The 2010 United Midget Racing Association (UMRA) season that was already shaping up to be an exciting one has just gotten better thanks to one of the UMRA’s most famous alums. The 2010 UMRA rookie class will be racing for some extra money this season as part of the “Tony Stewart Rookie Challenge.”

Beginning at Montpelier Speedway on May 1 and at each and every UMRA event in 2010, the highest finishing rookie will receive $50 for being the “Rookie of the Race.” To make things even more exciting for fans and rookies alike, there will be a real battle to keep track of throughout the season as the top three rookies at the end of the season will get money from the Tony Stewart Rookie Challenge point fund.

Tony Stewart won 11 UMRA features in his driving career in the series. The first one came on July 14, 1989 at the Rush County Fairgrounds in Rushville and the final one also coming at Rushville on July 4, 1996, just over a month after he started from the pole at the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. Stewart’s involvement in the series has continued even while he has been busy winning two NASCAR Cup championships and becoming one of stock car racing’s biggest stars as he has become a successful UMRA car owner with Ron Combs at the controls. In 2005, Combs delivered the car owner Stewart the one thing he was unable to get as a driver in the UMRA, a championship.

So it is in 2010 that Tony Stewart, a man that has given so much back to short track racing gives back to the series that really put him on the map. Fans are going to want to be at the races this season because the “Tony Stewart Rookie Challenge” is going to be exciting!

Visit the UMRA website for more information on the United Midget Racing Association.

Fans have the opportunity to see their favorite drivers in a totally different atmosphere at Food City Race Night March 19 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Once all on-track activities at Ford Fan Friday are completed on Friday, the party moves to the hospitality area at BMS. Some of NASCAR’s finest wheelmen will then participate in several on-stage activities, including a question and answer session, Wii Boxing and Family Feud.

Jimmie Johnson heads up the driver question and answer session, along with Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray and David Ragan. Going head to head in Wii Boxing is defending champion Elliott Sadler, along with Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, A.J. Allmendinger and Scott Speed.

Family Feud should be a highlight as drivers from Richard Childress Racing will take on the Stewart-Haas stable. Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, along with Delana Harvick, will battle Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman and Krissie Newman. Two fans will be chosen to play on each team, via an online auction benefitting the Bristol Chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities at www.bristolmotorspeedway.com. FOX’s very own Matt Yocum will be the emcee for Feud.

Food City Race Night opens at 4 p.m. and is free to all fans. A number of drivers, including Harvick and NASCAR legends David Pearson, Harry Gant and Dave Marcis, will be on hand to sign autographs. Nationwide drivers participating include Steve Wallace, Trevor Bayne, Reed Sorenson, Justin Allgaier, Kelly Bires, Colin Braun and Eric McClure.

Show cars also will be on display, along with simulators and souvenir trailers. Live entertainment, featuring Pine Mountain Railroad, will be featured and there also will be free food sampling.

Tony Stewart will return to Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 22 as the defending champion of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, and thanks to the new Smoke Double Down All-Star Race ticket package, his legion of fans can have a May to remember at the Mecca of Motorsports.

Fans can purchase the Smoke Double Down package while supplies last and receive two frontstretch tickets for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race; two passes to a fan forum lunch with Stewart at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Monday, May 3; and two Stewart souvenirs. Plus, $20 per ticket package will be donated to the Tony Stewart Foundation. The Smoke Double Down package is priced at $149 and available online or by calling the speedway ticket office at 1-800-455-FANS.

“One of the coolest things about winning the Sprint All-Star Race was doing victory lane at the start-finish line last year,” said Stewart. “This double-down offer could get the team our own cheering section on the frontstretch so we can do it all over again! Plus, it’s a great way to support the Tony Stewart Foundation while catching the ‘backyard brawl’ on the track in Charlotte.”

Last season, Stewart broke through in dramatic fashion, scoring his first victory as a team owner for Stewart-Haas Racing at the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. It was no easy task as Stewart piloted his No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet through the wildest 10 laps in NASCAR’s 2009 season to emerge the victor.

Stewart started the final 10-lap segment in the sixth position and avoided two wrecks in three laps of green-flag racing, including a three-car melee in Turn 4, to set up a memorable five-lap duel with Matt Kenseth. Stewart stalked Kenseth for several laps, finally executing the pass in Turn 2 while racing to the white flag. The victory for the two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion was his first in the $1 million-to-win NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.

ANNAPOLIS, N.C. – The championship lineage of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice team of Stewart-Haas Racing is impressive and deep.

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet has won 11 titles in his 30-year driving career, including two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships (2002 and 2005). And his crew chief, Darian Grubb, earned a Sprint Cup championship in 2006 as the lead engineer for the No. 48 team of Hendrick Motorsports and driver Jimmie Johnson.

But the championships earned don’t stop at the driver/crew chief level. They continue onto the shop floor at Stewart-Haas Racing, with front mechanic Cam Strader bringing an impressive title in the form of his 2001 NASCAR Goody’s Dash Series championship.

Cam Strader at 2010 Atlanta Race

Trying to make a career in racing, especially as a driver, is filled with struggle. Success isn’t achieved easily.

“I raced full-time, but I was living above the garage in the crew chief’s house. I didn’t have heat or anything like that. I was struggling the whole time financially, but it was still fun and I didn’t care about that,” Strader said.

