Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
Bud Shootout practice on Friday night looked like a high-speed demo derby, with two separate incidents involving a multitude of cars and teams.
The first incident started when Bowyer made contact with Newman sending him up the track into several other cars, including Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. All those drivers will be in back-up cars Saturday. One thing though, the back-up cars are still back home in the Charlotte NC area. Those truck drivers are going to earn their keep. Perhaps, since there are a number of them, they can get a police escort.
There really wasn’t much finger pointing after the incident. Newman went to Bowyer to find out what happened and it was really determined to be a ‘racing incident’, nothing more and nothing less, with Bowyer taking a little more of the blame than the others.
One the other hand, the second incident of the night involved two of the sports hottest shoes, and hottest heads, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart.
It appeared to me, after watching the replay several times, Tony had a run on Kurt and thought about going low, but moved high because the low lane was blocked by another car and Kurt dropped down a little bit leaving the high lane a little more open than before.
Now Tony should know better, especially where Kurt is concerned, but he moved to the outside of Kurt’s car and just got a fender beside him when Kurt came back up the track. Obviously two cars can’t occupy the same spot and bent fenders, quarter panels, and attitudes ensued.
Personally, I want to know what Kurt’s spotter was saying to Kurt when Tony was getting a run on him. I know it is easy to lay blame on the spotter, but let’s be realistic here, Tony was going three wide before this and he was closing the gap good so if Kurt’s spotter didn’t say anything about Tony being there then this is just as much his fault as anyone else’s.
Honestly, this is just as much as a racing incident as the first one, but Kurt didn’t react the same way as his teammate Ryan Newman did.
After he was wrecked, Kurt then drove into the side of Tony’s car no less than 3 times. Tony then blocked Kurt’s way into the garage and Kurt had to drive around him. Once Kurt got around Tony he gunned his car a bit and forced one of Stewart’s crew members to quickly side step his car.
This is not the first time these two have run into each other on the track and have had hard feelings about it, but both times it was Kurt who used his car as a weapon, and both times he has nearly hit one of Stewart’s crew members – although this time it was not as close, or serious, as the first time, but still none-the-less Kurt needs to think about the possible consequences of his actions.
I have no problem what happened on the track between the two, and I’d still have no problem with it if they had just simply parked their cars and discussed it between themselves like Newman and Bowyer did. I’d even have no problem if they parked their cars, got out, and then proceeded to kick the crap out of each other either. But what Kurt did with his car is uncalled for. You cannot use your car as a weapon, period.
I think Kurt should be parked for the Bud Shootout and, based on his past history of being a hot head that uses his car as a weapon; he should also be placed on probation for the rest of the year in all of NASCAR’s racing series, not just Cup.
If NASCAR really wanted to teach Kurt a lesson then they should also park him for the Daytona 500. But it didn’t work when former car owner Jack Roush parked him, so how why would it work now? Maybe because this suspension is coming from the governing body and not a ‘lame duck’ car owner as Kurt was leaving Roush at the end of the season anyway and the suspension was at the end of the year.
If I didn’t know anything about NASCAR, and someone asked me who I thought the past Champion between Kurt and Ryan was based on their reactions to the incidents I would have picked Newman because he acted more like a Champion than Kurt did after he got wrecked and Newman was a more innocent participant in his incident than Kurt was – Newman simply just got run over, while Kurt moved into Tony a bit.
Update: uncomfirmed rumours say that while in the NASCAR trailer a punch was thrown Kurt Busch’s way.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images
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