NASCAR At Sonoma 2012: Tony Stewart Explains Blocking

When you hear about “blocking” at a road course, you might think of Tony Stewart.

Not because Stewart blocks, but because he freaking hates it when other people do – and he’s likely to take action if it happens (remember Brian Vickers here last year?).

“When I started 14 years ago, they didn’t do that here,” he said Friday at Sonoma, where blocking will be a hot topic again on Sunday. “Seems like every year, the blocking aspect of it gets worse and worse.”

OK, but what exactly does “blocking” entail at a road course? To the untrained eye, it seems like cars are blocking in every single corner, right?

Not so, Stewart said.

“When somebody runs a different line than what they would run by themselves to keep somebody from passing them, that’s blocking,” he said. “That’s easy for everybody to see.”

Stewart said everybody stays on the outside of the track until they get to the corner. At that point, they dive down to the inside to get into the turn.

“So if a guy changes lanes halfway down the straightaway, he’s not doing it because it’s a faster line to get him into the corner,” Stewart said. “He’s doing it because he’s blocking.”

And if Stewart thinks a driver is blocking? That person is probably going for a ride.