Relationship as it's always been for Stewart, Zipadelli (cont'd)

"You show me a guy that doesn't get frustrated like that, and I'll show you a guy that I can beat nine weeks out of 10, every year, for the rest of my life. That's what this is about."

Zipadelli didn't disagree. "People are only caring about because it was aired," he said. "They probably haven't listed to the last 10 years."

It's not uncommon for snippets of radio conversation to give listeners a false impression of the relationship between a driver and crew chief. In the heat of competition, finger-pointing, complaints and harsh words are almost common, and most times the issue is forgotten as soon as the race is over. The way Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. squabble over the radio has led some to believe they can't stand one another, when in actuality the cousins are about as close as a driver and a crew chief can be. Carl Edwards and his crew chief, Bob Osborne, engaged in a public shouting match during a rain delay earlier this season at Pocono, patching things up in time to win the race. In that context, the exchange between Stewart and Zipadelli was not necessarily out of the ordinary.

"It's no secret that ESPN and I don't get along. Anytime that we do anything that they can use to make us look bad, they jump all over it," Stewart said. "That's fine. It doesn't even bother us anymore.

"But they have brought a lot of great things to the sport, and that's the kind of thing that makes it more exciting to the fans, being able to hear that, and to understand the disappointment. If I get out of the car and they didn't hear that, they don't understand why I'm upset. It's things like that that help educate them more and bring them more in tune with why I was so upset after the race. And there are a lot of races where, finishing fifth, I'm ecstatic and I feel like I've hit the lottery. That was a particular day where we had a winning car and we ended up second, and how we ended up that way wasn't acceptable."

It's been that kind of season for Stewart, whose finishes have run the gamut from good to poor to disastrous, and enters Sunday's Chase opener seeded eighth in the 12-man field. He's in the midst of a 40-race skid dating back to his last Sprint Cup victory at Watkins Glen in 2007. This from a guy with two championships and 32 race wins. No wonder the frustration boiled over.

"It's just been weird stuff all year that's kept us out of Victory Lane, and in a season like that, you get frustrated, saying 'When is this bad luck going to stop?'" he said. "With 40 laps to go [Sunday], we thought we were in a position to finally get this monkey off our backs and move on, and that didn't happen. We want to win as a team, we want to finish strong. ... It's frustration because of a bad year, and it's not because Zippy and I aren't working together. We've been in position to win a lot this year. We've just had stuff get in the way. And it makes it hard for all of us to be in a situation like that."

So if you're looking for any sort of apology for Stewart's comments over the radio, forget it. Nobody understands that more Zipadelli, who knows Stewart better than just about anyone, and seems reluctant for their relationship to end.

"To be honest with you, if I had my way, he'd be in there the next four years of my contract," said Zipadelli, who will oversee 18-year-old rookie driver Joey Logano next year. "I didn't ask for this, or to be split. Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I upset or angry? No. I understand. It was just another week."