during a Friday press conference at Atlanta Motor Speedway, NASCAR Preseident Mike Helton said that #14-Tony Stewart will be eligible to run the Chase if he earns a spot in it the next 2 races (Atlanta or Richmond) even though he missed three races.(8-29-2014)
AND some of the Q&A from the press conference on Friday, August 29 with NASCAR’s Mike Helton:
Helton’s opening statement in part: ‘Back to the Chase part for just a second. I’ll remind everybody back earlier this year when we announced the format for the ’14 Chase, that announcement included some responsibility about the routine participation in the season in order to be eligible in the Chase. Along with that importance of routine participation also came the asterisk, so to speak, about except in rare instances. This has been a very unique set of circumstances to Tony and to our sport. As the league, it’s our responsibility to try to make decisions that are correct and right. Sometimes we evaluate circumstances that are given us and then make those decisions as correctly as we can. After evaluating the circumstances around this occurrence, we’ve come to the conclusion that Tony would be eligible to participate in the Chase if he were to earn a spot in it.’
. Q. Mike, when you talk about outside experts, to clarify, in your process of evaluation, did you get psychological or psychiatric reports as part of your evaluation of Tony’s eligibility to return?
MIKE HELTON: We received the ones that we felt were relevant under the circumstances.
See the full transcript HERE.(8-30-2014)
