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Remember when Tony Stewart was a Big Deal?

Two-time Cup champion. 32 wins in the series.

But, at 37, Tony's suddenly finding himself in an unusual position: left behind.

All the attention these days is focused on teammate Kyle Busch, whose wild antics have brought him wins in all three of NASCAR's top series. He's the hottest thing on the track right now, and he's 14 years younger.

And Gibbs teammate Denny Hamlin is drawing his share of attention, too.

Which leaves Stewart exactly where?

He's not performed like a champion this season in Sprint Cup, although that's not always been his fault. He was on the way to a win at Charlotte in the Coca-Cola 600 when a flat tire took him out of contention with just three laps to go, for example.

On the other hand, he's won four times in the Nationwide series this season, so all is not bleak.

But Stewart is dropping in points in the Cup series--he fell three spots this week alone, to 11th. The last time Stewart failed to make the Chase for the Cup playoffs (in 2006, when there were only ten drivers in the Chase) NASCAR added two more positions the following season, so it's safe to say it's expected that he'll make the Chase.

It's been a tough year for Stewart, who ran into Elliot Sadler in last Sunday's race at Dover, in a wreck that took out a good portion of the top points contenders, on lap 17. In typical sarcastic style, he said, "I take 100 percent responsibility--it's my fault for being anywhere close to Elliot. If I'm within a half a lap of him, I expect that to happen."

That was old-school Smoke, but his bad-boy role has been usurped by Kyle Busch this year.

Stewart has always talked off-handedly about the fact that he loves racing, not just Cup racing, and has expressed his displeasure about the corporate environment that comes with top-level racing series.

It's why he continues to put so much effort into projects like this week's Prelude to the Dream race, an event he holds annually at Eldora Speedway in Ohio.

"You get to do something differentt that's no stress and it's all about having fun," he said.

His roots in USAC and Midgets run deep, and he still runs the dirt-track Chili Bowl race every year in Tulsa. Stewart owns World of Outlaws and USAC teams.

A few weeks ago, when he began to talk about co-owning a Cup team in the near future--a move that would take him away from the only team he's known in Cup racing, Joe Gibbs Racing--the wisdom of such a move was widely questioned. Gibbs gives him good equipment and is a top-level team; one need only look at the tribulations of Michael Waltrip, who started a team of his own in 2007 and nearly went broke in one season before being rescued by an investor, to see what can go wrong. Waltrip still isn't competitive on the track.

It's already having a negative effect, according to Greg Zipadelli, Stewart's crew chief, who said when the rumors of Stewart leaving to run his own team "come up every day, it's a distraction."

It seems like a bad idea for a guy who likes racing, not politics or business, to buy into a Sprint Cup team as an owner, but either way, Tony Stewart will need to make a decision soon, or that distraction will likely mean another year without championship hopes.

After several months of optimism, the economic realities of competing in NASCAR's top series have struck Michael Waltrip Racing.

When we last left MWR, Waltrip, who has admitted he just about went broke last year, trying to fund a start-up team of three Cup cars and a Nationwide team out of his pocket, was being bailed out by an investor with deep pockets. Robert Kauffman, a Charlotte, NC businessman dumped a large (but unspecified, at least publicly) sum of money into MWR last October to keep it afloat.

Waltrip said the money made it possible to hire more staff--Toyota had complained that he didn't have enough personnel in place from the start--and the 2008 season started promisingly, with all three MWR cars in the top 35 in owner's points, but Waltrip's own 55 car began slowly sliding downward in the rankings as he suffered poor finishes week after week.

As Dale Jarrett made his planned departure from the team after the All -Star race, rumors began circulating that UPS, the primary sponsor of Jarrett's 44 car, would leave MWR at the end of the season, possibly to join Roush-Fenway Racing on Carl Edwards' car.

Worse, the word around the garage has been that UPS didn't care about how replacement driver David Reutimann performed on the track ; the company wanted a "rock star" personality, something the 37-year-old Reutimann is definitely not.

The team's "third car," the 00 driven by rookie Michael McDowell, doesn't have an announced sponsor, after Aaron's decided to let its sponsorship run out.

This is also the last year of NAPA's sponsorship of the team's flagship 55 car. NAPA, which has stuck by Waltrip through thick and (very) thin, let it be known they were unhappy with Waltrip's results and wanted to see an improvement or....

No decision's been announced there, either.

So.

Three Cup cars that aren't performing well, one that's now fallen out of the top 35 lock-in, and the potential to lose primary sponsors from all three cars.

