Tony Stewart was as mad as you’ve ever seen him; The series co-owner plans to have private drivers meeting next week addressing out of control drivers
On Saturday night, the Camping World SRX Series went bullring racing at South Boston Speedway. Fireworks and tempers ignited throughout the garage area.
Watch the Tony Stewart vs Ernie Francis Jr altercation below.
Tony Stewart and Ernie Francis Jr made contact on the track during the heat race. Under caution, Stewart then ran into Francis Jr as payback.
After the on-track incidents, Tony Stewart was seeing red as he pulled to the pit lane after the race. He jumped out of his car in a hurry.
Stewart walked over to Ernie Francis Jr and grabbed onto his firesuit. He then began screaming.
South Boston Results: June 25, 2022 (SRX Series)
Tony Stewart comments
“They’ve pissed off Uncle Tony right now,” Stewart said after the altercation.
“They’re about to get a dose of it that they don’t want. Trust me, I know every dirty trick and got it in my bag.”
“When you’re following somebody and a guys on the outside, as soon as he gets clear, he just turns down across. That’s the dumbest shit you could do.”
“I’m just done playing nice with everybody. Anybody that touches me, I’m touching back, times five. Done jacking with some of these clowns.”
Ernie Francis Jr comments
“He came over afterwards, pretty upset,” Ernie Francis Jr stated.
“I’m not going to take that from him. I know he’s the boss but rubbing is racing out there.”
“He got up on my inside, I didn’t see him there as I was two wide Andretti. I turned down and didn’t see his car in there at the last second.”
“For him to hit me under caution, that’s kind of a dirty move there. That’s the kinda stuff that Paul Tracy does.”
“For him to come in after me and push me around, after, I’m not going to take that from him. It is what it is.”
“We’re going to work on this car. We’ll see if we can get to his back bumper,” Francis Jr concluded just ahead of the main event.
The two drivers weren’t near each other at any point in the main event. They had no further contact in the night.
Tony Stewart comments after the feature win; Plans to give all the drivers a ‘Dad talk’
“Seeing these fans cheering, every time we took the lead. That’s what kept the motivation going,” Tony Stewart said from victory lane.
“It’s not like I need much motivation. But, when you got fans at South Boston cheering like that, I’m not going to let them down.”
As far as incidents, the feature was more of the same. Many cars ended up destroyed. The amount of torn up cars has him fairly frustrated as a co-owner of the series itself.
“I’m honored to race with this group of guys that we get to race with. But, some of them, there’s some habits they have from other divisions that aren’t acceptable at short track races,” Stewart told Matt Weaver.
“We need to all have that mindset. And, understand that we’re tearing up stuff that we don’t have a deep enough bullpen of crew guys to fix all these cars and maintain this kind of pace, for 6 weeks.”
“If we want to have good cars, we gotta start taking care of them better. And, we gotta start taking care of each other better, on the race track.”
“It doesn’t mean you don’t race hard and try to win. But, there’s gotta be a better way to do it. I mean, these last two weeks have been a little out of control.”
“Tonight, I’m not real proud of our group, as a whole. But, I’m going to give them the ‘Dad Talk’ next weekend.”
“Were going to have the driver’s meeting. Then, we’re going to go into the motorhome and have another driver’s meeting. There’s going to get the ‘Dad Talk’, what happened tonight, we’re not going to do that the next four weeks. We won’t have racecars and it’s not fair to these crew guys.”
Tony Stewart confronts Ernie Francis Jr
Links
Tony Stewart | Ernie Francis Jr | South Boston Speedway | SRX Series
