“In my opinion, it was just hard racing,” Earnhardt said during Tuesday’s national conference call. “The guy is leading the race, he’s trying to do what he can to win.”

Stewart didn’t agree.

The three-time Cup champion cut off Logano’s car on pit road after the race and went after him physically before being separated by crew members and officials. He then went on a verbal tirade against the 22-year-old Penske Racing driver.

“He has that right, he has the choice to do that,” Stewart said of blocking. “If he ever turns down across in front of me again, I don’t care what lap it is, he won’t make it through the other end of it.

“I’m tired of these guys doing that stuff. Especially out of a kid that’s been griping about everybody else and then he does that the next week. He sent Denny [Hamlin] to the hospital and screwed our day up.”

Stewart, who finished 22nd, was referring to a last-lap crash involving Logano and Hamlin racing for the lead. Hamlin, who wrecked Logano a week earlier at Bristol, suffered a compression fracture in his lower back when his car hit a concrete inside retaining wall and will miss up to five races.

Earnhardt understands there are some who get more upset about blocking than others. He’s just not one of them.

“Every driver is going to have a different opinion,” said Earnhardt, who took advantage of the last-lap crash to finish second and move into the points lead. “I might block in certain situations. I would expect and accept to be blocked in certain situations.

“But you’ve got to give me racetrack. You’ve got to give me somewhere to run. You can’t just run me up into the fence. You’ve got to give me a lane. If you give me a reasonable amount of racetrack to race on, then I really can’t complain in regards to what you’re trying to do to maintain the position.”

Earnhardt said the time of the race also is a factor when it comes to blocking.

“Is it time to be blocking?” he said. “Is the position that important at that moment in time? Again, everybody will have a different opinion. But when somebody blocks me, I’m not blown away by the notion.

“You know, I’m not going to say that I’ve never blocked anybody because I have, and you do, you will. Being in certain situations, that’s your only alternative. But you’ve got to give people racing room or expect to get turned around or expect to make a few people upset.”

Stewart caused a 25-car pileup in which Earnhardt suffered a concussion that sidelined him for two Chase races defending the lead in the closing lap at Talladega last fall.

Stewart, who has been outspoken about blocking several times the past few years, apologized after the race.

“I just screwed up,” he said. “I turned down and cut across Michael [Waltrip] and crashed the whole field. It was my fault, blocking and trying to stay where I was at.”

Logano never got a chance to discuss what happened with Stewart. He said after the race he had to slow down so as not to jump the race leader on the restart, and that when he did Stewart was able to get a jump on him.

“I had to throw the block there,” Logano said. “That was the race for the lead. I felt if [Stewart] got underneath me, that was going to be the end of my opportunity to win the race.”

Logano said he planned to tell Stewart the same thing when they spoke. Asked if he was willing to talk to Logano, Stewart said, “Hell no.”

“After he threw the water bottle at me like a little girl, we’ll go at it now,” he said.

Stewart also referred to Logano as a spoiled rich kid who never worked a day in his life. That brought up another issue that Earnhardt discussed in relation to how his 12-year-old niece Karsyn has many of the same financial advantages Logano had as she pursues a career in racing.

“Hopefully, she’s talented enough, no matter what your background or what your path is to where you are … if you have talent, you belong, and you earn respect through that talent,” he said. “If you’re really good at your job and really good at what you do, it won’t matter how you got there.”

Opinions will vary on that just as they will on blocking. Stewart’s teammate, Ryan Newman, called blocking a “chicken way to drive.”

“It’s just something I don’t do,” he said. “If you’ve got a run on me, take it. If I can get through the corner better than you, then we’ll race, but blocking is an IndyCar form or F1 form or an open-wheel type move it seems like.

“It’s not to say they don’t do it in NASCAR; obviously they do. But to me, it’s just a chicken way of driving and not very respectful for the guys around you. You’re there to race. You’re not there to block.”

Newman didn’t know if Stewart and Logano had talked or planned to before Sunday’s race at Martinsville, but he said you have to be aware if they’re around each other on the half-mile track where contact is expected.

“You have to know what’s going on and watch out for the dramas, but at the same time I have a race of my own to run, and a part of that is watching out for what’s going on, whether it’s something that’s carried over from the past few weeks or something that has happened that day,” Newman said. “Going to have to keep tabs on who turns who or who’s angry or where’s everybody at on their scorecards as you go through a race like Martinsville sometimes.”

The post Dale Earnhardt Jr. backs Joey Logano appeared first on IdealCapper.