The fun began when Strader was 10. The Wilson, N.C.-native raced go-karts on dirt until he was 15 and advanced to the Late Model Stock Truck division at Southern National Raceway Park in Kenly, N.C. After only a year, Strader moved up to the track’s premier Late Model Stock division in 1998. After two years in Late Models with four wins and back-to-back third-place point finishes, Strader made the jump to the Dash Series in 2000.

The entry-level NASCAR touring series operated from 1975 through 2003 and featured sub-compact stock cars with a 100-inch wheelbase and the choice of a 168 cubic-inch, 13:1 compression four-cylinder engine or a 268 cubic-inch, 9:1 compression V-6.

At age 19, Strader became the series’ rookie of the year thanks to one win, two poles and 11 top-five finishes. He followed up that season by winning the Dash Series championship in 2001 with four wins, two poles, 14 top-fives and 16 top-10s. Strader ran the Dash Series for one final full season in 2002, where he picked up another win before running only three events in 2003 as he attempted to make the jump to ARCA and the Nationwide Series. Yet even with just a three-race schedule, Strader scored two victories.

“We would have 30 cars show up to an event and there was a lot of really good competition back when I was racing in the Dash Series,” Strader said. “We had some good years there with the rookie of the year title in 2000 and the championship in 2001. In 2002 and 2003, we were kind of part-time racing and trying to do some bigger events with a few ARCA and Nationwide races here and there.”

Strader drove in three ARCA races with a best finish of third, which came in his first ARCA start in March 2002 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He attempted to qualify for a 2002 Nationwide Series race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway for Means Racing, but the underfunded team didn’t make the show.

“Sponsorship was hard to get. The exposure in the Dash Series wasn’t the greatest. We just never could get the finances to continue on.”

The decision to quit driving was a tough one.

“When I first got out of driving, it was really hard,” said Strader, now 30. “Over the years, I’ve kind of come to accept everything. That part of my life led me into a good career, and a great career working for an organization like Stewart-Haas Racing.”

While Strader’s driving career stopped, his motorsports career did not, as he went to work for Hendrick Motorsports in its research and development department in 2004.

“I worked in the R&D department for two years, and then I moved over to the Nationwide Series team on the ‘5’ car as a front mechanic for a year. After that, I assumed the car chief role there for three years working mainly with Kyle Busch and Casey Mears. We always had a lot of different drivers through my time. Then JR Motorsports and Hendrick Motorsports merged, so I continued the car chief role for two years over at JR Motorsports. Even served as the interim crew chief for a bit and won a race with Ron Fellows at Montreal.”

The experience of being a driver has served Strader well in his second motorsports career.

“If I had my choice, I would still be driving, but I always look at my current job as if I was still in the seat and ask, ‘What would make the best change?’ or ‘What would be the best place to make a different change?’ and things like that. It definitely helps.”

That mechanical acumen combined with his experience behind the wheel was on display in Strader’s final appearance in a Dash Series car.

It was the Pabst Blue Ribbon 150 on Aug. 21, 2003 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, and on a whim, Strader decided to enter the 150-lap race on the tight and fast .533-mile bullring.

“We put together a Dash car a week before the race. We had just up and decided to go race it. We got everything together, worked all night through the whole week. We went there and we ended up winning the race. That was always really neat to me. Just spur of the moment, last minute and ended up going to Bristol and getting the win.”

Now Strader gets to enjoy a rare off-weekend on the marathon-like Sprint Cup tour before heading back to Bristol for next weekend’s Food City 500. There, he’ll look to end up back in victory lane with Stewart and the Office Depot/Old Spice team of Stewart-Haas Racing.

Ryan Newman appeared on Trackside from Atlanta Motor Speedway on Friday night. Newman brought the Trackside crew Tornados and talked about his 300th career start and beating out Jimmie Johnson for Rookie of the Year in 2002.

Ryan Newman battled through handling and tire issues to score a hard-fought 17th-place finish in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The driver of the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) lost two laps about midway through the event when he made an unscheduled pit stop for a shredded right-front tire. Despite the issue, Newman was able to make calculated gambles to pick up 12 spots in the closing laps of the race, which ended in a green-white-checkered finish.

“Man, we could not catch a break until the very end there,” said Newman, whose top-20 result was his best four races into the 2010 Sprint Cup season. “But either way it was a hard-fought 17th-place finish for the Tornados Chevrolet. It looked like we were going to be 31st there for a long time and to get that break there at the end was really nice. We’ve just got to work a little bit more on it, but I have to say the guys did a great job on pit road today. We were really improved there.”

Newman qualified seventh for Sunday’s race but had to start from the rear of the field after making an engine change prior to the event. NASCAR rules state that if an engine change is made prior to the race, the car for which the change is made must drop to the rear of the field.

With the drop of the green flag, Newman didn’t waste any time as he tried to make up the lost ground. By lap 30, he had already moved into 15th. He told crew chief Tony Gibson that the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet was just a little too loose, especially off of turn two.

When the caution flag waved at lap 34, Newman pitted in hopes of helping his loose-handling racecar. The Tornados pit crew changed four tires, added fuel and made a track bar adjustment. A quick pit stop put Newman back on track in 14th-place. Although he was still picking up spots and had moved into 12th-place by lap 50, Newman told his team that his Chevy was still a little too free exiting the turns.

