Tony Stewart has gone on an astonishing rant about the reaction to the tragic death of Kyle Busch last month.

Stewart, a one-time NASCAR Cup Series team-mate of Busch's at Joe Gibbs Racing, hit out this week at fans who he didn't feel gave the future Hall of Famer a fair shake while he was still alive, only to flip 180 degrees after his passing.

He called that section of NASCAR's fanbase 'assholes' for not taking the time to learn what a good person Busch was until after his death, and 'accept him for who he was' at the time.

Speaking at this weekend's NHRA event at Bristol Dragway, Stewart took the time to express his feelings about the reaction to the NASCAR great's death in no uncertain terms.

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Tony Stewart in extraordinary message to NASCAR fans

"I guess that's probably the biggest thing in this tragedy that's happened that's pissed me off the most is that now everybody wants to talk about how he was as a person. Outside of that, all they wanted to do was just judge what they saw on TV.

"It's frustrating. I mean, every one of us are judged by what they see on TV, and then once you die then they want to talk about how good a person you were. That's the part that pisses me off the most about it right now."

He continued: "They should've given him a chance to learn him as a person before they judged him in the first place. So right now, I don't care about educating everybody about how Kyle Busch was. I know who Kyle Busch was.

"So the fact that they all want to learn now, they're the assholes for not taking the time to learn him and accept him for who he was back then. You want to wait till the guy dies, and now all of a sudden you care about who he was as a person. That's the part that pisses me off with everybody."

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