And now, word comes that MWR is laying off employees, citing financial issues. A blog purported to be written by two NASCAR insiders, made the claim, which, while it is unconfirmed, certainly would come as no surprise.

The slumping economy has hit several Cup teams, which have found it increasingly difficult to find the funds necessary to operate as sponsors cut advertising budgets. As is usually the case, the teams which can least afford to take the hit are the ones that do.

MWR is a team that can't afford it. The question is, how long can the company survive under these conditions?

It was inevitable that, in this tough economic climate, and with the ever-inreasing cost of running a competitive NASCAR Sprint Cup team, the famous Petty family would need to find an outside investor to remain a viable company.

That's the way of the future in Cup racing, and it isn't necessarily bad. Boston Ventures Management will have the controlling interest in the company going forward. The infusion of cash the deal will bring may help make the team more competitive. Boston Ventures invests primarily in media and entertainment companies, like Motown Records, and Six Flags Entertainment.

But the Pettys also went far outside the racing business for a new CEO, and that's more troubling. Since its 1949, when Lee Petty formed Lee Petty Engineering, the business has been run by family members. That's one of the things fans admired most about the company, even recently, when wins have been few and far between. The selection of an outsider to run Petty Enterprises will not go over well with the same fan base that watched in disappointment as the company left its original home in Level cross for the old Yates shop in Mooresville.

Odder, though, is the person actually chosen for the CEO job: failed Midway Games exec David Zucker. During Zucker's rein, Midway lost $300 million, and watched its stock drop nearly 79% in value. In March, he was fired, or allowed to resign, depending on who you believe.

Before that, he was President and COO at Playboy Enterprises, and a few years prior, he was an Executive VP at ESPN.

Not exactly someone steeped in the racing tradition. In fact, Zucker admitted he's "not a NASCAR racing expert," and went on to explain that he'd be leaning on Robbie Loomis.

"It's just a different world out there than it was five, ten years ago," said Richard Petty.

Boy, no kidding. But it is hard to believe there wasn't a better choice for the job than Zucker out there someplace. Running a TV sports network is as close as he's come to working in the racing industry, and he was a failure at his last job. (Yes, at the announcement, he said he'd been a fan for years, but so have a lot of people--that's not a qualification to run Petty Enterprises.)

Richard Petty may indeed be correct that the company needs him (and Kyle, the "acting CEO") to step aside in favor of a new leader, but is this the right one?

The Petty name still has a lot of value in this sport, and for good reason. The last thing The King needs is to see it sullied by a suit who doesn't know what he's doing.

A former official in the NASCAR Nationwide series, Mauricia Grant, 32, filed a lawsuit this week claiming she was harrassed by co-workers because she's black and a woman, and that repeated complaints to her supervisor had no effect.

She was fired, an action she calls "unlawful," because, Grant claims, it was done in retaliation for her complaints. She's asking for $250 million in her lawsuit.

Grant was a technical inspector from January 2005 until October 2007. Her 40-page lawsuit lists 23 alleged incidents of sexual harassment and 34 alleged incidents of racial and gender discrimination.

The filing says Grant was recongized by supervisors as a good employee, but that "despite Plaintiff's skills and performance as an Official, Defendant NASCAR maintains an unwritten yet unflagging policy limiting the advancement of Black and female employees, and especially limiting the advancement of Black female employees"

Grant was the only black official at the time.

She claims co-workers routinely called her insutling nicknames: 'Mohammed" "Nappy Headed Mo;" "Queen Sheba;" "Al Qaeda;" 'Black Sisters Revenge;" "Mo from the Block;" "Molicious;" and "Simpleton."

She also alleges that an official, David Duke, once greeted her by saying, "What up, my nigga?"

Finally, Grant says she was fired for "poor work performance," despite the fact that she'd received good reviews previously and had never been warned about the issue before she was terminated.

There are lots of other nasty allegations in the lawsuit, which you can read here.

The official word from NASCAR is that it won't comment on the pending litigation.

This lawsuit is potentially disasterous for a sport which has been trying to shake its image of a "good ol' Southern boy" background for years. It still struggles with fans who want to display the Confederate flag in the infield during race--although CEO Brian France criticized it on national TV, it is still a common site at races, especially in the South.

The Drive for Diversity Program started in 2004 hasn't had much of an impact in bringing non-whites into NASCAR, and this will only slow that process. There's no black driver currently running in any of the NASCAR's top three series, although there are black pit crew members on several teams.

The stands at any given race are filled with an overwhelmingly white crowd.

