NASCAR. The way it should be

Congrats to Tony Stewart, new king of NASCAR. The final race to determine a champion in Homestead, Fla, featured a lot of things.

Carl Edwards, the points leader going in, qualified first and sat on the pole. Meanwhile, Tony Stewart started way back in the field. Stewart suffered some damage to the grill of his car, had to pit, and fell all the way back to 40th, while Edwards was cruising around the track in the lead. Game over, right? Not quite.

Somehow, car by car, Stewart clawed his way back up through the field. There was a lengthy rain delay. In the latter portion of the race, fuel mileage came into play. It appeared as though Stewart, who was trying his best to conserve fuel, had out-foxed Edwards. Edwards was going to need one more pit stop to have enough gas to finish. But the race gods said no. Another lengthy caution flag came out when it started to drizzle again, but not enough to stop the cars, which enabled Edwards to conserve enough fuel himself to finish the race.

When the final green flag waved, it was all out to the finish. Stewart got the jump, pulled out to a one second lead, and Edwards was never able to close the gap until the checkered flag.

But you know what was really cool about it? Two things.

Everybody else got the hell out of the way and let the leaders race.

Better yet, when it was over, Stewart didn't gloat over winning, and Edwards offered no sour grapes about coming up just short.

Stewart was humble and gave thanks for his good fortune, while Edwards said he drove as hard as he could, but it just wasn't enough.

Millions of dollars and a place in history were at stake, but both raced clean throughout the contest, and were class acts even when it was all over. There never WAS any trash-talking. Imagine that.

One can only hope certain athletes in other sports were taking notice.