Well, kind of. Here's parts of interviews I had with all three on Friday where Darrell Waltrip talks about the Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards rivalry and why he dislikes the Chase. Tony Stewart talks about his teams now not in next year's Budweiser Shootout, after a format change, and this week's Rolling Stone story on him where the language is gritty and offensive to some, and Dale Jr. says who's atop his lift of drivers to pay back for previous incidents. You'll never guess.

 

Enjoy.

 

DALE EARNHARDT JR.

 

With all the talk Friday about paybacks after the Kyle Busch-Carl Edwards encounter at Bristol, Earnhardt was asked if Busch was due a payback. Recall that a Busch bump sent Earnhardt spinning at Richmond late in that race in May. Busch wasn’t at the top of the list.

 

“I’ve got to get Jason Keller back before he retires,’’ Earnhardt said. “Y’all remember Myrtle Beach, my first (Busch series) race. He come off the wall and spun me out. I was running sixth.’'

 

Earnhardt finished 14^th in that 1996 race. Keller, a 10-time winner of what is now the Nationwide series, finished third.

 

”I’m glad he’s thinking of me, that means I’ve done something right,’’ Keller told NASCAR Scene, laughing. “”I don’t approve of the retirement remark. He’s got 10 more years to get me back, so I guess I’ve got something good to look forward to.’’

 

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TONY STEWART

 

Q: With the new format for the Budweiser Shootout, your teams won’t be in it next year. How big of a deal is that?

 

TONY: “It does for our sponsors. That’s the main thing. We were all told that if you won the (Shootout), you were locked in. Now, all of a sudden, those of us that were locked in are not locked in. It just shows you that anything can change at any moment.

 

Q: Have you read the Rolling Stone story on you?

 

TONY: Yeah, it was cool.

 

Q: What would you say to some people who might be offended by some of the language in there?

 

TONY: Don’t read it then. It’s very easy. Rolling Stone is an edgy magazine. It was an edgy article. Nobody forces that in front of anybody, so if you don’t like what you’re reading, don’t read it, don’t pick it up.’’

 

Q: Does that story give a more accurate portrayal of you?

 

TONY: I don’t think so. I think some of that was stretched a little further in talks that were more behind closed doors than it really is. It was casually joking conversations that ended up coming out that weren’t necessarily the way it was put on paper. When you give somebody and grant access to somebody like that and give them that kind of access, you open yourself up for things like that to happen.

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DARRELL WALTRIP

 

Q: If you were either Kyle Busch or Carl Edwards, how would you have played things up and your take on the rivalry?

 

DW: Kyle has sort of been really, really aggressive and he’s shoved a lot of people around and irritated a lot of people and that all catches up with you as the season runs down. People to start to keep score, and people start to say, “What about this? What about that? What about that?’ And so, if you have been doing that kind of stuff, it really starts to mushroom as the season starts to wind down and people get a little less tolerate of all of that and you get a little more irritated with that, so he’s kind of setting himself for somebody to start taking advantage of him. He’s a typical driver. I think back to Richmond when Little Wallace (Steve Wallace) ran into him late in the race and (Kyle) went and got up in his face. That’s when you said “You mess with the bull, you get the horns.’ Well, that works both ways. There are other bulls in the garage. Carl’s one of them. I think Carl, he’s in the catbird seat. Carl Edwards, he’s a sincere guy. Carl’s got an attitude too, he just disguises it a lot better than Kyle does. I’d be doing exactly what Carl is doing. Carl said don’t get me wrong, I’m not apologizing for it. I think that sets a strong message, and the problem is you have somebody that is 23-year-old and is full of himself and having the kind of the year he’s having, like Kyle is, it’s hard to get a message to him. About the only way you can do it is on the race track. You’re not going to do it off the race track. So, I think the fact that Carl said, look you mess with me, you’re going to be sorry.’’

 

Q: Kyle said Friday at California that there’s no rivalry with Edwards and that he considers him Edwards his best friend in a joking way.

