by richard teague tinynascars@yahoo.com
Rookies – Respect & Tony. Now, Tony Stewart isn’t a rookie anymore, but it seems to me that he once was and I don’t think he raced with the kind of respect in his first season that he expects from the rookie Juan Montoya. I mean, in his first Twin 125s he fought Dale Earnhardt for a win, but the Intimidator took the race. Perhaps it was a preview of things to come. By taking on Dale for the rest of the season he did impress fans with his driving abilities, but, like he put it after the Texas race, “When you’re a rookie you do stuff like that, so it’s just part of racing.” Not referring to his rookie year but to another driver, Juan Montoya. With Stewart in his ninth season of Cup racing and two Cup championships, he feels he is due respect, and I’ll go along with him somewhat, but a guy’s abilities come from driving his car his way for his owner and not how Tony tells him to.
There is a form of etiquette accepted among NASCAR drivers, and rightfully so since they are in a dangerous sport. They should respect each other. But who decides to what degree they must follow? NASCAR does get involved with driver’s style and actions on the track and off, but just who is really in charge? Is it Mr. Stewart or Mr. Montoya? You listen to both sides of the equation and then you come up with an answer, but you don’t use that: “well he’s my driver” or “I don’t like that guy.” You use your knowledge of the sport and how the guys way-back-when would have driven in that situation, as well as the way things turned out before. You and I have both watched a driver take on another driver, and one of them may have been your favorite, but what were the circumstances for the battle?
Some guys seem to bitch and moan about everything while others just race. Again, it’s like my old girlfriend once said, “hide and watch” for an opportunity to repay the favor. Now Tony said “I’m going to race people how they race me.” Stewart wants respect and says it’s like a couple of kids on the playground instead of the race track. Tony has a style of racing that has amazed fans for some time, and I will say that there are not many drivers around that are his equal. I think Juan said it best with, “I don’t think Chip hired me to run 20th every weekend, and I didn’t come here to run 20th every weekend.”
I like Montoya and Stewart both. Like Tony said, Juan ain’t going to learn it all in 6 weeks, but he’s doing a dang good job of racing as far as I am concerned. You can bet Ganassi thinks the same way. The Chip Man has got a young driver that did excellent in other forms of racing, just as Tony did, and has started his Cup career much the same way as Stewart. Montoya is earning his pay over at Ganassi Racing where there is a group of young drivers just waiting to bust out, win races and just possibly a championship. Montoya has been criticized a bunch so far this season, and even by his Busch teammate. Look out. When new drivers come along, it seems that it is open season on a rookie every race. Lord forbid that the new guy be in the right and the older more “respectable driver” be in the wrong.
We will see how Tony drives against Juan for the rest of the season, if Juan will give Tony the respect that he seems to require. Stewart looks like he’s off to a weak start so far this year and he needs to be in a racing mood for the rest of the season. Even with adding two more drivers to the Chase lineup, he may not make it again this year, and I would really hate that. Tony is a better driver than he has shown us so far, and unlike last year when he came on so strong the last part of the season, he needs to get back to business and just do his thing. His thing is to be the guy in the #20 Home Depot car winning races.
Juan, well the only thing I think he needs is more races and to stick with his style and to stick to those good drivers and race them!
I want to share a little episode I had with a writer at nascar.com the other day after I read his article. This gentleman has joined nascar.com after a long career in sports journalism, covering sports like the NBA and the NFL, but he has also written a number of books, one being A History of NASCAR 2001. I will be at Barnes & Noble in the near future to locate a copy so that I can ascertain his thoughts on NASCAR, or rather the history of NASCAR. Anyway, he writes “His Opinions” as I will show you with a few excerpts from the column and the email he sent to me, so read him and read what I wrote to him and how I feel about the “DEI Saga.” I know that the majority of you will agree with him, but we are all entitled to our own opinions, so to speak.
Let me call this columnist “Joe” for now and maybe you can find the article determine your own thoughts. He starts off saying that Teresa Earnhardt “must realize the simple, undeniable truth.” He goes on to say that with Junior holding the trump cards, she needs to lose if she wants to look like a winner. He says that Teresa isn’t dumb or stupid, just overly protective of DEI, but she is also stubborn. He talks of Max Siegel doing the negotiating with Dale Jr. and Sis. I see nothing wrong with that, after all didn’t another guy do the same thing a few years back to get Jr.’s name on the dotted line? To say that she can’t carry on the legacy of Dale Earnhardt by herself or without Dale Earnhardt Jr. kind a struck a note with me and I had to send him my thoughts.
I don’t usually email other writers, but when I read the part where he said: “But Dale Earnhardt never intended the greatest part of his legacy to be how much DEI made from souvenir sales…” well, I knew it was time to share my thoughts. To me, Joe was making all these statements about the ability of Mrs. Earnhardt and how Dale wanted things to be, as if he knew by some insider information. This “Saga,” as I put it, between the Earnhardts is what it is: between them. Everybody writing their opinion doesn’t mean squat. But since I am a writer, which is a title I gave myself and one that did come under grave scrutiny after last week’s article, I will share my thoughts. Remember, just as Joe told me “it was a column – an opinion piece. As in my OPINION. I get paid to offer them.”
I won’t get a chance to share all I sent him, but here’s just a taste of it. Me emailing him: “As for Mrs. Earnhardt not being able to carry on, it seems she did fairly well with her famous husband driving for RCR. I think that DEI had a few other people involved running the show without Junior. Dale Earnhardt was not a stupid man and if he had wanted for Junior to own DEI or any part of it don’t you think he would have said so in some form of legal paper work?” I really kind of unloaded on him and went on with, “Some grown men don’t want their children to be pampered through their life. They want them to earn what they get just like they did and I believe that is why Junior hasn’t been in charge of DEI.”
Well that’s it for this week and y’all know how to do it at tinynascars@yahoo.com and you also know that if it ain’t NASCAR, It ain’t s**t!!
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