In what turned out to be the best finish in the history of Auto Club Speedway, Tony Stewart seems to have contracted situation amnesia. In the final restart Joey Logano, running second at the time, had to “peddle” the throttle to keep from beating leader Kyle Busch back to the line. Stewart who was lined up behind Logano, ducked to the inside and attempted to go three wide and have get a shot at the win. Logano performed a maneuver that every driver performs at any given time at any racetrack, he pulled down and blocked.
Logano admitted he blocked saying, “What I was actually doing was I was racing the 18 on the restart and he was spinning his tires. the rule is you can’t beat him to the start finish line so I am pedaling it which gave Tony the run underneath me. I wanted to block that because i knew if he put me three-wide that would be the end of my race and I wouldn’t win. I was smart enough to realize that. Then I had to just do what I had to do to get to the front and try to win the race.”
This act of blocking is something that is very common, especially at wide racetracks such as Fontana, Michigan, Pocono and of course Talladega. In fact, it seems that Stewart has a huge double standard. It was Stewart who caused a huge crash at Talladega last year when he was trying to block and mis-judged the car below him, clipping that car and setting off the crash.
Stewart has a history of losing his temper and being inconsistent with that temper. Tony is one of the best drivers in the garage area, however, he should re-examine his issues with Logano. I dare say Tony would have blocked all he could to try to win that race, and I wouldn’t have blamed him at all, just as I do not blame Logano. Tony Stewart has an impressive resume’, and I respect that, I do not respect ANY driver who thinks the rules apply differently to themselves than they do to others.
