From today’s Roanoke Times:
An incident three months ago riled up teammates Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman, and they have not talked since.
By Dustin Long
The Roanoke TimesNASCAR’s Nextel Cup season hasn’t had its first race in 2005 and already drivers are feuding.
Rusty Wallace said he hasn’t talked with teammate Ryan Newman since a late-race incident at Martinsville three months ago. Their only communication has been trading barbs through the media.
Wallace said he does not like how Newman treats him.
“Above all, what I want is some respect,” Wallace said during a break in testing last week at Daytona International Speedway. “I’m not in the mood for dealing with no respect. (read the rest of the story…)
Now I know this is Rusty’s last year and all that; and everybody is supposed to be all super sweet to him and rah-rah, yada, yada, yada.
But give me a break. Rusty needs to climb down off his ego platform and realize that he is a first class jerk, and keeping this thing going only emphasizes it even more. What Rusty seems to have forgotten was that Newman was the driver in the Chase, Newman was the teammate that had a chance to bring home the Championship, and Newman is the driver who is not washed up.
It’s funny how all the other teams that had a car in the Chase and a car not in the Chase knew how to work together, they all realized that the greater good was in the Chase driver winning.
But not Rusty and his super-sized ego. No, with Rusty, it is always Rusty first, last, and only. It was that way when Mayfield was there, and it is that way now with Newman. And it seems that he is determined to go out as the king of ego jerks. (Although, as long as DW is around, Rusty may have to settle for second, like it or not.)