NASCAR At Infineon Raceway: Tony Stewart Wrecks Brian Vickers, So Vickers Wrecks Him Back

Tony Stewart was tired of Brian Vickers blocking him on lap 38 of Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway.

So he wrecked him. On purpose.

“I dumped him for blocking and he got me back later on,” Stewart said afterward. “If they block, they are going to get dumped. It is real simple. I mean, I don’t blame him for dumping us back. But I don’t race guys that way – I never have. If guys want to block then they are going to wrecked every time.

“Until NASCAR makes a rule against it, I am going to dump them every time for it.”

So what did Vickers do? On lap 87, he wrecked Stewart right back.

“He made his bed at that moment,” Vickers said, “and he had to sleep in it.”

Stewart had no regrets said he’d do it again to anyone who blocks him. The driver/owner said it was nothing personal against Vickers, but just a response to the blocking.

“I don’t care if it was (Stewart-Haas driver) Ryan Newman,” Stewart said, “I would have dumped him, too.”

But Vickers said when Stewart watches the replay, he’ll realize Vickers had slowed to avoid the No. 18 car of Kyle Busch, who had just come back on track after being forced off by Juan Pablo Montoya.

“It’s pretty early in the race to worry about blocking someone, or wrecking someone,” Vickers said. “I think when he sees the replay and he realizes why I went low – if he looks at it out of my front windshield – he’ll realize it had nothing to do with him. It had to do with the 18 almost wrecking me, and a couple of other guys running slow up top.”

Just two days before the race, Stewart complained that the current group of NASCAR drivers don’t respect one another enough on the track.

And after the Vickers incident, Stewart didn’t back down despite being the driver who initiated the Sunday skirmish.

“I don’t know if its lack of respect or guys just pushing the envelope and not working with each other,” Stewart said. “There wasn’t any reason at the point of the race where he started blocking in the first place. It didn’t make sense to do it, and I’m not going to tolerate it.

“I don’t race guys that way and I’m not going to let anybody race me that way. So if they block, they get dumped. Plain and simple.”

Vickers said as far as he was concerned, they were “all square” and didn’t expect NASCAR to get involved.

“He made his move, and I addressed it,” Vickers said. “That’s the end of the discussion.”