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Drop The Gloves And Come Out Swinging

CHARLOTTE, NC (March 25, 2013) – “If NASCAR wants to let the guys have at it, it shouldn’t be any different from hockey. Let us have at it and when the guy goes on the ground, it’s over.”

To say Tony Stewart was in a fighting mood after Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway is putting it lightly. Racing for the lead one lap and chugging home 22nd a handful of circuits later will do that to a guy.

Stewart wanted a piece of Joey Logano after Sunday’s race and went looking for him. The result was some pretty good pushing and shoving, a few swings that didn’t connect, and a thrown water bottle.

“What the hell do you think I’m mad about,” Stewart huffed at Fox Sports pit road reporter Steve Byrnes after the post-race dust up. “The dumb little son of a (expletive) runs us clear down to the infield. He wants to (expletive) about everybody else. He’s the one that drives like a little (expletive). I’m going to bust his ass.”

In another interview later, Stewart called Logano “nothing but a little rich kid who has never had to work in his life” and “a little prick.”

“If he ever turns down in front of me again, I don’t care what lap it is, he won’t make it through the other end of it,” Stewart promised.

Try not to hold your feelings in Tony.

As if Logano didn’t have enough problems with Stewart, he and Hamlin raced each other like it was the last lap throughout Sunday’s event. The result was both of them crashing on the final lap – Hamlin getting the worst of it as he was air lifted to a local hospital complaining of back injuries.

This comes on the heels of last week when Logano confronted Hamlin while he was still strapped in his car after the two clashed on track at Bristol Motor Speedway. A brief scuffle between race teams was followed by some embarrassing verbal ‘punches’ on Twitter by both drivers.

Sunday’s last-lap Logano/Hamlin tangle means that story isn’t going away anytime soon.

Well, for two weeks anyway.

With the Easter holiday on us, the Sprint Cup division is taking its first break of the 2013 season returning to action April 5-7 at Martinsville Speedway.

How appropriate.

NASCAR’s smallest track – Martinsville – where there’s no place to hide on the track. It’s even more crowded in the track’s infield garage area with everyone and their equipment jacked on top of each other.

Cozy?

Probably not this time.

Don’t be surprised of a hockey game – or two – breaks out.

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