Darrell Waltrip, Mike Joy of FOX Fire Back at Tony Kornheiser

It's a safe bet that you won't be seeing Darrell Waltrip holding hands with Tony Kornheiser and singing "Kum Ba Yah" anytime soon, not that you were likely to anyway.

But the chances got even more remote when, during his show, "Pardon The Interruption," Kornheiser said Tuesday he had spoken to someone who said there was a "60 percent" chance that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had qualified and won the pole position for Sunday's Daytona 500 with a car that was not up to code and that NASCAR officials had looked the other way.

Needless to say, Waltrip, a FOX race analyst, took umbrage with Kornheiser's off the cuff statements and said so during a conference call to promote Daytona coverage Thursday.

"He needs to learn to keep his mouth shut and (then) people maybe wouldn't question how smart he is," said Waltrip. "I just thought that was in really, really poor taste and I think a lot of other people did too."

Waltrip, a three-time Cup Series champion, acknowledged that such a charge might have had merit 20 years ago, but quickly added that NASCAR drivers and officials have worked hard to clean up the sport's image.

"I do know that in the NASCAR environment today, in that garage area, we are more transparent than ever," said Waltrip. "The cars, the engine, everything about inspection that goes on down there is viewed by everyone, crew chiefs, crew members, NASCAR inspectors."

Mike Joy, who calls the race, said, "The great thing about conspiracy theories is if you're looking for a conspiracy, you can find one, whether one actually exists or not. It's kind of like if you're in love, all you hear on the radio are the love songs."

Lest you think the heat Kornheiser is taking can be laid at the foot of network sniping, he also caught fire from within the Worldwide Leader.

Dale Jarrett, a former NASCAR driver and ESPN race analyst, said during an ESPN conference call: "It aggravates you that that perception is out there. I can assure everyone that it can't happen. To set something up, there's too many people that would have to be involved. You couldn't keep something like that quiet. It's unfair to the competitors and to the people who work their tails off to put a quality product out there. We have a very good sport with a lot of integrity out there and to have it questioned is unfortunate."