RELATED: O’Donnell discusses contact between Newman, Stewart
CHICAGO — Sometimes putting the regular season to rest also means burying the bygone grudges, clearing the decks of any lingering hard feelings as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs becomes the prime focus.
For the 16 playoff-eligible drivers, some differences have been aired out — and some not — after an especially chippy regular-season finale last weekend at Richmond International Raceway that left both teammates and old rivals at odds with each other. For all concerned, it’s back to business this weekend with another brand of intensity in Sunday’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM), the first event of the 10-race Chase for the championship at Chicagoland Speedway.
One on-track altercation that bubbled into post-race bitterness in televised interviews will require NASCAR competition officials to mediate the disagreement to make sure it goes no further. NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell said Monday that he expects to consult with Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman regarding their late-race run-in last Saturday night.
RELATED: Photos of the big wreck at Richmond
Stewart said Thursday from the annual Ready. Set. Chase. launch events at Chicago’s Bridgeport Art Center that he expected the meeting to be preemptive in nature, to keep any animosity from festering after Newman questioned Stewart’s anger management and composure in post-race interviews at Richmond.
“I haven’t heard anything from him,” Stewart said of his former teammate as he enters the final Chase of his Sprint Cup driving career, “but it’s like I said, it would be easy to take it personal. But I mean, that was the deciding factor in his season whether he was going to make the Chase or not. So we’ve been friends a long time, we’ve been teammates and I respect him a lot.
“It’s a high-pressure moment, and I’ve been in those, too, and I’ve said things. Whether he meant to say it or not or whether he still believes it or not, that’s up to him, but that moment is a hard moment for any of us. It’s tough in that scenario.”
Newman, who was the highest-ranking driver to miss the Chase field, also played a role in a small but curious dust-up between Hendrick Motorsports teammates. Newman forced his way into a three-wide battle early on at Richmond, nudging Jeff Gordon — Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s substitute in the No. 88 Chevrolet — into rookie Chase Elliott, Gordon’s successor in the No. 24 Chevy.
WATCH: Elliott finds the wall after contact with Gordon
That slight issue, Elliott indicated, appears to be resolved.
“He sent me a text after the race. I knew it wasn’t his fault,” Elliott said. “I wasn’t concerned with it at all. It was a racing deal and you hate, of course, it had to be two teammates and it had to be myself and Jeff, but at the end of the day, we both get it and our teams get it. … He did give me an apology, but it was not necessary whatsoever.”
One on-again, off-again conflict among Matt Kenseth and Team Penske‘s Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano also resurfaced at Richmond. Kenseth and Keselowski have been involved in far bigger rhubarbs than the contact that flared up last weekend, but a certain testy tinge laced Kenseth’s post-race interview.
Each shared common ground in Thursday’s pre-Chase media rounds, focusing on securing their second premier-series championship and minimizing any potential bad blood between the two.
“I don’t want to play the conversation game,” Keselowski said. “I don’t think I need to have a whole media discussion about any time there’s a small bump on the race track, whether it’s me or somebody else. It’s just how racing’s going to be. When it’s egregious and there’s things that happen, that’s one thing. (Expletive) just happens, (expletive) just happens and we don’t have to play drama queen for everything. That’s kind of how I feel about it.”
WATCH: Kenseth frustrated with Keselowski at Richmond
Kenseth offered a flat “no” when asked if Team Penske‘s two-driver stable was successfully playing mind games with him.
“We didn’t really talk about it and I didn’t really re-watch any of that, so I don’t know,” Kenseth said in response to Keselowski’s post-race remarks. “We didn’t really talk about it.”
RELATED: Meet all 16 Chase drivers
Two more teammates — Richard Childress Racing‘s Austin Dillon and Paul Menard — had a chance to settle their squabble by sharing a ride back to North Carolina on the team plane. Dillon, who had on-track clashes for running room with Menard in successive weeks, found an empty seat on the plane beside his teammate and took it.
“Well, I’m learning a lot about relationships — I’m engaged,” said Dillon, who is prepping for his first Chase this season. “And communication is everything, and communicating with him was a good start to it. I’ve always had a good relationship with Paul. We both love a lot of the same things — we love the outdoors, we love racing.
“I just wanted to tell him, ‘Hey, I’m not doing this on purpose or any certain way. I’m just racing hard,’ and he said the same thing.”
The hard racing — and potentially the tensions that accompany it — are expected to continue over the next 10 weeks, starting this weekend in Chicagoland.
