Stewart slams Goodyear

Throughout the first 69 laps of Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout, a handful of drivers proved their prowess with great saves in the corners. Elliott Sadler had no chance, but that didn't mean he was without one great and wise move shortly thereafter. When Junior pulled around to Sadler's wreck scene to apologize (just another one of those things people like about him), Sadler was smart enough to gladly accept and move along. Not much future being on the wrong side of that argument.

With the exception of Junior's last-lap slip, the majority of fish-tailing was blamed –by Stewart, anyway –on rockier right-side rubber. A year ago, Stewart's post-Shootout concern was slam-drafting. This time, he took aim at an old nemesis of his: The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Others might be thinking it, but as usual, Tony goes public, blaming the new tires "Goodyear was nice enough to bless us with."

"I'm curious why we had a harder right-side tire this time around," he continued. "That's been Goodyear's trend, to protect themselves from the tires going down. It really caught a lot of us off-guard."

No doubt it was quite a wakeup call for Kyle Busch, who went skittering off course when Stewart crowded his rear bumper seven laps from the end. It might have cost him the win, but it gained the younger Busch brother one big fan.

"That save he made in Turn 2 will be one of the top five saves of the year," Stewart said. "I thought for sure he was going straight to the wall." Daytona Beach News Journal