“They Don’t Care”: Tony Stewart Bashes Modern NASCAR Drivers Compared to the Old Guard

It’s a pretty well-known fact that during his time in the NASCAR Cup Series, Tony Stewart developed a reputation for being an outspoken hot-headed. However, the anger came from a very specific place for Stewart, one that he described recently.

During an appearance on the Hot Rod Pod show, Tony Stewart opened up on the thing that always made him mad in NASCAR. “The things that always made me mad and all the blow-ups and everybody thought I was off my rocker, it wasn’t about wanting to be mad. It was about etiquette,” he said.

“It was about what Dale Sr., Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte, Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, what all these veteran drivers taught me when I came into NASCAR. Then you got all these new guys coming in and they don’t care about etiquette.”

Stewart further added that the modern crop of NASCAR drivers is “simple-minded” and “tunnel-visioned.” “They don’t give a c**p about anybody but themselves. And now you look at the racing, nobody gives an inch,” he emphasized.

Tony Stewart was in shambles looking at the Truck Series finale

After Stewart made his etiquette point, the host of the show pointed toward the wild and disappointing finish to the NASCAR Truck Series race last season which attracted a lot of criticism from all corners of the sport, the finish on which the 3x Cup champion also had a strong view. “It was embarrassing to watch the race. It was equally as embarrassing to watch the champion do his media interviews at the end of it,” Stewart said.

He claimed that the champion, Ben Rhodes, should’ve had more composure to get through his post-race media sessions before getting “blitzed” and doing “stupid stuff.” Stewart added that while Rhodes earned the title, he worried for his sponsors and whether they’d stay with him in the coming season.

“It just shows the mentality of some of these younger guys that are like, they don’t think about anything or they don’t care about it,” the veteran emphasized, claiming that the new drivers need to care about it now perhaps more than before considering “everybody is watching.”