DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It didn’t take long for Tony Stewart to test NASCAR’s proclamation that it would loosen up on the drivers showing their emotions.
He apparently punched fellow driver Kurt Busch when the two were called into the NASCAR hauler to meet with officials following a bumping incident on the race track after the two crashed in Friday night’s practice session for Saturday’s Budweiser Shootout at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
When teams and crew members arrived at Daytona for Saturday morning’s practice, Busch was wearing sunglasses, leading to speculation he was covering up a black eye from one of Stewart’s fists. Later that day at a Gillette “Young Guns” appearance, Busch was without sunglasses and there were no signs of a bruise.
That’s because Stewart hit Busch in the head, according to sources in the garage area. This came after Busch made a disparaging comment about the length of Stewart’s hair and his weight, according to several sources in the garage.
That’s when Stewart supposedly teed off on Busch.
Neither driver would confirm, nor deny a physical altercation took place.
Stewart and Busch were also ordered to another meeting in the NASCAR hauler Saturday morning where they were told to stay away from each other on the race track to avoid future incidents.
NASCAR Vice President of Corporate Communications Jim Hunter was in both meetings with the two combatants.
“You two guys better give each other plenty of space,” Hunter informed them. “You clearly understand where we are with this and we’re going to continue to think about it.”
The incident on the race track developed when Busch tried to block Stewart’s Toyota in practice. Stewart rammed into the back of Busch’s Dodge, triggering the crash.
On the way back to the pit area, Busch began to ram his car into the side of Stewart’s as both continued onto pit road.
“Tony and I are competitors. We always have been and we’re going to be just fine,” Busch said. “We’re going to move forward. We know we need to help each other out in the future so that doesn’t happen again.”
Stewart spoke about his side of the confrontation.
“Kurt got here because he has a lot of talent,” Stewart said. “What Kurt did coming onto pit road…I’ve done a lot worse than what he did, so I’m not going to throw stones about it.
“We’ve met in the NASCAR trailer twice now and we’re both past it and we’re hoping that the media will respect that fact, too, and let us move on from it.”
The two drivers were involved in a similar incident in last June’s race at Dover, Del. After the two cars crashed, Busch rammed his car into Stewart’s while it was being repaired in the pits.
Busch was parked for the remainder of that race by NASCAR officials and fined $100,000 and docked 100 points in the championship.
Both drivers could be penalized for Friday night’s incident.