Tony Stewart's crew chief isn't to blame for his racing ills; Stewart's right leg is.
That's what NASCAR analyst and former driver Rusty Wallace says the issue is about the man currently 26th in the Sprint Cup Series standings and without a NASCAR race victory since June, 2013, according to nascartalk.nbcsports.com.
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"This is just Rusty speaking, and if Tony heard me saying this he'd say, 'He's full of it.' I know personally, there's a lot of maneuvering inside the car," Wallace told NASCAR Talk. "There's a lot of what I call body English, I used to use on road courses, the short tracks and it gave me a lot of damn victories.
"I really think that Tony's leg injury really screwed up his dancing inside the car (to work pedals), the way he works his momentum inside the car as a driver. I see Tony spinning out right now and doing some things that Tony never did."
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Stewart broke his leg in a sprint-car crash in 2013 and missed the final 15 races of the season. He has required four surgeries on the leg and reportedly will need a fifth to remove the rod in the leg in December.
Stewart has not talked about the leg being an issue in his struggles to compete in NASCAR events. He has blamed most of the 2015 season - in which he has one top-10 finish - on his inability to maneuver a car under new rules that reduce horsepower and increase downforce.
"It's like I'm in the middle of a calculus equation, and I didn't take pre-calculus,'' Stewart said in May, according to NASCAR.com." I'm working on it."
Most racing analysts, however, are blaming crew chief Chad Johnston for Stewart's 28th-place finish at the Crown Royal Presents The Jeff Kyle 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last weekend.
Stewart ran the fastest lap in qualifying and ran as high as second place before constantly losing ground on numerous restarts late in the race. "Smoke" refused to talk to reporters after the race.
Which do you think is the bigger obstacle for Tony Stewart - his right leg or his crew chief? Comment below or tell us @SportsWN.
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