A friend in speed is a friend indeed
Everyone seemed to do a double take when Tony Stewart said he was "tickled" to finish runner-up to Dale Earnhardt Jr. in last Sunday's Daytona 500. Tickled? It was hard to imagine the hard-charging Stewart would find anything amusing about finishing second. Most any driver will tell you that finishing second means you're the first loser.
But not Stewart. Not on this day.
"Put whatever word you want there," Stewart said. " `Tickled' is fine for me." And he meant it.
When it comes to restrictor-plate races on the high-banked superspeedways at Daytona and Talladega, Stewart and Earnhardt have forged a pretty fast friendship, one that blossomed last weekend into a mutual admiration society.
"I think we admire each other for the fact that we're both fierce competitors but we like to have fun," Stewart said. "We're a lot alike in a lot of ways.
"Our backgrounds are totally different from each other, obviously, but we enjoy a lot of the same things. I think we respect each other for what we do and what we've been able to accomplish in our careers."
Earnhardt and Stewart teamed to drive in the Rolex 24 at Daytona Jan. 31-Feb. 1, as a tuneup for Speedweek. But after leading 334 consecutive laps, the duo suffered a rear suspension breakdown in their Daytona Prototype car 15 minutes from the finish line. They ended up fifth overall and third in their class.
"Some of the things Tony did in that [24-hour] race were awesome," Earnhardt said.
Just as impressive to Earnhardt, though, was how Stewart managed to hustle his NASCAR Nextel Cup car around the 2.5-mile trioval at Daytona, practically sliding his way through the corners without wrecking.
"There were times when we just were in the wrong place at the wrong time, [and] should have wrecked," said Earnhardt, who passed Stewart for the lead and the race with 19 laps remaining. "It was interesting, especially at the end. Everybody had freed their cars up so much that everybody was like, `Look, the only way of really running good here is to be sideways.'
"I was behind Tony and you'd see him go off in a corner just turning right. It was an incredible sight to see. We were all driving as hard as we could drive."
And each was driven by the burning desire to win his first Daytona 500. If Stewart couldn't finish first, then he was tickled to finish second to his restrictor-plate buddy, Earnhardt.
"It's just a good friendship," said Stewart, who pushed Earnhardt in three of his four victories at Talladega. "This started three years ago here at Daytona during the 500 week. Seems like every time we went on the track, we were around each other. A lot of our theories on how to run restrictor-plate races are very similar.
"When you run with each other as much as we did, we kind of [develop] a respect and a trust with each other. I mean, he knows that when I'm behind him, if he goes somewhere -- whether it's right or wrong -- I'm going to go with him. Same with me."
That was evident in the middle stages of the race when Earnhardt stayed hard on Stewart's bumper, and vice versa, each helping the other to move to the front.
"We both knew if it came down to me and him at the end -- you know, it's the Daytona 500 -- we'd both try to win the race," Stewart said. "But during the race, I think everybody did everything they could to separate us during the race because they knew we were a pretty potent combination together."
Rookie mistake
Scott Wimmer, rookie driver of the No. 22 Caterpillar Dodge owned by Bill Davis, scored a redemptive third place at Daytona. It was redemptive in the fact that it was only two weeks earlier that Wimmer was arrested for driving while intoxicated after he wrecked a 2004 Dodge Ram pickup owned by Bill Davis Racing at 2 a.m. in High Point, N.C. Facing an uncertain status with NASCAR, Wimmer arrived at Daytona sans a driver's license (his wife drove him around the entire week), yet was the highest-finishing rookie in the race. "I'm very apologetic for what I did," Wimmer said. "I realize it's not right. I just made a major mistake in my life. Embarrassed a lot of people -- you know, my race team, my family, my sponsor, everybody." Asked if he was concerned that he would lose his ride, Wimmer said, "It's something that went through my head: `There's no way Caterpillar is going to let me race this racecar.' We went through it and Caterpillar was willing to give me a second chance, and Bill Davis was. It's something that means a lot to me. I don't make second mistakes. In 28 years, I really haven't made a lot of mistakes. I made one mistake, one major mistake." . . . NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Carl Edwards, who won the series opener at Daytona Feb. 13 and celebrated by climbing from his truck and doing a cartwheel and a backflip on the frontstretch, was stunned to learn he had won a promotion as Mark Martin's heir apparent in the No. 6 Nextel Cup ride. "I hope we can get Mark to keep going in the No. 6 car until we get Carl a championship in the Truck Series, then a chance to run for the championship in the Busch Series," Jack Roush said. "I'd like to think in three years, then I think he'll be in the 6 car." Said Edwards, "It's an honor. It just motivates me to work harder every day to be the best driver I can be. The emotional part of me just can't believe it. It gives me chills to think about it. Mark Martin is someone I looked up to long before I started racing for his determination and his drive to be, you know, a very, very capable racecar driver, so it's an honor." . . .
Plot twists
While we all know where he stands on the Alex Rodriguez situation, Ben Affleck was asked why Hollywood has struggled of late to make a good racing movie. "It's like why it's hard to make a good baseball movie or a movie about sports," he said. "It's tough. It's hard because you know that your hero is probably going to win in the end and you have to make it dramatically interesting. Also, to be perfectly honest, it's not a sport that a lot of people in Hollywood are tuned into. They're not quite aware of the degree to which this [sport] has become popular. They're not sensitized to all the intricacies of the sport in the same way others are." . . . If that's the case, then Warner Bros. may have hit upon the perfect vehicle in which to bring NASCAR racing to the big screen. Watch "NASCAR 3D: The 
