Why does Tony Stewart want to 'choke' Danica's boyfriend?

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

CONCORD, N.C. -- Tony Stewart said he loves rookie Ricky Stenhouse Jr. "like he's family," but is fed up with how Stenhouse and other young drivers are racing.

"Ricky Stenhouse, I'd choke him right now if I could get to him," Stewart told Sirius XM Radio after Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600. "One more lap of having to mess around with him... "

Stewart cited his strong anti-blocking stance as the reason he's upset with Stenhouse, who also happens to be the boyfriend of Stewart's own rookie driver, Danica Patrick. Stewart did not name her specifically.

Stenhouse and Patrick were involved in a wreck Sunday night that ensnared defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski, who shouldered the blame for starting the crash that knocked him out of the race.

"Everybody that thinks this crap of blocking is productive, they don't know honestly what racing is all about," Stewart said. "And the guys that do it who think it's acceptable, I lose respect for them every day."

Stewart said he wants to sit in on one of NASCAR's regular rookie meetings just to hear what NASCAR officials tell the drivers. When he was a rookie in 1999, former official Gary Nelson used to sternly tell Stewart and his peers about the on-track etiquette.

"He told us,'Hey, if you hold a guy up and he wrecks you, you're to blame. You did it to yourself,'" Stewart said.

But now, the three-time champion said NASCAR doesn't want to get involved in it and no drivers are willing to take a stand like former drivers and champions Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace once did. Stewart is curious to hear the lessons rookie drivers get from NASCAR.

Rookie drivers these days race the same way they raced in the Nationwide Series, Stewart said, which "wasn't acceptable when I was a rookie in Cup." Back then, he said, the veterans would move a blocking driver out of the way.

Stewart would do it himself, he said, but fans are still mad at him over an incident where he blocked last year at Talladega and caused a big wreck -- which made him look like a hypocrite in some eyes.

"I didn't like doing it then, I don't like it and I don't believe in it," he said.

This is hardly the first time Stewart has gone public with his hatred of blocking.

Last year, while he was serving as the ESPN "In-Race Reporter" at the Brickyard 400, he told a national TV audience that he'd "park" the next driver who blocked him in the race.

And in March, Stewart became incensed with Joey Logano after getting blocked on a key restart. He confronted Logano on pit road and threw a punch before crews separated the two drivers.

"He has that right, he has the choice to do that," Stewart said then. "If he ever turns down across in front of me again, I don't care what lap it is, he won't make it through the other end of it."

The blocking argument was a key storyline in NASCAR for a couple weeks after that, and one driver called it a 'chicken' move.

The former IndyCar driver said Sunday's Indianapolis 500 was a perfect example of how great a race can be when drivers don't block each other. But in the Coke 600, he said, drivers were already blocking 20 laps into a 400-lap race. It should be noted that blocking in an IndyCar could lead to catastrophic results if the cars touched, whereas NASCAR's boxier cars, where the driver is completely enclosed, are built to withstand some harder hits.

"I always said I'd choke those (IndyCar) guys if I raced with them, but that was the most respectful race I saw and probably the best Indy 500 I ever saw," he said. "It shows when those guys, no matter what series it is, if you race each other with respect and actually race each other, it can put on a good show. You don't have to sit there and block and gouge everybody to get a good race."

In NASCAR, though, Stewart said respectful racing is "something we're losing." He said if no one from NASCAR decides it's unacceptable and there's no self-policing, then drivers have no choice but to do it just for the sake of remaining competitive.

"If you can't look at (the racing in Indy and Charlotte) and see a difference, you're not really a racer or a true race fan," he said.

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck

PHOTOS: 2013 Coca-Cola 600











