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'We can handle Tony' France says Stewart reminds him of a young Earnhardt
TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) -- NASCAR's chairman likens Tony Stewart to a young Dale Earnhardt, and says the outspoken Stewart is good for the sport and NASCAR would like to keep him involved in it. Bill France Jr. also said Saturday that NASCAR has not yet grown weary of Stewart's outbursts, the latest coming here at Talladega Superspeedway when Stewart butted heads with NASCAR over the mandatory use of head-and-neck restraints. "We can handle Tony," France told The Associated Press. "We're not ready for him to come to Daytona yet for a little powwow. But if it seems like something we need to do in the future, we will." France said the 30-year-old Stewart reminded him of the late Earnhardt when he just started in the series and was bumping and banging with driver Geoffrey Bodine on a regular basis.
France summoned Earnhardt and Bodine to NASCAR's headquarters in Daytona Beach, Fla., to discuss it. "I told them that NASCAR was here long before they were and I expected it to be here long after they've gone," France said. "We get along just as well with you as we do without you, and I think Dale eventually woke up to the fact." Now Stewart needs to do the same, France said. Stewart and NASCAR have been at odds several times this season, with Stewart taking exception to penalties he received for bumping Jeff Gordon on pit road in March and for ignoring a black flag and arguing with an official and a reporter in July. The infractions drew a pair of $10,000 fines and landed Stewart on probation for the year. His latest controversy started Friday, when he balked at wearing a required head-and-neck restraint. The mandate was announced earlier this week as a reaction to a string of fatal accidents, including the one that killed Earnhardt in February. Stewart relented and has been wearing a Hutchens device as he prepares for Sunday's EA Sports 500. France was pleased Stewart came around before NASCAR was forced to act. "He's certainly an excellent driver, and he's proved that on the track," France said. "And off the track he's a nice person and by and large has done everything we've ever asked him to. So we'd like to keep him around here." France said he liked the mandate on head-and-neck restraints because it ensured all 43 drivers in the field each week would be wearing some sort of protective device. Before now, Stewart was the lone driver to decline to wear one. Despite the measure, which came as a reaction to four driver deaths in 17 months, France insisted NASCAR is safer than it has ever been and has fallen under unfair scrutiny compared to other sports. "I don't like the deaths, but there's been deaths in other sports this year, including some heat-related deaths in football," he said. "That doesn't get nearly the focus we've gotten. "I don't know that the Good Lord predicted people would be flying airplanes at 500 mph and cars would be flying around a track at 180 mph, so the risk involved in that is part of life. We just have to keep striving to make the sport safer the same way aviators are trying to make flying safer." France also said he was saddened at how NASCAR's relationship had deteriorated with seat-belt maker Bill Simpson. Simpson, founder of Simpson Performance Products, resigned from his company this summer citing stress about Earnhardt's death and the investigation into it. NASCAR, as well as independent investigators, found that one of Simpson's belts broke inside Earnhardt's car and played a part in Earnhardt's death. Since then, two more belts have separated in accidents, most recently one in driver Jeremy Mayfield's car last month. Simpson has implied NASCAR has tried to make him a scapegoat in the situation. "If he feels the world has fallen in on him, I'm sorry about that because he's done a lot of good things for our sport," France said. "But three failures on what's not supposed to tear -- if I was him instead of criticizing NASCAR, I'd be trying to figure out what happened to my belts."
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