Stewart will not be punished for on-air obscenity

Stewart

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Tony Stewart will not be penalized for uttering an obscenity Saturday morning during the ESPN2 telecast of the Nextel Cup practice session, NASCAR officials confirmed Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

"It's unfortunate, but there's a lot of other noise when you see the tape," said Jim Hunter, NASCAR's vice president of corporate communications. "If you run it over and over, you get it. But if our viewers and ESPN's viewers are sitting at home watching it, there's a chance they might not have heard that."

Stewart was talking to driver Robby Gordon on pit road before walking toward two ESPN camera operators. Stewart looked at one camera operator and said: "What? Get the [expletive] away from me."

Hunter said the decision not to penalize Stewart is in line with similar decisions when drivers said an obscenity outside a formal interview session.

"That's our position," Hunter said. "It wasn't an interview. But we certainly have had some conversations with Tony. The truth is we don't want anyone to hear language like that."

Terry Blount covers motorsports for ESPN.com. He can be reached at terry@blountspeak.com.

Source: ESPN.com