Look for NASCAR to settle this quickly, if only to get it out of the headlines faster.

Obviously, most writers will not take an editorial position on such a hot-button issue.

I don't have the personal experience to judge for myself, either, but I will say this: the specificity found in Grant's lawsuit is tough to discount.

NASCAR held a closed-door meeting Friday at Michigan Interational Speedway. Drivers and team owners were the only ones allowed to attend.

This is a Big Deal. NASCAR hasn't done this for several years.

And, based on the drivers' reactions afterwards, the meeting did its job.

The subject: Stop whining.

Especially about the new car, but also about the conditions of tracks and several other issues.

So Mike Helton held a mandatory meeting.

"He wanted to remind our drivers about their responsibility to the fans," said NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter. "He felt it has become a negative environment and reminded them to think about the fans, what they are facing, the rising cost of gas and the hardships, particularly in an area like this that has been hit so hard by the economy."

In other words, shut up.

Drivers interviewed afterwards sounded like whipped puppies. They all said, at least publicly, they'd been too harsh in their criticism. Or in Dale Earnhardt, Jr's, words, ""My interpretation was the drivers should be thankful for the position they're in and should be more positive about where this car is going to be in a year or two."

Imagine that. "Thankful for the position they're in." As if it was a gift, not something they'd earned through hard work.

Until Friday, drivers' complaints always included a message that they wanted to give the fans a better race.

But now, they've changed their tune after Helton's hand-slapping. "That's just Helton reminding us that we've got it pretty good," Carl Edwards said. "You've got to be careful when you start complaining and whining and acting like things aren't that great; it's detrimental to all of us and to the sport."

There it is, again "We've got it pretty good."

While the drivers might, indeed, have it good, I haven't heard much in the way of complaints that didn't focus on giving the fans a better race. I haven't heard whining from spoiled drivers. I have heard competitors who want to give their fans a good race to watch.

The fans are generally making the same complaints as the drivers about the quality of racing this year.

But Brian France and his minions can't stop them from expressing an opinion.

So when you've made a mistake, like the current car design appears to be, and can't go back, what do you do?

Tell the drivers to shut up. This, of course, is the opposite of what NASCAR said would happen earlier in the season, when we were told drivers would be allowed to speak their minds.

But when they all began to say the same thing--that the car and the facilities aren't up to par--France shut them down again.

That, it seems, a is a lot easier than fixing the problems about which they have complained.

"A guy like that who has never run here doesn't understand the give and take as much, and wants to prove he can race here."
-Juan Pablo Montoya, on Cup rookie Marcus Ambrose, after Ambrose hit him on the Infineon road course Sunday.

"I'm the guy that caused the wreck, but get over it."
-Juan Pablo Montoya, Cup rookie, after smacking David Gilliland in the 2007 All-Star race.

Same guy, with a year's experience between the two quotes.

This is also the driver who said, more than once last year, "I'm paid to win," implying that he'd do whatever it took to accomplish that.

Montoya was involved in more than his share of on-track incidents in 2007, including the well-known slap-flight with Kevin Harvick at Watkins Glen, in which the two drivers got out of their cars and poked each other. (You may recall, Tony Stewart was unimpressed; he said, "If you're not gonna take 'em off [helmet and HANS device], then don't waste everyone's time.")

He was known for aggressive driving in open-wheel racing, although contact isn't as common in that world, and seemed to bring the attitude to stock car racing in his rookie year. He even spun a teammate--in an incident that seemed entirely avoidable--in his effort to win the Busch series race in Mexico City.

But now, in his second year, he's lecturing others when they hit him.

Kind of funny, really. He's getting a taste of what other drivers meant last year, when they said things like, "The guy has run over somebody pretty much every week" (that was Harvick), and "I don't know what he's thinking." (Scott Pruett)

Then again, this year, Montoya's been on the receving end of a hit that resulted in his car catching fire. Maybe that's changed his perspective a bit.

But whatever the reason, Montoya doesn't deserve any slack when he complains about being roughed up on the track this year, because he spent most of last year defending his own actions.

What goes around really does come around, at least in stock car racing.

Tony Stewart's never been a typical NASCAR guy. After he made his way to stock car racing's top series in 1999, he was paired with a very good Crew Chief, and, within three years, had won a Championship. He followed that up with another two years later.

But Tony has never seemed entiely comfortable in the NASCAR environment. He's kept his hand in several other series, and owns both a World of Outlaws and a USAC team as well as the Eldora dirt track. Stewart routinely drives in dirt-track events as well as midget car events.

