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I believe Tony Stewart! The powers that be at NASCAR has turned this once respectable event into "Big Time Wrestling". The events that occurred during the final 20 laps at Pheonix, clearly and blatently indicated NASCAR premeditated who would win that race. When it was clear during those last few laps that Jeff Gordon wouldn't win by his own abilities, a caution was created by a "track filler" driver at the same time the top race leaders were making a green flag pit stop. All of those race leaders suddenly found themselves a LAP DOWN, except Jeff Gordon, who simply drove thru pit road, just behind those leaders who just pitted ahead of Him. This made Jeff Gordon leader and then race winner, as NASCAR needed so Jeff Gordon could drive around the track with the #3 flag of Dale Earnhart.

Tony Stewart and many others have witnessed this NASCAR behavior on multible ocassions. Out of frustration, Tony Stewart expressed his opionion this past week, finding himself penalized $10,000 dollars for his "free speech".

NASCAR lost me as a "fan".

I bailed on NASCAR during Gordon’s rise back in the 90’s. I was a big Bill Elliott fan, and couldn't stand the way Earnhardt got away with actions that would have any other driver black flagged. Well, when it was clear that Jeff Gordon was the new golden boy I was already losing any tolerance for NASCAR antics and I walked away.

IMO the irony is that Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt are/were great drivers on top teams and would have won a bunch or races and championships anyway.

Finally, I believe Bill would still be winning most popular driver if he hadn't ask for his name to be removed from the voting a few years back.

If the fix was on why didn't Gordon's team mates take advantage of it? How did NASCAR send the signal to the rent a wreck driver to go into crash mode? How did NASCAR insure the rent a wreck driver was still running at the critical time? How many seconds away from going a lap down was Gordon because of the pit stop and accident?

Seriously, Gordon was making a scheduled pit stop, within his window of opportunity to finish the race. He and his crew realized his car needed new tires and some adjustments. If the adjustments improved the car then Gordon would be better off than running an inferior set up and losing track position to other competitive cars. It's not like the other competitive cars would not have had to make pit stops in the next few laps. And since the caution was intentional, and would not have occurred otherwise according to you, they would have been green flag stops. So Gordon would have gotten back his track position anyway, adjusted for pit stop time.

Gordon's car, and cars with Hendrick engines, have been among the race leaders at practically every race this year. Why is anyone surprised that they win a race with some good luck. No one seems to feel sorry for them when they lose due to bad luck.