Smoked

Tony Stewart got caught on video taking a swing at a particularly obnoxious heckler the other night, and here's the remarkable thing about that: It did not become a thing.

Oh, it indeed showed up in USA Today and some other publications, but no one called the cops and NASCAR, ever image-conscious until image-consciousness started hurting the gate, has thus far not requested an apology tour from one of its marquee team owners. This seems like a rare outbreak of sanity in an America in which every little thing becomes a, you know, thing.

This time, the general consensus is that the heckler had it coming when Smoke went all Smokin' Joe on him, to loud and profane hell-yeahing from the fans for whom he was signing autographs. It may not be the sort of behavior you want to see from your car owners if you're NASCAR, but allowances must occasionally be made.

Smoke, after all, is Smoke, and always will be. And everyone seems to understand this.

Which is not to say he should go around throwing right hooks at hecklers, no matter how deserving of it they are. This one, for instance, was heckling Stewart because his engine blew after just one lap in a sprint car race in Minnesota, where all this occurred. Why that earned Stewart some trash-talking is a mystery known only to our heckler.

Now, the Blob will admit to some bias here. I've talked to Stewart a number of times. I like the man. He's a no bullspit guy in a frequently bullspit world. And his outlandish success at the top levels of his sport never chased him away from his roots.

How many other guys like him regularly go back to the local dirt tracks from which he sprang, racing on Saturday nights in Flyspeck, Iowa, just because he still likes to hang with the guys who scrape together every dime they've got to go racing? He even bought one of those places -- Eldora over in Rossburg, Ohio, a sweet little dirt bullring set down pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

Smoke's kind of place. Smoke's kind of people.

And taking a swing at some tool?

Not the first time he's done something like that; you can ask any number of drivers and motorsport writers with whom he's gotten into, shall we say, altercations. Probably won't be the last.

As he himself would no doubt say: Deal with it.