NASCAR Fontana 2013: Following pit road fight, Stewart calls out Logano

Tony Stewart has made his contempt for drivers who deliberately block him known.

That disdain was unleashed during Sunday’s NASCAR race at Auto Club Speedway when Stewart threw punches at Joey Logano, who had blocked him on a late-race restart as the two were battling for the lead.

“For a guy that has been complaining about how everybody else is driving here and then for him to do that (block) it’s a double standard,” Stewart said. “He makes the choice. He makes the decision to run us down there and when you run a driver down there then you take responsibility for what happens after that.”

Logano said he was merely defending his position and that if it were earlier in the race he would have conceded the spot. But with 10 laps remaining Logano felt that if he let Stewart get to the inside of him it would have cost him any chance for the victory.

“What I was doing actually was I was racing the 18 (Kyle Busch) on the restart and he was spinning his tires,” Logano said. “The rule is you can’t beat him to the start/finish line so I am pedaling it which gave Tony the run to go underneath me.

“I wanted to block that because I knew if he put me three-wide that would be the end of my race and I wouldn’t win. I was smart enough to realize that. Then I had to just do what I had to do to get to the front and try to win the race.”

Obviously, Stewart didn’t see it that way and as the two were driving back to the garage Stewart pulled his car in front of Logano’s and got out of his Chevrolet to express his displeasure. From there thing quickly escalated with Stewart throwing punches -- none of which connected, according to Logano -- and their crews quickly jumping into the fray.

“He is a tough guy on pit road as soon as one of his crew guys gets in the middle of it,” Stewart said in the garage afterward. “Until then he’s a scared little kid. “Then he wants to sit there and throw a water bottle at me.

“He is going to learn a lesson. ... He’s run his mouth long enough. He has sat there and done this double standard and he’s nothing but a little rich kid that has never had to work in his life. He’s going to learn with us working guys that had to work our way up how it works.”

Stewart also took umbrage with how Logano raced Denny Hamlin for the lead on the final lap, a duel that culminated with the two leaders wrecking coming to the checkered flag and Hamlin slamming violently into the inside retaining wall.

“He has that right (to block),” Stewart said. “He has the choice to do that. He’s in control of his car. But 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 three-time Cup champion also made it clear that he has no desire to talk about the issue further with Logano.

“Hell no,” Stewart said when asked if he would take a phone call from Logano. “If he wants to talk about it, we’ll talk about it. After he threw the water bottle at me like a little girl, we’ll go at it now.”