Relaxed and ready- a happy Stewart is a dangerous one
LOL!! For my Tony Stewart friends. And yes, I do like Tony, he's my 3rd driver on my list of favs..
Link to article
1:22 am EDT AP
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – After the long road he traveled to win last season's Nextel Cup championship, Tony Stewart's need to relax is understandable.
If he wants to blow off steam, let him go run his midget car at Fort Wayne or Tulsa or even the South Pole. Let him have a ball in the Rolex 24 marathon. Let him run at the Chili Bowl, the Salad Bowl – it doesn't matter.
If getting a horsepower fix in another form of racing is what butters his noodles, more power to him (cracked ribs notwithstanding as a possible pitfall).
Letting Stewart do what he wants away from the 36-race Nextel Cup tour is good policy for Joe Gibbs Racing, as the team knows Stewart is going to deliver once back in his familiar No. 20 Chevy.
It is well-documented, however, that it's been a different Tony Stewart delivering over the past year or so. That the notorious temper has been, well, tempered? Old news. That Stewart has gone from contentious smart-ass to jovial smart-aleck? Also yesterday's headlines.
As for right here and right now, there is bad news – and it's not for Gibbs and the No. 20 team, NASCAR, fans or the media.
No, the bad news is for Stewart's fellow competitors. Even though he's still in pain from his extracurricular racing mishap at the Chili Bowl a few weeks back, Stewart enters Speedweeks here at Daytona International Speedway with an attitude that has to be giving other drivers pause.
"I'm glad to be here because I'm actually going to get a chance to relax now that we're here," he said Thursday during the annual Speedweeks Media Day.
Relax? During the season's most pressure-packed 10 days of racing?
After an offseason that Stewart describes as actually being an "off-the-track" season ("The photo shoots for everybody, NASCAR obligations, autograph sessions, appearances – I mean, there wasn't an offseason," he said. "It's a 12-month job."), relaxed is just what Stewart is – and that has to have some of his fellow racers shaking in their fire suits.
When Stewart is laid-back is also when he's the most dangerous in a race car, becoming arguably one of the most difficult drivers to beat. We saw that last season when he went on a tear during the final 22 races, racking up five wins, 14 top-fives and 19 top-10s in that span.
Stewart won the title by not thinking about it, not focusing on it and particularly not obsessing about it.
As the season-opening Daytona 500 approaches, Stewart has that same kind of outlook. While other drivers are fretting about how they'll do on Feb. 19, Stewart is looser than a stripped lug nut on his Chevy.
And that attitude can only help as Stewart prepares to once again chase the last major goal he has yet to achieve during his NASCAR career: winning the Daytona 500.
According to Stewart, winning here next Sunday is "the No. 1 thing on the to-do list, the only thing on the to-do list."
"The great thing is we didn't have to wait all season to try to go do that goal, it's the first thing we do," he said. "With the last two years, the way we ran here [finished second in 2004, seventh in '05), coming back as the champions is the best-case scenario."
Don't be surprised if Stewart ultimately makes race day look like a day at the beach. Also don't be surprised if Stewart rides his laid-back wave to his third Cup championship in the last five seasons.
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Some might say it's getting kind of boring to see the "new" Stewart. He's so laid-back and non-confrontational that reporters are running out of new things to write or say about him. I never thought I'd say I miss the old Terrible Tony, but there are times …
And since it doesn't look like he's going back to his old ways any time soon, it leaves us to ask him, ad nauseum, most of the same questions we did last season.
Consider this exchange from Tuesday:
Reporter: "Last year you changed a lot of things. You're working with the team in a different way, getting along better. Do you feel like you're a different person now than you were before? Do you think that has changed you?"
Stewart: "Didn't we talk about that all year last year?"
Reporter: "Yeah, but we're going into another year."
Stewart: "You think as soon as the calendar year changed, all of a sudden the moon and the stars were going to go a different direction?"
Reporter: "No."
Stewart: "OK, there's your answer."
Stewart wasn't done.
When asked what he looks for before each race, whether he's plotting strategy on how to run the race, or thinking about the most opportune time for pit stops or whether to jump out to an early lead or pace himself and make a move later during the race, Stewart quickly claims none of the above.
"I'm looking for hot chicks on pit lane," he said with a devilish smile. "That's all I'm doing. If I can't see them, normally there's a crew guy saying, 'You need to look at 11:00 to your left, check it out.'"
Stewart relaxed? That might be an understatement.
