'We don't need restrictor plates' says Stewart.

Tony Stewart believes NASCAR should do away with their controversial restrictor plate engines after Rusty Wallace ran an unofficial lap of nearly 230mph around the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway using an unrestricted engine earlier this year.

Stewart, who is one of the most outspoken critics of the current style of restrictor plate racing, feels that NASCAR should completely eliminate the restrictor plate, a move he believes would put the onus back on the teams and drivers.

Wallace lapped the 2.66-mile oval with a top speed of 228mph in an unofficial test in June and as Stewart prepares for Sunday's EA Sports 500, he feels NASCAR should be looking closely as to whether they need restrictor plates any more.

"I feel like after hearing what Rusty ran at Talladega that we don't even need restrictor plates," said Stewart. "It's still not real racing when somebody else has to go with you and somebody else can dictate how you run. If you don't ever have anybody go with you all day you never have a shot at winning."

Even though Wallace's top speed was more than 30mph over what the current breed of restrictor plate cars are capable of, Stewart says the extra speed wouldn't phase him.

" I'd be the first one to jump out there," he added. "It would bring the driver back into it. Instead of teams working so hard to build cars that are slick, they could try to build cars that actually handle again. There's always talk about why we get into these big crashes and it's because there's 40 of us running in one big pack, and we're so close together you could throw a blanket over us.

"If you had cars running in the 215 to 220 mph bracket, you wouldn't be able to run that close to each other because you'd have to move around on the race track to find clean air. We wouldn't be able to stay down on the bottom of the track. We'd have to drive around like we do at Michigan and find places on the track where our car drives better. I think it would make for exciting racing to be able to do that again."