A caution on lap 80 afforded Newman’s crew the opportunity to improve his car’s handling. The pit crew made track bar and wedge adjustments and changed four tires and added fuel on the stop. Following the trip to pit road, the team noticed that the right-front tire was blistered and told Newman that tire wear was something that they would need to collectively watch closely over the course of the race.

Unfortunately, the chassis adjustments hurt Newman’s forward bite as the car was still too loose off the corners and tight in the center. Newman began sliding back and fell to 22nd when the caution flag waved again. The crew again made a series of wedge and air pressure adjustments to try and improve the handling of the Tornados Chevy.

By lap 150, Newman was in 24th and he told his crew that the adjustments had over-tightened his racecar and that he could not drive it through the center of the turns the way he needed to. The team began making a plan for the next stop, but Newman radioed that he had a tire issue and had to pit immediately.

The unscheduled pit stop came on lap 153 for four tires, fuel and an air pressure adjustment. Newman’s right-front tire was shredded when the crew removed it from the car. He returned to the track in 30th-place, two laps down to the leaders.

As soon as Newman returned to the 1.54-mile oval, an untimely caution came at lap 157. Newman elected to stay out on the track since he had just pitted. The decision to stay out enabled Newman to gain back one of the lost laps, but he was still mired deep in the field. Over the next 130 laps, Newman’s team made a variety of tire pressure adjustments in hopes of helping the car’s handling. The team also made a series of strategy calls regarding when to stay out and when to pit in hopes of regaining their lost laps and making a run at the leaders.

However, the effort was thwarted when the No. 48 Chevrolet of Jimmie Johnson made contact with Newman’s No. 39 machine as the two came off turn four on lap 285. Newman had to pit for a flat tire and to repair his left-front fender damage. For the second time during the race, Newman returned to the track and was greeted by another untimely caution which put him in 32nd, three laps down to the leaders.

Again, Newman stayed out while the race ran under caution and regained one of his laps. The team opted to roll the dice, and thanks to caution flags, Newman was able to get back on the lead lap before the final restart of the race at lap 339. Newman took the green flag in 29th and was able to pick up 12 spots over the final two laps to claim the 17th spot.

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala for SHR, finished 13th.

Stewart continues to lead the SHR driver lineup in the championship point race, as his top-15 finish bumped him three spots to eighth in the Sprint Cup point standings with 510 points, 134 markers behind series leader Kevin Harvick. Newman moved up three spots to 29th in the standings with 337 points, 307 markers behind Harvick.

Kurt Busch won the Kobalt Tools 500 to score his 21st career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his third at Atlanta.

Matt Kenseth finished .482 of a second behind Busch, while Juan Pablo Montoya, Kasey Kahne and Paul Menard rounded out the top-five. A.J. Allmendinger, Brian Vickers, Greg Biffle, Harvick and Scott Speed comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 11 caution periods for 53 laps, with eight drivers failing to finish the 341-lap race, which was extended 16 laps past its scheduled distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.

The Sprint Cup Series takes a rare weekend off before heading to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for the March 21 Food City 500. The race begins at 1 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

A 13th-place finish has never been something Tony Stewart has crowed about, and his result in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway was no different. Yet achieving this 13th-place finish was different, for Stewart had to come from the back of the 43-car field while managing his tires and dodging numerous late-race accidents. In fact, so much was packed into this race that it needed nearly 25 extra miles to complete, as it took two attempts at a green-white-checkered finish to finally end what turned out to be a 341-lap race.

“Long day,” said Stewart, who despite qualifying 15th had to start at the back of the 43-car field after his team changed engines following final practice on Saturday. “The tire deal kind of made the racing old school. You had to take care of your tires at the front of a run to make sure you still had tires at the end of the run. You could never run 100 percent. You really had to manage your equipment.”

The driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) rallied his way into the top-10 less than 40 laps into the race. It was an impressive feat not only for the amount of positions gained in such a short time, but also because he did it with tires that quickly became worn thanks to the rigors of racing at Atlanta’s 1.54-mile oval.

Competitors were finding that their right-front tires would blister if they pushed them too hard, and hardly anyone had a set of tires that could last more than 40 laps, never mind a full fuel run. The tire wear Stewart encountered ran the gamut from mild to mashed, for if he had the opportunity to take care of his tires, the inside edge of his right-front would blister only slightly. But if the racing conditions forced him to really push, the loads placed on the tires, specifically the right-front, could not endure.

That was exactly the case on lap 190 when Stewart had to make an unscheduled pit stop for a flat right-front tire. He had been running seventh, but the stop, which happened under green, dropped him to 28th.

All was not lost, however, for as long as the race stayed green, everyone else would have to pit for tires. Even with the unscheduled pit stop, if all of Stewart’s competitors hit pit road eventually, everyone would cycle through, meaning that Stewart’s lost track position would be only temporary.

As luck would have it, that’s the way it played out. The yellow caution flag never waved, and as drivers ducked onto pit road, Stewart earned his lap back, and then methodically ticked his way up the leaderboard, rising to as high as third on lap 214.

“The balance wasn’t bad, but I just couldn’t run hard and keep the tires underneath it” said Stewart, who scored victories at Atlanta in March 2002 and October 2006.