Link to article
1:22 am EDT AP
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – After the long road he traveled to win last season's Nextel Cup championship, Tony Stewart's need to relax is understandable.
If he wants to blow off steam, let him go run his midget car at Fort Wayne or Tulsa or even the South Pole. Let him have a ball in the Rolex 24 marathon. Let him run at the Chili Bowl, the Salad Bowl – it doesn't matter.
If getting a horsepower fix in another form of racing is what butters his noodles, more power to him (cracked ribs notwithstanding as a possible pitfall).
Letting Stewart do what he wants away from the 36-race Nextel Cup tour is good policy for Joe Gibbs Racing, as the team knows Stewart is going to deliver once back in his familiar No. 20 Chevy.
It is well-documented, however, that it's been a different Tony Stewart delivering over the past year or so. That the notorious temper has been, well, tempered? Old news. That Stewart has gone from contentious smart-ass to jovial smart-aleck? Also yesterday's headlines.
As for right here and right now, there is bad news – and it's not for Gibbs and the No. 20 team, NASCAR, fans or the media.
No, the bad news is for Stewart's fellow competitors. Even though he's still in pain from his extracurricular racing mishap at the Chili Bowl a few weeks back, Stewart enters Speedweeks here at Daytona International Speedway with an attitude that has to be giving other drivers pause.
"I'm glad to be here because I'm actually going to get a chance to relax now that we're here," he said Thursday during the annual Speedweeks Media Day.
Relax? During the season's most pressure-packed 10 days of racing?
After an offseason that Stewart describes as actually being an "off-the-track" season ("The photo shoots for everybody, NASCAR obligations, autograph sessions, appearances – I mean, there wasn't an offseason," he said. "It's a 12-month job."), relaxed is just what Stewart is – and that has to have some of his fellow racers shaking in their fire suits.
When Stewart is laid-back is also when he's the most dangerous in a race car, becoming arguably one of the most difficult drivers to beat. We saw that last season when he went on a tear during the final 22 races, racking up five wins, 14 top-fives and 19 top-10s in that span.
Stewart won the title by not thinking about it, not focusing on it and particularly not obsessing about it.
As the season-opening Daytona 500 approaches, Stewart has that same kind of outlook. While other drivers are fretting about how they'll do on Feb. 19, Stewart is looser than a stripped lug nut on his Chevy.
And that attitude can only help as Stewart prepares to once again chase the last major goal he has yet to achieve during his NASCAR career: winning the Daytona 500.
According to Stewart, winning here next Sunday is "the No. 1 thing on the to-do list, the only thing on the to-do list."
"The great thing is we didn't have to wait all season to try to go do that goal, it's the first thing we do," he said. "With the last two years, the way we ran here [finished second in 2004, seventh in '05), coming back as the champions is the best-case scenario."
Don't be surprised if Stewart ultimately makes race day look like a day at the beach. Also don't be surprised if Stewart rides his laid-back wave to his third Cup championship in the last five seasons.
----------------------
Some might say it's getting kind of boring to see the "new" Stewart. He's so laid-back and non-confrontational that reporters are running out of new things to write or say about him. I never thought I'd say I miss the old Terrible Tony, but there are times …
And since it doesn't look like he's going back to his old ways any time soon, it leaves us to ask him, ad nauseum, most of the same questions we did last season.
Consider this exchange from Tuesday:
Reporter: "Last year you changed a lot of things. You're working with the team in a different way, getting along better. Do you feel like you're a different person now than you were before? Do you think that has changed you?"
Stewart: "Didn't we talk about that all year last year?"
Reporter: "Yeah, but we're going into another year."
Stewart: "You think as soon as the calendar year changed, all of a sudden the moon and the stars were going to go a different direction?"
Reporter: "No."
Stewart: "OK, there's your answer."
Stewart wasn't done.
When asked what he looks for before each race, whether he's plotting strategy on how to run the race, or thinking about the most opportune time for pit stops or whether to jump out to an early lead or pace himself and make a move later during the race, Stewart quickly claims none of the above.
"I'm looking for hot chicks on pit lane," he said with a devilish smile. "That's all I'm doing. If I can't see them, normally there's a crew guy saying, 'You need to look at 11:00 to your left, check it out.'"
Stewart relaxed? That might be an understatement.
posted by at 2/09/2006 11:20:00 PM
2 Comments:
Gotta love Tony!!!! Can't wait for the Shootout!!!
Hot chicks on pit lane, huh?
Tony's a trip!! lol
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