If you see Tony coming, better get a good grip

 Tony Stewart: 'drawing a line in the sand' (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
 

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   Even if it winds up costing Stewart a spot in the championship playoffs.
   "Honestly, whether they agree or disagree, I don't care," Stewart says. "I've drawn my line in the sand, and the next guy that blocks me, he is going to also suffer the same fate.  It doesn’t matter who it is.  That's what it's going to be."
   Of course Vickers retaliated at Sonoma and put Stewart up on top of a stack of tires, taking him out of a shot at the win.
   "I'll make sure when I do it next time that the guy doesn't have the opportunity to come back and wreck me," Stewart said.
   Even if it costs him a shot at the championship?       
    "It might, it very well might," Stewart says.
    "I'm going to stay the course on it.  I'm just to the point where I'm fed up with some of the ways some of these guys are racing each other. 
    "If we miss the chase because of it, then so be it. And that's not what the team is going to want to hear, that's not what our sponsors are going to want to hear. But so be it.
    "There are 42 guys out there, and they know how I race, and they know what I expect. And I don't race them that way; I don't block guys, and I'm not going to block guys. 
    "If they block me, then they will suffer the consequences."
   Stewart insists it's nothing personal. In fact Stewart said he's already talked with Vickers.
    "He was one of the first people I saw, and we were laughing about it and talking about it," Stewart said. "He told me that he wasn't blocking. 
    "I just explained to him that 'Of all people, I didn't want it to be you.' 
     "I told him that I had drawn a line in the sand with the guys that were doing it. 
     "We didn't even agree to disagree….because he explained his side, and I understood his side, and he understood my side. 
     "I've talked to other drivers too, and I didn't anticipate the kind of support I'm getting with some of these guys. 
     "It's not the whole field, by any means. I haven't talked to everybody. 
     "I did talk to two or three guys, and the two or three guys I spoke to agreed that it's a problem that's getting worse, not better."