As a result, Stewart slowly fell toward 10th, but he didn’t drop out of the top-10 until lap 288 when the caution flag waved and he was 12th. From there to the finish, a series of cautions meant a series of restarts, and, unfortunately, the Office Depot/Old Spice machine couldn’t take off as well as it counterparts. By lap 300, Stewart was in 14th. Seven laps later, though, he was a lot worse off.

A loose wheel sent Stewart to the pits for another unscheduled stop on lap 307. He emerged in 30th, and it seemed a dismal finish was all but guaranteed. Yet two separate multi-car accidents that collected a total of nine cars in the race’s final 17 laps allowed Stewart to claw his way to a respectable 13th-place finish.

Stewart’s SHR teammate, Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet, finished 17th after enduring a similarly long day. He also had to start at the back, for his team made an engine change early Sunday morning, nullifying his seventh-place qualifying effort.

Kurt Busch won the Kobalt Tools 500 to score his 21st career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his third at Atlanta.

Matt Kenseth finished .482 of a second behind Busch, while Juan Pablo Montoya, Kasey Kahne and Paul Menard rounded out the top-five. A.J. Allmendinger, Brian Vickers, Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick and Scott Speed comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 11 caution periods for 53 laps, with eight drivers failing to finish the 341-lap race, which was extended 16 laps past its scheduled distance due to the green-white-checkered finish.

With round four of 36 complete, Stewart is eighth in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He gained three positions and now has 510 points, 134 markers behind series leader Harvick. Newman rose three spots to 29th in the standings. He has 337 points and is 307 points back of Harvick.

The Sprint Cup Series takes a rare weekend off before heading to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for the March 21 Food City 500. The race begins at 1 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

Tony Stewart met with members of the media at Atlanta Motor Speedway and discussed racing at Atlanta, safer barriers at Bristol, being himself and other topics.

TALK ABOUT WHAT YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS WEEKEND AT ATLANTA:
“I like to be here. This is definitely a driver’s track. That is why we love coming to Atlanta. I am with Carl (Edwards) here, I snuck in during his deal, but, I hope they never repave it. That will be the one thing that will kill it. If they have to repave it, it will be out of necessity, not because of desire from us. That is what makes this place fun is the fact that you are going to move around from the bottom to the top every segment of the race. You are, at some point, going to have to move around and try to find a spot to make your car better. That is what makes it so much fun being here.”

HAS THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE SPORT CHANGED MARTINSVILLE OR IS IT STILL THAT TOUGH, HOT HUMID PLACE?
“It is still hot and humid, but the good thing is the air systems, NASCAR has worked with some of the NASA groups and got the carbon filters that help take the CO out of the air. Even in days when you knock the crush panels out of the car, you are a lot safer in there than we used to be on CO levels. That is something that we are appreciative of. But other than that, it really is not as bad and draining as it used to be. Cars are better insulated. Obviously with a carbon fiber seat, you are insulated a lot better so it takes some of those variables out of the equation now.”

YOU HAVE REMAINED MORE YOURSELF AND NOT EMBRACED A SOMEWHAT HOLLYWOOD TYPE LIFESTYLE AS A STAR IN THE SPORT, HOW DID YOU DO THAT?
“I’ll be honest, I don’t know. I guess, just being me from a certain standpoint. Shoot, I have to send girlfriends out to go shop for me because I can’t even tell you what the current clothes are. I have to send somebody to do it for me so I don’t look like I’m stuck in the ’80s anymore. That is only shot I got at looking current is to send somebody else to go do it for me. I’ll be honest, I enjoy being home. I guess I’m just one of those people, whether it has been racing, it has pretty much been every aspect of my life; I’ve just kind of been me from day one and have always stayed that way. I don’t have the desire to do all that other stuff.”

IN BUILDING YOUR LOG CABIN, HAVE YOU UTILIZED AS MANY INDIANA COMPANIES AS YOU CAN?
“We have tried to. We try to get as many Indiana companies as we could to build it. When we sat in the initial meetings, it was really important to me to try and get as many companies as the builder was comfortable with out of Columbus (Indiana) in particular to try to help out. We’ve tried to stay as close to home as we could with every aspect of it.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NEW SAFER BARRIERS AT BRISTOL THAT WILL NARROW DOWN THE TRACK?
“The wall is still where the wall is at. We’ll see it when we are out there so we always…the good thing about us as drivers, after all these years of doing this, doesn’t matter where they put it, we have to stay a fraction of an inch off of it and use every bit up to it. I am sure it is going to make a difference, there is no doubt about it, I mean we all use every bit of room we can get there anyway. It will make the exits of the corners a little tighter but I think the racing will still be good there because of it.”

DO YOU THINK IT WILL INCREASE ACCIDENTS?
“No. Like I said, they paint them so you can see them, so that will help us. (LAUGHS) Sorry, I had to say it that way; it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.”

Ryan Newman HAS SAID HE THINKS WE WILL SEE MORE SIDE DRAFTING WHEN WE GO TO THE BLADE SPOILER, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
“You definitely asked the right guys with Ryan because he is an engineer. He’ll know. I won’t know until we get in them. I’m not smart enough to know what it is going to do. (LAUGHS) It will be just from experience once we get in the cars. I’m not really…I don’t know that I’ll be a good one to pre-judge it by. The good thing is that once we start, we will know right away what works better that way.”

CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT SIDE DRAFTING IS?
“When you see geese flying in that V, that is really what it is like. If you are the guy that is off 45 degrees, you are actually…the closer you can get, it is pulling your car forward and pulling their car backward. The tricky part is that once it pulls you ahead of them, then all of a sudden you have switched roles. It is knowing how close to stay to a guy and when; and when to get off him.”

KANNAPOLIS, NC – Three races into the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and Tony Stewart is right on track.

Stewart has piloted his No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala to 11th in the championship driver standings, where he is only 120 points behind series leader Kevin Harvick. Back-to-back top-10 results at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, respectively, have allowed Stewart to gain 12 point positions since finishing 22nd in the season-opening Daytona 500.

While they’re not wins, the strong efforts of late have Stewart upbeat as he enters round 4 of 36 this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. That’s because Fontana and Las Vegas are bellwether tracks for how one will perform at many of the other intermediate tracks that make up the majority of the Sprint Cup schedule.

Run well at Fontana and Las Vegas, the theory goes, and you’ll run well at such stops as Atlanta, Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn – all tracks Stewart and his Sprint Cup counterparts will visit in the next four months.

It’s where seasons are shaped, for better or worse, with Atlanta being the next litmus test for teams via this weekend’s Kobalt Tools 500.

Stewart has two wins at the ultra-fast 1.54-mile oval, the first coming in the 2002 spring race and the latter coming in the 2006 fall race, where the two-time Sprint Cup champion showed off his version of Oktoberfest by leading seven times for a race-high 146 laps. Stewart followed up that win with another victory the very next week at Texas, the sister track to Atlanta.

Stewart continued his up-front ways when he returned to Atlanta the following March. In just the fifth race of the 2007 season, Stewart battled with Jimmie Johnson and led five times for 121 laps before finishing second to him. And in a case of déjà vu, Stewart finished second again, this time to Kyle Busch, when the series returned to Atlanta in March 2008.

But perhaps Stewart’s biggest test at Atlanta came last March, where in his first visit to the track as a driver/owner he came from two laps down to finish an impressive eighth. It was Stewart’s 13th top-10 finish in 21 career starts at Atlanta.

“There are a lot of guys that had problems today and never recovered from it,” said Stewart immediately after last year’s Kobalt Tools 500. “We got two laps down and fought our way back. At this place, that is hard to do. There are not very many guys that can come back from two laps down like that, so I am really proud of the team.”

With a history of strong runs at Atlanta, especially recently, Stewart is intent on continuing to prove his worth as a driver/owner by taking care of business in Atlanta.

Tony Stewart, Driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing:
When you look back on your first year as a driver/owner, is there any particular thing that you feel warrants a pat on the back?
“I think you’re always looking at things that you can do better. I think the one thing that I felt like I could pat myself on the back for is having assembled such a fine group of people. I don’t feel like I could’ve found anybody better than Bobby (Hutchens) as our competition director. I feel like having Tony Gibson and Darian Grubb are the two best fits for the crew chief positions. And, obviously, Ryan (Newman), our relationship over the year, I’ve had more fun with Ryan than I’ve had in a long time, and I’ve had a lot of great teammates that I’ve had a lot of fun with. Ryan and I are just a great fit and I think that’s the one thing that as the year kept going on and the relationships between this group kept getting stronger and building, that I was really proud of and felt fortunate I was able to get this particular group of people together and knowing how well we work together. It’s really hard in this business to get a group of guys who really click with each other, and I feel like that’s something we have is a core group of people who really have the same vision, have the same passion and have the relationship that we have, and that’s what I really felt proud about at the end of the season.”

What makes Atlanta different from a lot of the other 1.5-mile ovals the Sprint Cup Series visits?“The neat thing is that the times fall off so guys move around on the racetrack more. Everybody starts at the bottom, and the fast guys normally end up right around the wall midway through a run. That is something that is different than Charlotte and some of the other tracks on the circuit. I like having the flexibility to be able to move around. I know that if my car isn’t driving all that well in a particular spot that I have the flexibility as a driver to move around on the racetrack. You can make a difference. It’s like Michigan where you can move around and help yourself as a driver, versus being committed and whatever you’ve got, you’ve got. It does make you feel better as a driver to know you have that flexibility.”

How fine of a line is it to find a comfort level when you’re out on the racetrack at speed, particularly at Atlanta when you’re running over 200 mph?
“Well, I don’t know that it’s a fine line. I mean, either you’re comfortable or you’re not. Nothing is happening this year that hasn’t happened for 100 years in racing. There’s nothing magical or mysterious going on here. Everybody is going out every week and we’re working with technology, but still at the end of the day, you’ve got a driver that’s driving the car. No matter how fast the computer says that car is going to be, if that driver is not comfortable driving it, then they’re not going to go fast. So you’ve got to tune these cars to the drivers and their feels, and that’s what makes them go fast.”

Despite the history of good racing at Atlanta, the track has struggled to sell all of its tickets, as have some other tracks on the Sprint Cup circuit. Do you think it’s because of the economy, or are there other factors at play?
“Everyone wants to do their part to make it better, and I’m not sure we know exactly what that answer is. But our intentions are to do what we can to help make it a better experience for the fans every week. It’s one thing for the economy to be bad, but we’re competing in a time where everything is on the Internet and there are so many things for people to do. The simplest part about what we do here every weekend is we’re in the entertainment industry, and we’re competing against everybody else, whether it’s high school football on Friday night or whatever. We’re trying to figure out how we get these people to come watch us do what we love to do. And that’s the challenge for track owners and sanctioning bodies. It’s ‘How do you make it better?’ When the economy is bad like this, it’s that much tougher of a challenge. You try and find more ways to make it more efficient for the people to come watch us do what we love to do every week.”

