Tony Stewart fell one position to seventh in the points after Infineon. Credit: Autostock

Brush with Said, engine woes end Stewart's run

After three consecutive road-course wins, champ finishes 28th

SONOMA, Calif. -- Boris Said unabashedly admits that Tony Stewart is one of his favorite racecar drivers, but that admiration temporarily went out the window in the Dodge/Save Mart 350.

Said and Stewart played roller derby with their racecars on Lap 51 on Sunday at Sonoma, leaving Said wondering what he did to raise the defending Nextel Cup champ's ire.

Tony Stewart led one lap in the Dodge/Save Mart 350. Credit: Autostock

Dodge/Save Mart 350 Official Results Pos. Driver Make 1. Jeff Gordon Chevy 2. Ryan Newman Dodge 3. Terry Labonte Chevy 4. Greg Biffle Ford 5. Kurt Busch Dodge 6. Carl Edwards Ford 7. Jeff Burton Chevy 8. Elliott Sadler Ford 9. Boris Said Ford 10. Jimmie Johnson Chevy • Complete results, click here • Official standings, click here Victory LaneJeff Gordon wins at Infineon for his first victory of the season Late cautionA major wreck in the final laps brings out another red flag Rough dayRobby Gordon's day goes from bad to worse Red flagMulti-car wreck brings out red flag on the first lap Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

"He better be apologizing to me, and I am going to be calling him Monday looking for it," Said said.

The pair was racing for eighth place when Stewart forced Said to the outside of Sonoma's tight Turn 11. The rough side-by-side contact left Said shaking his head.

"Tony Stewart is the greatest racecar driver in the world, and he is a friend, but it's an emotional sport, and I let him by in the beginning," Said said. "I let him back by and he ended up nerfing me off the track.

"I still wasn't mad, but when he was flipping me off, telling me I was No. 1, I was really hot. He is lucky I didn't catch him because I would have turned him around. But I will call him Monday and make up. I am not mad about it."

Stewart, on the other hand, seemed plenty hot.

"I'm not asking him to give me anything. But if a guy gets a run, don't drive him across the racetrack," Stewart said

"Yeah, this is a road-course race, but it's also a NASCAR race. This isn't European road racing where you block and run guys all over the racetrack. We're not going to do that. They're not going to do that to me. I don't care if they do it to the rest of the field, but the one thing I think we established today was that they're not going to race me that way.

"When Boris got a run on me, I didn't change my line or anything. He got under me and got the spot. But both times I got underneath him it was squeeze, squeeze and run me across the racetrack and tear up the nose of my racecar and it ends up hurting the way the car drives all day."

Greg Zipadelli, Stewart's crew chief, dismissed the Said-Stewart contact as close racing.

"That is just road-course racing," Zipadelli said. "If they are not intense about it, those are the guys you don't want driving your car. Tony lost it for a minute, but he got it right back. "

Stewart later suffered an engine problem and wound up 28th. Said finished ninth, easily the best of the road-course ringers.

"We know a lifter was broken, but we don't know exactly how it happened," Stewart said of the engine problem. "We just know it lost a cylinder."

Stewart himself was surprised at how physical Sunday's race was.

"Normally, we're up front and we don't have that problem on a road course," he said. "But you look at some of the good cars that were beat up -- I got a chance to see all of them as they were passing me at the end -- and it seemed like it was an awful rough day to me.

"The ones that I was a little disappointed in were some of the ones I have the most respect for on a road course. You got some guys who should be the best quality guys out here and they're the ones blocking and chopping people's noses off and this and that. It's disappointing we've got to have a race like that."

Stewart entered Sonoma as a strong favorite to win even after qualifying a disappointing 12th. He had won the previous three road-course events on the Nextel Cup schedule, and his car was the best in the field over long runs early in the event.

But Stewart incurred a costly speeding penalty on Lap 32, dropping him to the rear of the field. Stewart was enraged by the penalty, telling Zipadelli that he was sure that he had kept his Chevrolet below the minimum speed.

Stewart had worked his way back to second place by Lap 84, but his motor began to go sour less than 10 laps later. He might have finished in the top 15, but a rash of cautions left him a sitting duck on restarts.

The 28th-place finish was the fifth finish of 12th or worse in the last six races for Stewart.

"You look back at the year after you win a championship, you get all the stupid stuff happen to you that didn't happen the year before," Zipadelli said.