The first mistake was bumping Logano too hard on Lap 349 in retaliation for the way the Penske Racing driver raced him earlier. The bump sent Logano into a spin when he was battling Jeff Gordon for the lead and ruined any chance he had of contending for the victory.

The second was for attacking Logano personally after a postrace shoving match between the crews that began when Logano approached Hamlin at his car.

“He said he was coming for me,” Hamlin said after the incident. “I usually don’t see him, so it’s not a factor.”

On the first mistake, Hamlin said he was trying to send Logano a message with a tap after Logano pinched down on him too hard earlier.

“I felt bad, and really if you could watch my in-car camera, you could see how frustrated I was to see he had damage to his car,” Hamlin said before the first practice at Auto Club Speedway. “I banged the steering wheel because I was, ‘Man, I didn’t mean to do that.'”

Hamlin said that gave the impression he was trying to “bully” Logano, which he was not.

“I wish the cameras would see what happened before the contact you saw on TV,” he said. “That frustrates me the most. I’m not trying to bully Joey around because of performance.”

Then came what Hamlin called “the big mistake.”

“At the end of the race I shouldn’t have degraded him as a driver,” he said. “It’s not my job to say who’s good or bad in our sport. That part probably should have been left out.”

Hamlin and Logano haven’t communicated since a battle of words Sunday night on Twitter. Logano indicated the issue that began at the Daytona 500 with Hamlin criticizing his driving wasn’t over.

“I feel like I’ve told him everything I can tell him,” Logano told ESPN.com earlier in the week. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

Hamlin considers the issue over because they haven’t talked.

“He has my phone number, and I have his,” he said. “I assume when Bristol is over with it’s over with unless spoken to otherwise. I voiced to him he had my number. If he had a problem with anything that went on, then we could talk about it. I’m assuming by no contact it’s over at this point.”

Logano said he is still upset over what happened.

“Until anyone says anything to me personally, no, it’s not over,” said Logano.

Hamlin isn’t concerned that Logano will retaliate Sunday.

“I don’t believe so,” Hamlin said. “We both have the same goal in mind. The first thing is you need to win races. The second thing is you need to make the Chase. Messing with each other on the racetrack is a huge distraction for that. You cannot do your job a hundred percent the way you’re supposed to if you’re constantly worried about somebody else.

“My guess is going into this weekend and beyond he’s going to be worried about his program and I’m going to be worried about mine.”

Logano said winning races, not wrecking Hamlin, is his top priority.

“You remember things like that, obviously,” he said of what happened at Bristol. “You don’t go out there aiming for somebody. Obviously, I’m out there to win races and run for a championship.

“But at the same time, you don’t forget what happened. You don’t forget three years down the road what happened. It’s always there. That’s the case for everybody I would assume.”

Logano said he and Hamlin weren’t buddies away from the track during his four years in the No. 20 Cup car at JGR. Hamlin said nothing went on in their relationship that would lead to what has happened this season.

“I felt like [it was] an OK relationship off the racetrack as teammates,” Hamlin said. “On the racetrack, we didn’t go to him for as much information as they probably came to us. I think at times during our tenure as teammates he felt like I probably raced him too hard at times. There was times when I felt he raced me too hard as teammates.

“That went back and forth a little bit behind the scenes, but definitely not the displeasure for each other like we’ve seen the first few races this year.”

The post Denny Hamlin apologizes for bump appeared first on IdealCapper.

NASCAR also will not penalize six drivers called to the hauler after the California race for entering pit road following the checkered flag when pit road was closed. Neither Stewart nor Logano was called to the hauler.

“A few years ago, we backed away from micromanaging a driver’s emotions,” Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said on Tuesday. “You would hope in today’s world that if somebody didn’t win a race they would be upset about it for whatever reason.

“That’s what our drivers do, they try to win races.”

Darby said there’s a limit to what NASCAR will allow, noting “if guys get in a helluva fight, yeah, we’re going to have to react.”

But Darby said what happened with Stewart and Logano did not put anybody in danger, as was the case in 2011 when Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick were docked $25,000 each for a pit road incident at Darlington.

In that incident, Harvick took a swing at Busch, who remained in his car. Busch then tried to pull away, pushing Harvick’s car into the inside retaining walls with safety workers and crew members in the area.

Darby said there was nothing in the Stewart-Logano incident that came close to that.

Stewart was upset that Logano blocked him on the final restart and that Denny Hamlin was injured in an ensuing wreck that occurred racing Logano for the lead.