Herb Branham: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to today’s NASCAR teleconference. Today’s guest is Ryan Newman. Going into Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the Kobalt Tools 500, Ryan takes an all-time pole record at AMS of seven. Tied all time with Buddy Baker for that record.

Ryan, thanks for joining us. Off to a little bit of a slow start in terms of the points. You’re coming in 32nd in the standings. Last year at this time you were 33rd. As people well remember, you went on to make the Chase and have a great season. Do you feel pretty confident about a similar sort of comeback this season?

Ryan Newman I’d like to think so. I mean, I think it’s real early to be talking about a comeback. Based on the numbers I guess you could call it that.

Honestly, I think you’re right, we’ve got ourselves in a hole. I wouldn’t call it a comeback, but we’ve got some work to do to get ourselves in position. We’ve got a long time before that issue becomes pressing.

So I feel confident that we’ve made some big gains with our racecars this year. Vegas, we actually were off a little bit. But California we had a really fast racecar and lost an engine. Daytona we were working our way up through the pack and got crashed. I feel like we’ve been more competitive in general. In saying that, we’ve still got more work to do. We’re not sitting here having won two of the last three races like Jimmie Johnson has.

Herb Branham: We’ve been trying to get a question from our Twitter account from our race fans out there. We have one from Christina. She wants to know: You’re a Daytona 500 winner, so what is the next huge goal for your career?

Ryan Championship is the ultimate. If you’re looking at a race win, the Brickyard would be really special to me. I’d say one step even more special would be the Southern 500. That to me has a lot of history and a lot of meaning behind it. That race itself would be the biggest race along with maybe the Coca-Cola 600 that I would like to win. But the championship is the ultimate goal.

Herb Branham: Thank you. We’ll go to the media for questions for our guest Ryan Newman.

Q: It seems like any more in Sprint Cup Series what rivalries we do see seem to be between teammates than between somebody with another team. Is there something about racing under the same roof as some other driver that makes you want to beat them worse than somebody else?

Ryan I think it has the biggest potential for conflict of all things we do in NASCAR, any teammate is a competitor. That sense of pressure I guess, especially with the extra hype now with the Chase and everything else, it makes it a higher level of potential for that conflict on the racetrack.

You know, I understand what you’re saying. But I think that’s the biggest reason why. You got the same equipment. You got the same a lot of things. The biggest difference is your results. That creates a little internal rivalry at times.

Q: In what ways has the success of the 48 team challenged you and your team to be better in the last couple years with your experience in Cup? How has their success impacted you in a way that forces you to get better?

Ryan Well, the real key time of their success has been in the Chase. They’ve been a successful team and obviously a successful organization the last several years. But what they do in the Chase is what makes everybody scratch their head, it seems.

I can’t say there’s one thing that we try to do to be better than them. But I will say that we try to do everything to be better than everybody else. I wouldn’t say it’s pit stops or what we try to do at a certain racetrack to be different or strategy or anything else. I think it’s collectively as a group and organization that we try to be better than everybody else. Therefore, that would hopefully make us better than the 48. At Stewart-Haas, we’re still in the process of building that.

Q: That said, is it difficult not to want to go reinvent the wheel? You say you’re trying to be better than everybody, so that takes care of the 48. When you look at what the 48 has done, how challenging is it to say this used to work but it’s not getting us to the level we want, we need to go in the opposite direction? How much of a danger is that or is that the approach that sometimes you have to be daring enough to take?

Ryan I think you kind of asked the question in two different formats because you asked if I wanted to reinvent the wheel, then you also said if I wanted to go the opposite direction. That’s two different things. Reinventing the wheel means you’re reworking what’s already there. If you’re working that, you’re going to take it to the next level. I wouldn’t say you’re going in the opposite direction.

I think ultimately you’re trying to do what they are doing, and that is beating everybody else. What your weakness is as a team or organization is what you need to focus on and not take focus away from another thing. That sounds somewhat contradicting, but that’s the way it is.

Every department has a department head and those department heads are responsible for their own focus. That, therefore, defines the organization’s focus.

For me personally it’s to go out there and just do my best job that I possibly can. We’ve obviously seen Jimmie do that, especially in the Chase. There’s no reinventing the wheel, going in opposite directions. It’s a matter of what I just always have said, is getting the job done. That to me is just doing it better than everybody else, that being the job.

Q: Is Atlanta the kind of place you look forward to as you dig your way out of the early hole you’re in?

Ryan Well, I mean, I look forward to every race. I wouldn’t say Atlanta is any different. I’ve always enjoyed Atlanta on Fridays just ’cause of my record in the cars that I’ve been given at those types of racetracks, especially there.

But, yeah, I wouldn’t say that I think of Atlanta as a place that we are going to rebound or we can rebound. I think every racetrack or every day is a new opportunity. It’s up to our team to go out there and make that happen.

Q: You had been quoted as saying Atlanta is bumpy enough that those bumps can spit you right out. Getting into turn one in the middle of three and four, you have to catch it right, it’s like surfing or wakeboarding. Since you’re so fast at qualifying in Atlanta, can you describe to the fans what it feels like to do that inside the car?

