Drake and Stewart long ago put that night behind them, but fans still grin and shake their head when they recall that hairy 1998 night at the late, great 16th Street Speedway in Indianapolis.
16th Street was a full-contact place; definitely not a place for sissies. Drake and Stewart were racing hard, and eventually Drake wound up spun into the infield.
"I wasn't really all that mad at Tony. I was mad because they didn't throw the yellow," Drake recalls. "There I was, racing for the championship, and they just left me sitting there. Finally, there was a yellow, and they pushed me off."
Drake, who had sat fuming for several laps, restarted and promptly drove to the front of the field and drilled Stewart in the tail, and Stewart's car turned to the right and rolled gently onto its side. The crowd roared with excitement, and Drake simply drove back to the infield and parked. Stewart's car was undamaged and he was able to restart and finish.
It was immediate payback in front of the whole world. That moment should have put to rest, once and for all, the false image that Drake was merely a soft, mellow California guy.
"I didn't mean to turn him over," he says in self-defense, smiling and shaking his head. "I really didn't. I was just mad. I guess it's kind of funny, looking back, but at the time it was just one of those times when it boiled over.
"I'm probably like most other guys: I'll hold 90 percent of it in. The key is how much you let out. And also, a key is how well you're running. When you're running good and things are going well, you can get taken out and you don't think much about it, because you're overall pretty happy.
"But when you're not running well, you tend to get pretty sore, because it just gets to you more."
Indy?After his USAC midget runner-up season in 1998, Drake was invited to take his Indy Racing rookie test with Panther Racing. His test session was apparently impressive, because the buzz for weeks afterwards in the Indy Racing community was that this kid Drake had really turned some heads.
But here it is, three years later, and no Indy ride. Did the test really mean anything?
"I hope it did," he says. "It was a great opportunity for somebody like me. At the time, we were feeling out what it would take to get a test, and teams were asking $50,000 to get a guy through his rookie test.
"So at the very least, I looked at the (USAC-sponsored) test as a $50,000 prize. And it did some good, because it helped some guys over there to at least recognize me.
"There is still interest on my part, definitely. And you hear rumors floating around that a team is interested, and some teams have said they'd like to get me in a car if they can get the money together.
"I'd really like to participate. I've been an Indy fan as long as I can remember. Getting to the Indianapolis 500 would be beyond any of my goals."