Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles made a point of clarifying he wasn’t giving Tony Stewart a going-away present prior to Friday afternoon’s practice. What he gave him was something that focused not on Stewart’s final Brickyard 400 but rather the first Brickyard he won back in 2005, when he climbed the iconic catch fencing that was removed during the renovations made in preparations for this year’s Indianapolis 500. Stewart got a piece of the old fence to keep forever. As IMS had done for Helio Castroneves, who started the fencing-climbing trend when he made the climb after winning his first 500 win in 2001, Boles said he gifted Stewart the portion of old fencing he climbed for ‘doing something unique’ in being one of the few drivers to make the climb. ‘If you do it on the new one, I’ll take that fence down and give you some of that, too,’ Boles joked as he presented Stewart with the piece of fencing, encased in a large black display case with several pictures of Stewart’s climb.(Indianapolis Star)