Ryan It’s really difficult from a fan’s perspective to see the bumps we feel. Even when you’re playing on a video game, Atlanta is a smooth surface, there’s not any bumps there. You can’t get that sensation or feeling. When you’re running 200 plus miles an hour going into a corner and you hit a bump that makes the car jump three or four inches, that’s a big bump. That’s big feedback, I guess is what we call it.

You know, just to have those inconsistencies at that speed is not necessarily typical. Charlotte is super smooth. Texas is smoother than it ever has been. Places like Vegas, even though they have little bumps, they’re not near as big as some of the bumps at Atlanta.

I equate it to water. When the water gets choppy, things get that much more difficult, whether you’re a wakeboarder or a skier or what. So it’s just a way to relate to the fans what we as drivers go through to get that ultimate quick lap or each and every lap to make it as fast as we can.

Q: Have you ever been surfing or wakeboarding? How good are you at that?

Ryan I’m not at all. I went skiing when I was a kid. That didn’t last too long. I didn’t think the water was going to hurt that bad when I hit it. That was enough for me. I do a little jet-skiing once in a while, but that’s it for me. If I’m on the water, I got a fishing rod in my hand.

Q: There’s a theory that once the spoiler gets put on the car that when a car spins, it decelerates more with a spoiler than with a wing, and that would keep the cars on the ground. Does that make sense to you? Have you looked at any numbers on that?

Ryan I don’t know. I mean, I think there could be. There may be some true reasoning for the speculation of that just from a drag perspective. I have not seen any numbers aero-wise in reference to that, when the car is backwards. So I couldn’t say.

I think from an aerodynamic standpoint, this is purely my opinion, that a spoiler would probably create less lift than a wing that is made to create downforce going in the opposite direction.

So if that wing is to create downforce going forward, it’s going to create a percentage of lift going the other way. I think that percentage of lift is greater than the percentage of lift than the spoiler creates going backwards.

Q: As far as your testing of the spoiler, have you done any on-track testing or relied all on simulation?

Ryan We haven’t done with the 39 team any testing in reference to the spoiler. We have had cars in the wind tunnel, knowing what the rules are potentially going to be, trying to do our homework in respect to that. The 14 has tested it at Texas. We’re just waiting our time. Charlotte will be — I think actually Talladega will be our first test, even though it’s supposed to be a different spoiler.

Q: Career start number 300 will be coming up this weekend. As milestones go, where does that stack up in your book?

Ryan I don’t know. I mean, what’s a milestone look like? Is it granite or quartz?

Q: Maybe it pays some money.

Ryan Honestly to me it’s just another number. It’s cool if you think about it to have 300 straight. From my standpoint to do something that I’ve always loved to do, that’s driving NASCAR Sprint Cup cars. It’s a number from my mental standpoint. But physically it’s nice to be able to do what I want to do for such a long time, and obviously have plans to do it even longer.

Just another number. That’s my short answer (laughter).

Q: I also know in past years when you’ve come to Atlanta, you’ve gone fishing with buddies in Georgia. Is that on the agenda? Is that something you try to do, go fishing or hunting?

Ryan The hunting, as we call it, the place I like to go, no longer exists. I do have some other places I like to go. Usually it’s dependent on the weather, what’s going on that day, what my schedule looks like. We’ll see.

But it really is a prime time, with the exception of the deep freeze we’ve been in the Southeast this year, it is a prime time to go fishing.

Q: You enter Atlanta in a similar position to last year. When you look at the way you were able to rebound last year, is there anything that you harken back to that you find yourself missing in this position going forward?

Ryan From our standpoint, we rebounded pretty quick last year. I don’t know when we were first inside the top 12 after being 33rd three races in. I know there’s plenty of potential and there’s a lot of season left. The law of averages works out for everybody except for Jimmie Johnson.

You know, I think we’ll have our opportunities. But I think if you look at 2009, when we rebounded, we didn’t keep that performance going. We had I think four or five top fives in a row, then we fell off. We maintained an 8th- to 10th-place position for the next 10 races or so, which was not ideal.

We left ourselves a lot of room to get better, which is a good thing, even though we made the Chase. I think if we can improve upon last year, then talking about 33rd at this time won’t be an issue, you know, for the rest of the season.

Q: What are your projections for Purdue with Robbie Hummel out?

Ryan I don’t know. I haven’t paid attention to any of it. I couldn’t tell you what’s going on in the world of basketball.

Q: Atlanta, this weekend you’re going to possibly set a pole record with the Buddy Baker situation and tiebreak that. Where does that fit in your career? How much do you actually place emphasis on your career on poles or is this something you naturally do well?

Ryan I think Buddy Baker is one of the 50 greatest NASCAR drivers in the history of our sport. If there was ever a record I could beat him or tie him in, that would be a big reward mentally for me.

You know, having the opportunity this week with a car that we ran in California actually, which I feel is a very good car, to go there and have the opportunity to break that record, or to stand alone in that record is pretty cool.

If I live out the rest of my career tied with Buddy Baker, I’m still fine with that. But obviously I’d like to beat it, too.

Q: I think fans’ expectations of the spoiler coming are pretty darn high. Do you think it’s actually going to change the racing all that much?

