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Twice as nice: a toned-down Tony Stewart can enjoy a second Cup championship

Sporting News, The, Dec 2, 2005 by Matt Crossman

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Without doubt this is Stewart's most impressive season. Just judging by results, it's not close. Stewart dominated from Father's Day on. The team finished great when it had a great car and better than it should have when the car was weak, which was rare.

"He's capable of making a race team better than it is," Jeff Gordon says.

So which is more important, Stewart's new attitude or his faster car? The miserable seasons past of Stewart's teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing suggest more than equipment fueled Stewart's success, but all the positive attitudes in the world won't make a lemon into lemonade. But chemistry is as important as engineering in making a car faster. "It all works hand in hand," Parsons says. Zipadelli says the same thing. A fast car makes Stewart happy. A happy Stewart provides incentive for the crew to work harder, which makes the car faster, which makes Stewart happier, and so on.

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Happier? Someone needs to come up with a stronger word than that to describe Stewart--the first man to win both a Winston Cup and a Nextel Cup. Leading up to the final race, he said winning his second championship would be "10 times sweeter" than his first because the first came in such a personally frustrating season. Judging by his postrace glee last Sunday, Stewart underestimated how great it would be.

The end result of all this could be a more iconic career for Stewart than most observers previously had expected. It's no secret that Stewart longs for the days of his racing youth, when he mad-dashed his way around dirt tracks on circuits nobody with clean fingernails has heard of, driving a beat-up old van from race to race, eating dinner at Waffle House at 2 a.m., making just enough money to pay his bills and keep racing.

Clearly he has forgotten how bad those times were. After the therapists deconstruct his house purchase, they can work on how he has romanticized those days.

It has been the prevailing notion that Stewart's NASCAR career would not be long, that he would tire of the stresses and go back to the simpler racing life. Stewart is noncommittal--he could race five more years or 20 more years--but he sounds more optimistic about his future these days. After the way this season played out, those who know Stewart best think he might stick around longer and keep piling up championships.

"I think there's no reason in the world we can't come back next year and contend and the year after and contend--as long as we do our job and give him cars that are capable of running up front," Zipadelli says "It's not whether he can or not, it's whether he wants to or not. I don't know that he wants to any more than he did; he's just learned how to enjoy it."

Maybe next year Stewart will learn to enjoy testing.

Then again, why mess with success?

TSN's POWER POLL

1. Tony Stewart. If Smoke can maintain this attitude through 2006, he'll be racing for a third title.

2. Greg Biffle. He won't let a mere 35 points stand between him and the top of the standings.

Twice as nice: a toned-down Tony Stewart can enjoy a second Cup championship

Sporting News, The, Dec 2, 2005 by Matt Crossman

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