After the race, Stewart cut off Logano’s car on pit road with his, approached the Penske Racing driver and then shoved him in the chest. A scuffle erupted between the drivers and team members. Stewart followed that with a verbal assault.

“Dumb little son-of-a-b—- runs us clear down to the infield,” Stewart said in a taped interview shown on Fox’s live broadcast after the race with the profanities bleeped out. “He wants to b—- about everybody else and he’s the one who drives like a little b—-. I’m going to bust his ass.”

Because the words were bleeped out, there was no violation. Darby said there was no foul in the entire incident.

“A couple of drivers at the end of the race arguing a little bit doesn’t create a foul in our world today,” he said. “The crews did a great job of managing their drivers to make sure it didn’t cross the line to where there was physical violence or anything like that. That’s what you’d hope for.

“That’s another example of the state of competition in NASCAR racing, the disappointment that comes sometimes when you don’t win a race. I don’t see any foul there at all.”

As for Hamlin, who suffered a compression fracture in the L1 vertebra of his lower back, it was determined late Tuesday that he won’t need surgery but will be sidelined at least six weeks.

Joe Gibbs Racing said in a statement that Dr. Jerry Petty of Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates will determine “when Hamlin will be able to return to racing this season.”
If he heals according to Petty’s estimated timeline, he’d only miss five races because NASCAR is off this weekend.

Darby said Hamlin’s car that ran into a concrete inside retaining wall will be studied by NASCAR. He said NASCAR and experts also will review where Hamlin’s car hit to determine if recommendations will be made for the track to install SAFER barriers there.

The post NASCAR: No penalties needed appeared first on IdealCapper.

NASCAR chairman Brian France and International Speedway Corporation chairman Lesa France Kennedy met individually with the Penske Racing driver on Friday to strongly emphasize he needs to more informed before speaking.

“Everybody loves Brad’s candor, Brian included,” Brett Jewkes, NASCAR’s chief communications officer, said on Saturday. “But there are some things Brad’s not as informed on. He’s not aware of things that are being worked on or achieved.

“The message Brian wanted to send was you need to understand the issues you’re talking about a little deeper before you talk about them.”

Keselowski was not penalized. He declined through members of his public relations department to discuss the meeting. His only comments came via Twitter.

“Spent some time with the Lesa and Brian from the NASCAR team after yesterday’s [USA Today] article, the passion we all share for our sport is amazing!” Keselowski wrote.

Jewkes said the meeting was not just about the USA Today article. He did not specify what Keselowski said to earn a trip to France’s office across the street from Daytona International Speedway two days before the Daytona 500.

But Keselowski did mention France and his sister directly along the lines of sponsors, teams and tracks not always working together with NASCAR.

“And until all three of those can unite, we’re a house divided, and we’re making bad decisions that are affecting how to generate revenue for the sport,” Keselowski said in the newspaper.

This is not the first time Keselowski has been called on the carpet for being outspoken. He was fined $25,000 in 2011 for criticizing NASCAR’s move to fuel injection.

He also was fined $25,000 for tweeting during a red flag stoppage last year at Phoenix, defying a request by NASCAR that drivers don’t carry cell phones inside their cars after he tweeted during a stoppage in the 2012 Daytona 500.

“Brad has been asking for more dialogue with Brian,” Jewkes said. “He wants to be a leader in the garage. Frankly, Brian wants more dialogue with him. [Friday], there was a good reason to have dialogue.”

Tony Stewart predicted this might happen. The three-time champion said during last year’s banquet that Keselowski hasn’t learned to be cautious and encouraged people to let him be himself.

“Hopefully, that won’t bite him like it has a lot of drivers in the past,” Stewart said of Keselowski being outspoken. “It’s refreshing. It’s nice to see somebody who just speaks from the heart and isn’t guarded, and that’s the way all of us should be.

“I think that’s what the fans want to hear. But I’m so scared that at some point, somebody is going to turn on him, and it goes downhill from there.”

Four-time champion Jeff Gordon said he could see NASCAR wanting Keselowski to be more informed.

“It’s not out of the ordinary for a new champion to feel confident to be able to express an opinion on things,” he said. “Brad cares a lot about the sport. He’s not trying to do anything that would hurt the sport. When you’re that open, it doesn’t surprise me NASCAR is wanting to talk about it.”

Jewkes made it clear the meeting was not to discourage Keselowski from speaking his mind.

“The most important thing is Brian wants him to be candid,” Jewkes said of Keselowski. “He wants him to speak his mind. But we all prefer he be up to speed on everything.”

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