the points-paying races. But the fact that Humpy Wheeler promoted this thing as a 'no-holds-barred, winner-take-all' shootout I think only worked to make Dale even more on the gas. He knew he could get away with just about anything in that race - and he did.
"When he went through the infield grass like that and just kept going, that was absolutely amazing, one of the best pieces of driving I have ever seen. I'm convinced that few drivers could have pulled that off. That race really helped take Dale on up some notches when it came to his image of being the man in black and all. The crowd went crazy, that's for sure."
That race was the one that made the all-star race the crazy legend that it has become, even though it has rarely lived up to that legacy.
Wallace himself did his part in 1989, his championship season, when he knocked Waltrip out of the way on the last lap to win.
Waltrip then called it "an ugly, ugly win. I hope he chokes on the $200,000, that's all I can tell him. He knocked the hell out of me."
To which Wallace replied, "We just ran out of room. I got under him and we touched. I backed out of the throttle and he spun. I didn't intentionally hit him."
Waltrip wasn't buying it: "A lot of guys let greed overcome speed, and that's what happened. I got spun out. A guy drove down underneath me and drove up into me and spun me out. It was blatant. I had him pretty well covered. I just didn't want to make a mistake, but I guess I made one, letting him get up there."
Today Wallace calls that day "the turning point of my career, and Darrell's, too. I don't think there has ever been, in the history of our sport, a situation where in a split-second the roles are reversed like that, totally reversed.
"Darrell became the hero in that race, and I became the villain.
"DW didn't have the greatest fan appeal back then," Wallace recalled. "He was a driver who the fans either loved or hated, it was just that simple. Well, that day he became the good guy, and that image lasted with him all the way until he hung the helmet up. He always got cheered from that day forward.
"Man, it really did fireworks for my career. I was still a young guy on the way up. I'd finished second to Elliott in the points in '88 and hadn't really stirred up any big buzz until that day. I was just a pretty non-controversial guy who'd come from the short tracks and was on his way up the ladder in the big league.
"Not only did I become a marked man and our teams get in fights and all, it carried over into my personal life, too," Wallace said. "We got threats. It was some serious stuff that came down after that one.
"I'll never forget having my daughter Katie, who was only about five years old at the time, ask me 'Daddy, why are there policemen with guns sitting outside our front door?' We actually had to have bodyguards and extra security around the clock for me and my family. It was just that heavy of a scene after that race.
"I'll never forget the aftermath of that race, with Darrell telling me to choke on the 200 grand, Todd Parrott (Wallace's chassis man) and some of my team punching it out with Darrell's team on pit road and getting suspended and all hell just about breaking out. It was something they talked about for years to come."
• Mike Mulhern can be reached at [email protected]
Stewart's feud with fellow drivers harkens back to an earlier NASCAR era
By Mike Mulhern
JOURNAL REPORTER
If Tony Stewart had half as much fun as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and some of the rest of NASCAR's Nextel Cup drivers, his life might be a lot happier.
He has ticked off Kurt Busch, Terry Labonte, Rusty Wallace and Kasey Kahne in the past few weeks, and more recently Jeff Gordon, and Stewart has even been taking big verbal jabs at Darrell Waltrip, who isn't even on the track any more.
How all that aggression and anger might play out in Saturday night's Nextel All-Star Challenge is anybody's guess, but it sure looks as if Stewart is running out of friends out on the track.
And the all-star race has a history of angry drivers and career-altering confrontations, beginning in 1987, when Dale Earnhardt made an amazing pass-in-the-grass to win, in a street-brawl of a race with Bill Elliott and Geoff Bodine.
Pit road afterward was almost a war zone:
Car owner Richard Childress: "Ernie Elliott walked right up to me and said 'That's really chicken.' I told him if he wanted to keep his face looking the way it did, he'd better get the hell out of my pit stall."
Bill Elliott: "Earnhardt cut me off there, and he cut me off again. Then he ends up almost running me into the wall. That ended up knocking the fender in and cutting the tire down. He hit me several times. If a man has to run over you to beat you, it's time for this stuff to stop. What he did wasn't right.
"When a man pulls over and lets you by and then tries to run you into the wall, I'd say that was done deliberately. I've been beat on at Watkins Glen, Talladega and here by one car, Earnhardt's. If somebody doesn't do something about this, we're coming back next week and we'll see what happens."
Earnhardt: "This whole deal is between me and Bill, and it has nothing to do with our teams. We knocked each other around, but it's all over now as far as I am concerned. But if Bill still wants to do something about it, then I'll stand flat-footed with him any day."
Today, Rusty Wallace says, "That's about the nearest you could get to good old grass-roots racing. The only thing better would have been if it were at night.
"Earnhardt was like a man possessed. and he drove like an absolute madman. He was always aggressive, even in the points-paying races. But the fact that Humpy Wheeler promoted this thing as a 'no-holds-barred, winner-take-all' shootout I think only worked to make Dale even more on the gas. He knew he could get away with just about anything in that race - and he did.
"When he went through the infield grass like that and just kept going, that was absolutely amazing, one of the best pieces of driving I have ever seen. I'm convinced that few drivers could have pulled that off. That race really helped take Dale on up some notches when it came to his image of being the man in black and all. The crowd went crazy, that's for sure."
That race was the one that made the all-star race the crazy legend that it has become, even though it has rarely lived up to that legacy.
Wallace himself did his part in 1989, his championship season, when he knocked Waltrip out of the way on the last lap to win.
Waltrip then called it "an ugly, ugly win. I hope he chokes on the $200,000, that's all I can tell him. He knocked the hell out of me."
To which Wallace replied, "We just ran out of room. I got under him and we touched. I backed out of the throttle and he spun. I didn't intentionally hit him."
Waltrip wasn't buying it: "A lot of guys let greed overcome speed, and that's what happened. I got spun out. A guy drove down underneath me and drove up into me and spun me out. It was blatant. I had him pretty well covered. I just didn't want to make a mistake, but I guess I made one, letting him get up there."
Today Wallace calls that day "the turning point of my career, and Darrell's, too. I don't think there has ever been, in the history of our sport, a situation where in a split-second the roles are reversed like that, totally reversed.
"Darrell became the hero in that race, and I became the villain.
"DW didn't have the greatest fan appeal back then," Wallace recalled. "He was a driver who the fans either loved or hated, it was just that simple. Well, that day he became the good guy, and that image lasted with him all the way until he hung the helmet up. He always got cheered from that day forward.
"Man, it really did fireworks for my career. I was still a young guy on the way up. I'd finished second to Elliott in the points in '88 and hadn't really stirred up any big buzz until that day. I was just a pretty non-controversial guy who'd come from the short tracks and was on his way up the ladder in the big league.
"Not only did I become a marked man and our teams get in fights and all, it carried over into my personal life, too," Wallace said. "We got threats. It was some serious stuff that came down after that one.
"I'll never forget having my daughter Katie, who was only about five years old at the time, ask me 'Daddy, why are there policemen with guns sitting outside our front door?' We actually had to have bodyguards and extra security around the clock for me and my family. It was just that heavy of a scene after that race.
"I'll never forget the aftermath of that race, with Darrell telling me to choke on the 200 grand, Todd Parrott (Wallace's chassis man) and some of my team punching it out with Darrell's team on pit road and getting suspended and all hell just about breaking out. It was something they talked about for years to come."
• Mike Mulhern can be reached at [email protected]
Y'all want good old time racing? Good Ole days of "clean racing" (urban legend)? Which do you want? Can't have both, ya know!! 