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No hard feelings against Stewart, ESPN says

Driver ripped network for critical coverage after his win at Chicago

Image: Tony StewartGetty Images
Tony Stewart ripped ESPN for its NASCAR coverage on Friday.

LONG POND, Pa. - Tony Stewart’s feud with ESPN appears to be one-sided.

An ESPN motorsports producer said on Saturday that the network has no beef with the former Nextel Cup champion and has little concern about Stewart recently voicing displeasure with some of its analysts.

“I love Tony Stewart and Tony Stewart has called out everybody in this room at one time or another,” ESPN producer Neil Goldberg said at Pocono Raceway. “Tony is great for the sport. He’s a hard-nosed racer, he goes out there to do a job and he’s going to say what he’s going to say.”

Stewart was agitated ESPN chided him for saying he was going to drink a case of beer to celebrate his July 15 win in Chicago. One analyst said later that Stewart was not a good role model.

He used a curse word on the network after he won at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, resulting in Stewart being fined $25,000 and docked 25 points by NASCAR this week.

“Our drivers are expected to cooperate with the media partners, and he will cooperate with the media partners. We just have to figure out how to do that,” NASCAR chairman Brian France said Saturday at the inaugural Busch Series race in Montreal. “I haven’t talked to him about it. Obviously, he said something on their broadcast that we had to take action against. Our drivers are emotional, he is emotional. We’ll deal with it.”

Goldberg said all drivers are told they are live before going on the air and that he was surprised to hear profanity after a victory.

Stewart bashed the network after qualifying on Friday, wondering why every time he deals with ESPN he leaves with a “dagger on our back.” He accused the network of only being interested in digging up dirt and starting controversy with drivers.

“The good thing is it’s my opinion and my decision whether I want to deal with you or not, and right now I don’t want to deal with you anymore,” Stewart told an ESPN reporter on Friday.

ESPN will televise Sunday’s Pennsylvania 500.

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“I didn’t get to hear his comments, but I was briefed on them,” Goldberg said. “Nobody controls what Tony says. We’re all professionals and everything always works out. He will make his choices and everything will be fine.”

Stewart has won two straight races and is in fifth place in the Nextel Cup points standings.

“You win two races in a row and everyone says you’ve got a big momentum run,” Stewart said. “I’m hoping we’ve got over the bad luck slump. We should have won six or seven races by this time of year already.”

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This Bud could be for Kasey Kahne.

With Budweiser and Dale Earnhardt Jr. parting ways after this season because Junior is jumping to Hendrick Motorsports, the beer company could be close to a deal to sponsor the slumping Evernham Motorsports driver.

Michael Delahanty, a senior manager in the Dodge Motorsports program, said on Saturday that Budweiser was interested in teaming up with Kahne and team owner Ray Evernham.

“Yes, we’ve had those discussions with Ray,” he said. “We’ve been talking with our dealers in terms of how we want to involve that relationship going forward. We’ve had the discussions of Budweiser possibly taking the place of the Dodge presence on one of the cars.”

On Friday, Chrysler became an American company again as Cerberus Capital Management gained a controlling share from Chrysler’s German owners. Delahanty said that wouldn’t affect Dodge’s sponsorship with its race teams.

Evernham, Kahne and Elliott Sadler met with Dodge officials Tuesday in Detroit to discuss the vision of the program going forward. Sadler is 23rd in the points standings and Kahne, who won six races last season, has dropped to 28th this year.

“We’re convinced Ray has gotten a handle on how to get his program back on track,” Delahanty said.


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