And he's well-known for expressing himself; he doesn't keep criticism of NASCAR to himself, and every now and then, comments on wanting to quit or retire. As far back as 2001, he said he was "unhappy" with NASCAR.

So it's a little surprising to hear that he's looking to go into business with Haas-CNC Racing. There are have been stories that go as far as to claim Stewart is trying to round up sponsors for his plans, and that Ryan Newman, reportedly unhappy at Penske, would join him.

While these stories are uncomfirmed, Stewart's crew chief since the beginning, Greg Zipadelli, has publicly acknowledged that the fact that Stewart hasn't yet re-signed with Joe Gibbs Racing is making things difficult for the team, calling his explorations "disappointing," and questioning why Stewart would want to leave.

"I don't think for just racing there's a better place as far as owners," Zipadelli said. "I don't know if ever in ten years, we've been told, No, we couldn't do something."

Earlier this year, the rumor was that Stewart would try to start his own team from scratch, but apparently, he's moved away from that idea, and with good reason--Michael Waltrip demonstrated last year that starting your own Cup team while driving in the series can be a great way to go bankrupt in 36 races.

Stewart won't talk about what he's planning, or more importantly, why.

Of course, he's still under contract with JGR through next year, and that could be a problem, although with young Joey "Sliced Bread" Logano on the horizon, maybe JGR would be willing to let a disgruntled driver go.

But why Tony Stewart would do this in the first place is baffling.

He's suggested many times that Cup racing is not all that appealing to him, so why get into a major financial commitment in the sport?

And why with a team whose owner is in prison, serving time for tax evasion?

Why leave the only team he's ever driven for, with a stable sponsor, and a long-term Crew Chief?

Is it because all-American Stewart really didn't like being put in a Toyota--and this would get him back into a Chevy? Possible, but it seems like the hard way to do that.

Is he frustrated that his two JGR teammates are getting all the attention nowadays, not to mention all the wins? Again, possibly, but moving to Haas would by no means be the solution to that frustration.

JGR has the deep pockets to win; whether Haas could be equally competitive is questionable. If you want to believe that, you also have to buy the idea that only factor keeping the two current Haas cars, the 66 and 70, out of the Top-35 in owners points is the quality of the current drivers.

Would Zippy go with Stewart? No one knows that for sure but Zippy, but his comments to the press sound as if he's hapopy to keep working for JGR. If so, Stewart would be looking at breaking in a new Crew chief after a decade with the same guy, one who understands him.

This move just doesn't make much sense. Tony's having a tough 2008 season, but his future is likely to be a lot harder if he goes forward with this plan.

The most intersting thing that happened in Sunday's Cup race at Loudon was when Juan Pablo Montoya intentionally smacked Kyle Busch while under caution, causing Busch's 18 car to spin and, in turn, hit Montoya's 42 a split-second later.

Montoya went on to admit in a live post-race TV interview that he'd done it on purpose because, he said, Busch had hit him earlier. Busch, on the other hand, denied having done anything to provoke Montoya.

NASCAR assessed a two-lap penalty, which, with just 21 laps to go, meant Montoya had no chance to recover

Now, my record on predicting NASCAR's actions in this blog isn't so hot, but I gotta figure, this time, Montoya's also going to be hit with some kind of penalty, because he retaliated under caution, which, according to NASCAR is a big no-no, and he put the rest of the field in jeopardy as well, because there were a lot of cars stacked up udner the caution.

If not, well, I still think Montoya deserves it. Look, I'm all for the Loren Wallace-school of "put him in the wall" driving when necessary, but only during competition, not during caution periods, and the two-lap penalty didn't hurt Montoya much--he wasn't going to win anyway. His attitude afterwards, that what he did was acceptable, needs to be addressed.

This quote from Montoya explains why:

"I retaliated. Did I go too far retaliating? Yeah. I think them giving me a two-lap penalty is okay for what I did. The only thing I told them is they always say to be very careful under caution and I said the only reason I did that was because I was defending myself. And there's a fine line on that."

No, Juan, there's no line at all on that. You don't wreck people under caution. And the two-lap penalty didn't have much of an effect on a driver who wants contending for a good finish.

The incident involved two guys who couldn't have been better-chosen; Montoya, who many fans see as a wreck just waiting to happen, smacks Kyle Busch, the current least-favorite driver in the series, then gets hit himself, thanks to physics.

Given the outcome of the confrontation, and the egos involved, I think it is safe to say we'll see further "interaction" between these two.