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Tony Stewart was angry like you’ve never seen him; The series co-owner plans to hold a private drivers meeting next week to discuss runaway drivers
On Saturday night, the Camping World SRX Series competed in the bullring at South Boston Speedway. Fireworks and temper ignited throughout the garage area.
Watch the altercation between Tony Stewart and Ernie Francis Jr. below.
Tony Stewart and Ernie Francis Jr made contact on the track during the heat race. Under caution, Stewart then confronted Francis Jr. in revenge.
Following the on-track incident, Tony Stewart saw red as he pulled into the pit lane after the race. He jumped out of his car in a hurry.
Stewart went to Ernie Francis Jr. and grabbed his firefighter suit. Then he started screaming.
South Boston Results: June 25, 2022 (SRX Series)
Comments by Tony Stewart
“You just pissed off Uncle Tony,” Stewart said after the altercation.
“They’re about to get a dose of it that they don’t want. Trust me, I know every dirty trick and have it in my pocket.”
“If you follow someone and a guy from the outside, he just turns around as soon as he’s free. That’s the dumbest shit you can do.”
“I’m just done playing nice with everyone. Everyone who touches me, I touch back, times five. Done with some of these clowns.”
Ernie Francis Jr commented
“He came over after that, pretty upset,” Ernie Francis Jr. said.
“I don’t believe him. I know he’s the boss, but there’s friction out there.
“He went up to my insides, I didn’t see him there since I was two wide Andretti. I turned and didn’t see his car at the last second.”
“For him to hit me as a precaution is kind of a dirty move. Those are the things Paul Tracy does.”
“The fact that he comes after me and pushes me around, after that I won’t take that away from him. It is what it is.”
“We will work on this car. We’ll see if we can get to his rear bumper,” Francis Jr. concluded just before the main event.
The two riders were never close at any point in the Main Event. They had no further contact during the night.
Tony Stewart Comments After Feature Win; Planned to give all drivers a “dad talk”.
“Seeing these fans cheer every time we’ve taken the lead. That kept the motivation going,” said Tony Stewart of the victory lane.
“It’s not like I need a lot of motivation. But if the fans in South Boston are cheering like that, I won’t let them down.”
As far as incidents go, the function was pretty much the same. Many cars were destroyed. As a co-owner of the series himself, the amount of torn-up cars left him quite frustrated.
“I’m honored to ride with this group of guys to race with. But some of them have habits from other divisions that aren’t acceptable in short-distance racing,” Stewart said Matt Weber.
“We all have to have that attitude. And understand that we’re tearing things up that we don’t have enough crew guys to fix all these cars and keep up this pace for six weeks.
“If we want good cars, we have to take better care of them. And we have to start looking after each other better on the racetrack.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t race hard and try to win. But there has to be a better way to do it. I mean, these last two weeks have been a little out of control.”
“Tonight I’m not really proud of our group as a whole. But I’m going to give them the ‘Dad Talk’ next weekend.”
“We wanted to have the drivers’ briefing. Then we go into the mobile home and have a driver briefing. There’s going to be the ‘Dad Talk’ that happened tonight, we’re not going to do that for the next four weeks. We won’t have any race cars and that’s not fair to these crew guys.”
Tony Stewart confronts Ernie Francis Jr
connections
Tony Stewart | Ernie Francis Jr | South Boston Speedway | SRX series
