NASCAR Season Finale - Ford 400 at Homestead, on NBC Sunday 11/20, at 3:30pm ET

NASCAR / Jayski ^

[WestCoastGal]

Wake up everybody the truck race is finally on!!

I've been waiting all night.


Just kidding!

[WestCoastGal]

Wow Smoke is up already in a boat fishing! I'm shocked I tell ya.

[WestCoastGal]

Reutiman having some sort of clutch issue, slowing up.

[SouthTexas]

Glock, in Texas we schedule a Nascar race.

Still need someone to 'splain THAT wisdom to me.

[SouthTexas]

I stayed up all night waiting and then went to sleep and missed the start. :(

Have to go to work here in a minute.

[SouthTexas]

Erin Crocker catches the wall bringing out a caution. She had "assistance".

[WestCoastGal]

MM taking them all to school through his spotter. LOL

[WestCoastGal]

Little Shrub almost catches the wall.

9 spins in front of Skinner. Whoa!!

[WestCoastGal]

This is a great read................

Posted on Fri, Nov. 18, 2005

Dale Earnhardt's death took a toll on Stewart

By RICK MINTER

Cox News Service


HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Tony Stewart's tortured run to the Nextel Cup championship in 2002, and his remarkable turnaround this year, have been the talk of NASCAR all season.
But on Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, while Stewart was preparing to protect his 52-point lead going into Sunday's season finale, his mother offered her explanations for Stewart's behavior, past and present.

It seems that those seeking explanations for Stewart's run-ins with a photographer and reporter and the problems his behavior caused for his team in 2002 should have looked to the year before, to the death of Dale Earnhardt.

"That really hurt him," Pam Boas said. "He and Dale were so connected that he lost a piece of himself when he lost Dale."

Boas, who is divorced from Stewart's father, Nelson, said the loss of Earnhardt came after a series of similar heart-breaking events. First, in 1996, Stewart's Indy Racing League teammate, veteran Scott Brayton, died in a crash in practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Then, in 2000, Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty were killed in racing crashes.

But Earnhardt's death at Daytona in 2001 seems to have affected him the most, Boas said.

"It was his friend, somebody he had looked up to as a kid," Boas said. "Then when he actually got there and could be next to him, he found that they had such close personalities, such similar likes and dislikes.

"Both are fun-loving, love to do things to tease. That is ever so much Tony Stewart. He loves life. He loves to have a good time with people. That's what Dale Earnhardt was like, and he lost that. He lost his friend."

She said Earnhardt's death made it hard for her son to get back on the track and perform all the other duties expected of him. His new-found mentor was gone.

"It's really difficult when you know you have to go back out there and face the track with the same thought that it could happen to him as well, or any of his other buddies out there," she said.

There soon came a point, Boas said, when it all became too much for Stewart to handle.

"It was tough trying to deal emotionally with all of that, plus trying to honor all the commitments that you have, all of the people that want a piece of you," she said. "He finally came to a point when he didn't know how to deal with it, and that's when other drivers stepped in."

Veterans Dale Jarrett and Mark Martin talked to Stewart, but the one who seemed to help him the most was Mike Wallace, who has spent his entire Cup career in shadows of the top stars, including his own brother, Rusty.

Wallace said he talked to Stewart last summer during race week at Daytona International Speedway, sharing personal experiences from his

There's a bit more here

[tubebender]

I thought everyone shot their deer from their bedroom window...

[SouthTexas]

They're having major problems with restarts. Back to the "cautions breed cautions". Slick track from the track dryer residue.

[SouthTexas]

Neighbors get a bit agitated about that these days.

[WestCoastGal]

Yep, this will go on for awhile. Busch qualifying is scheduled to start at 10 central time. Hope they're done by then or it doesn't rain.

[tubebender]

I'll be danged! There is a race going on. I must get ready for "work". Coffee and Donuts with old friends and new enemies..

[SouthTexas]

The trucks do need to run for a while and get some rubber put down. Forecast still looks pretty bad.

[SouthTexas]

New Nascar schedule, all races in the same day. I've got two projects I need to be doing right now, real work and work a daughter's. Decisions, decisions.

[SouthTexas]

a=at

[Pete-R-Bilt]

I've been waiting all night.

______________________________________________________

fibber!

I watched the last fiddy laps when I got home at 1am local and I know you were asleep, I could here y'all snorin...

[SouthTexas]

Bodine pulled off three in a row. Spinnin' and bangin' on the white flag laps, all behind the leader.

Now I DO have to go to work. BBL

[AGreatPer]

Excellent article on Steward. Makes sense. He really is wound tight though. He seems to be controlling it.