 

DW: (Chuckles). What you have, Carl is an intelligent guy. Carl is probably as smart a race car driver as there is out there, as far as his intelligence. Kyle, he just has this incredible amount of natural ability. If they can shoot barbs at each other and make fun of each other and harass each other and not let it affect them on the race track, that’s the best of both worlds. Everybody wins with that. Fans win. You guys, all the media win. They go out and have a good time and kind of enjoy themselves.’’

 

Q: When you used to say things and do things, what was the ultimate goal? Get into the driver’s head or mess with the driver’s team?

 

DW: “It’s a distraction. It takes their focus off of everybody else and just puts it all on you. I learned from racing Richard Petty. If I just worried where Richard was, pretty soon, I had forgotten about everyone else. Yeah, I finished ahead of Richard but that wasn’t very good. So, my experience is you want to try to get the team to worry about where you are, what you’re doing and that distracts them from doing their job. That’s the goal when you do that. That’s what you have in your mind. It’s a big, big old distraction. Hopefully, it will cause them to not do their job, overlook something or make a decision based on something you’re doing rather than on something they should be doing.

 

Q: Can that still happen in this era with the Chase?

 

DW: You have to be careful if you’re arrogant and cocky because you set yourself up to make yourself look bad. Sometimes your competitors don’t have to do anything, you do it to yourself. These are all things I learned from my past. There’s nothing any worse than beating yourself. Clint Bowyer, Friday night at Bristol, beat himself (by going too hard into a corner, drifting up and giving room to be passed). Brad Keselowski won the race. It was because Clint beat himself. That’s just one you can’t let go. That’s another part of the mind games. Make them do something that they shouldn’t have done because of what you were doing and they end up beating themselves because of it. You don’t realize, I don’t think, I don’t think people realize how effective messing with somebody can be. Earnhardt did it on the race track. He did his mind games on the track. He’d be here, he’d be there, he’d be in front of you, he’d be back in you. First thing you know, you ran into the wall wondering where in the (heck) he was.

 

Q: I almost wonder if someone like Jimmie Johnson is smiling at all the attention on Kyle and Carl since Johnson seems to have the third best car on the circuit. What do you think?

 

DW: The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter who you are, first thing you have to have is a car that can beat them. If you have a car that’s not as good as them (and) you are waiting for them to beat each other or mess each other up, then you’re probably going to run third. So, what really is effective is when you have a car as good of theirs. Then you can kind of sit there and say, look, I’m going to watch these two monkeys mess with each other. If they keep on doing it, I’m going to pull on by and win the race. Circumstances dictate a lot of times how the guy sitting in the rocking chair or the catbird’s seat (will do).’’

 

Q: Do you enjoy watching what Kyle and Carl are doing?

 

DW: Oh yeah. I don’t like the Chase. … Once you get into the final 10 races, it’s 10 more regular-season races with a new title. You take away big point leads. I felt sorry for Jeff Gordon last year. He had a 400-point lead, they pat him on the back and say good job and he ends up second in the Chase. I just can’t buy into that. So far, other than the very first year, it’s never been exciting. As long as you’re going to continue to do the same things in the Chase that you do in the regular season, all you’ve done is change the name from regular season to the Chase and given a lot of people that may or may not deserve a chance to win the championship (to win a title).’’

 

Q: Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon have gone a long time without a win. What’s up?

 

DW: Every year, the older you get the, harder it gets to win. You look at every successful driver. They have their time. If you have your 10 years, you’ve exceeded all expectations. After that 10-year period of time, those wins get harder and harder to come by. Multi-wins are really hard to come by. They’re still very capable. They could win Sunday. But, the next thing you’ve got to be the best car on your team. You’ve got to be the best driver on your team. I’ll ask you and I’ll ask anybody, is Tony the best driver on Gibbs’ team? Is Jeff Gordon the best driver on the Hendrick team? Look at their record. That’s the way I look at it. I’ll never forget Earnhardt, I thought he was going to jack me in the jaw, I looked at him one time, he was in a slump, I was in a little bit of a slump and I said, “You know Dale, it looks to me like your best years are past you.’ I thought he was going to kill me.’’

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