Motorsports

Rookie Hamlin sweeps; Dale Jr. struggles again

Meanwhile, Tony Stewart's aggressive driving and behavior fires tempers at Pocono.

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 24, 2006

LONG POND, Pa. - As Denny Hamlin celebrated his second win of the season, chaos reigned in NASCAR's garage.

Carl Edwards threatened to beat up Tony Stewart. Clint Bowyer also wanted to, but couldn't get close enough to try.

Stewart, meanwhile, was pining for the days when the late Dale Earnhardt policed the garage and kept order on the track.

Just another day at Pocono Raceway, where Hamlin completed a season sweep by winning a Pennsylvania 500 that had two aggressive driving penalties and saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. take another hit in his title hopes.

"Covering drama is more exciting than covering the race anymore," quipped runnerup Kurt Busch. "It's exciting out there. When guys are very adamant about gaining one spot versus the next, it heats up with each race closing toward the Chase."

It was sizzling Sunday, when Bowyer pinched Stewart into the wall very early in the race. Stewart responded with a wave out his window, then his own bump of Bowyer's car. It sent Bowyer spinning into Carl Edwards and earned Stewart a one-lap penalty for aggressive driving.

A furious Edwards later drove alongside Stewart and raised his arms as if to ask, "What was that about?" Stewart responded with an obscene gesture. That infuriated Edwards, who spun Stewart out on pit road to earn his own penalty, and vowed to fight Stewart after the race.

"I've got to choose my words carefully. If it weren't for the respect of the sport and the people watching and his team, he'd be out there bleeding right now," Edwards fumed. "That's so frustrating. How can a person make it this far in life being such a jerk?

"I want to like Tony. If you hold that guy up, like if he thinks you held him up, he gets so upset and then he can wreck two guys and give you the finger. That's spectacularly self-centered. I can't imagine being like that."

Stewart recovered to finish seventh, and get back into the Chase for the Championship at 10th place in the standings, and seemed rather pleased with the day's events as he stood outside his car on pit road.

But as he gave his take, a furious Bowyer had marched out to meet with him, only to be unable to get past the front of the car. Had he made it, Stewart would have been ready with a stern Earnhardt-like lecture.

"I think if the No. 3 car was here, I don't think we would have the same problems in this series as we have," Stewart said. "He always had a way of letting drivers know where they stood and when to move and when not to move. It's just the first-year and second-year drivers that don't understand that there needs to be a little give and take.

"There is only a handful of guys that don't get it, but the problem (is) that they are in good race cars and they don't run up front enough to learn from the rest of us how to race up front."

Earnhardt Jr., meanwhile, fell out of the top 10 after a hit from Dave Blaney sent him into the wall and out of the race. He finished 43rd for the second straight week and needed time to cool off before coming out of his transporter. Third in the points two weeks ago, Junior is 11th in the standings, 15 points behind the 10th-place Stewart, with six races to go to qualify for the Chase.

Hamlin doesn't have such worries, not after scoring his second career victory. The first came six weeks ago here when he recovered from a spin and needed to hold off NASCAR's heavyweights on a late restart.

This one was far easier, with Hamlin leading 151 of the 200 laps in what turned into a leisurely drive for one of NASCAR's budding young stars.

He's eighth in the points standings and if he can hang on another six weeks, Hamlin will find himself racing for the Nextel Cup title.

"We'll just keep plugging away. That's all we can do," he said. "Fate is going to decide this Chase.

"We are in right now, we are just going to try and stay there."

Hamlin became the sixth driver to sweep the season at Pocono, and did it from the pole both times. Pretty impressive for a kid who never had seen the track before he showed up last month and used video games to learn his way around it.

"For Denny's first two times here, undefeated is pretty incredible," crew chief Mike Ford said. "Two poles, two wins, he really adapted to this track well."

Jeff Gordon was third and was followed by Brian Vickers, Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson.

[Last modified July 24, 2006, 01:11:13]