Ryan I believe it will. I think the biggest thing that we’re going to see with this spoiler, this is speculation from my standpoint, is the way the spoiler is designed, there’s going to be a lot more surface area of that spoiler on the quarter panels. I think the side drafting on the straightaway is going to be even bigger than it was with the old style car. I don’t think we have but 50% of that side drafting down the straightaway on the current car with the wing on it.

I think the fans will see more racing, even on the straightaways, if that makes sense. You’ll see more side-by-side, back and forth, nose-to-head, with the competitor down the straightaways, which I think will make places like Michigan and California, some of the tracks that are bigger, notorious for being a little boring through the middle of the race more exciting throughout the entire race.

Q: How big of a curve ball is this, getting a change like this mid-season or partial season?

Ryan I mean, it’s not that huge, I don’t think. I think that NASCAR has been working on the aero balance part of it so the cars will drive similar. We don’t want to put Goodyear in a position where the cars are driving different where we’re having a tire situation after working so hard to get back to a good, safe, consistent tire. I think that it’s not gonna be night and day. There might be a couple clouds in the sky, but we’ll be fine.

Q: Looking ahead a little bit to Darlington, what are the characteristics of that track that give drivers such headaches?

Ryan It’s the only racetrack that we go to in the entire – including road courses – where you accelerate into the turn. You let off on the straightaway going into turn one, then you accelerate up the hill. It’s unique all to its own at Darlington to have that characteristic.

You know, that stands out. You know, it used to be very unique. It was in a small group with Rockingham, when we had Rockingham, because the asphalt was similar, the tire was exact. You had to race the racetrack. I think it’s changed a little bit. You have to race the racetrack at Darlington still only because it’s so narrow, not necessarily because the grip changes so much.

Used to be easy when you came out behind somebody that came out on fresh tires to try to chase or run them down or at least keep up with them and crash your car. I don’t think you have that anymore because of the tire and the asphalt combination we have there.

Q: The words and phrases that perhaps invoke fear in drivers, particularly young drivers, where do you think the term ‘Darlington stripe’ falls as far as that category goes?

Ryan Nowhere for me personally. It’s a tough one to answer. I think some people and drivers are entirely intimidated going to that racetrack. Some drivers absolutely hate it. But it’s one of my favorites if not my favorite. I always said it was my favorite when it was the old asphalt. I don’t even consider it, to answer your question.

Q: As an engineer, we’d expect you to be somewhat of an analytical driver. Jimmie Johnson writes down notes after every race. Do you think analytical drivers like Jimmie is the kind of driver who can end up surpassing the 48 team and a jump-in-the-car type of driver?

Ryan That’s a good question. I don’t know how exactly to answer that. I think a driver has to be very well-rounded. It doesn’t have to be an engineer. Doesn’t have to be, you know, a perfect driver. He has to be well-rounded with respect to all visibilities from the physical, mental and emotional standpoint to drive that racecar to the highest capabilities possible.

The other part of that is it’s way beyond the driver. It’s part of the team. If you look at what Kevin Harvick has done this year with the same organization, but obviously with faster racecars, if he was taking notes, just started taking notes this year, you could call him — you could blame his excellence this year in taking notes.

But I think everybody is different. Some people have to take notes. Some people don’t. Some people can remember phone numbers, some people can’t. Some people can’t put a name with a face. Everybody’s different is my point. You know, I guess we’re still trying to find collectively as a group that equation to beat Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and the 48 team.

Q: Do you think the naturally articulate people like yourself have the ability to give better details to a crew chief and maybe that’s a helpful trait to have?

Ryan I think, absolutely. The more information you can give to a crew chief, the better, from a feedback standpoint to make the racecar better or make the improvements or the correct adjustments.

I do my best. I know everybody tries to do their best. It’s how successful you are, who you’re working with, the team that you have behind you that makes you successful. You know, they are the benchmark.

Q: You mentioned earlier about the side drafting with the spoiler. What kind of a skill is that for a driver to learn that side drafting? Is this something like a racing 101 type of thing or is this kind of using a postgraduate course? What are the challenges in understanding that or is that an easy thing to pick up?

Ryan It’s a pretty easy thing to pick up. It’s a pretty easy thing to do physically. The hardest part of it is, you know, it’s not the in-line difference in speed as much as it is the lateral difference in speed. If you get a car you’re trying to get as close as you can with your right front fender to his left rear quarter panel, he moves left or right a little bit, you’re putting both of yourselves in jeopardy. That’s the toughest part of side drafting, in my opinion. You know, just getting that run or having somebody help push you a little bit. That’s not so big a deal as it is physically putting your right front fender, which is the most demanding fender I would say in respect to aerodynamics, right vulnerable to somebody else’s left rear quarter panel.

We don’t see it as much as we used to because that side drafting isn’t as important. We used to see guys running into each other in the straightaways trying to slow somebody else down so they didn’t get past them as quick.

Q: So it’s as much about understanding who the driver is that you’re coming up on and understanding their tendencies as much as really the whole aspect of side drafting?

Ryan Correct, yeah. It’s more important to know who you’re dealing with and who you’re working with or who’s working against you than it is to actually know the maneuver itself.

Q: You have the seven Atlanta poles, which ties the record. You have a Truck win at Atlanta. The Cup win hasn’t happened. What might be the one critical factor that has eluded you at Atlanta?

Ryan I’ve had winning racecars halfway through the race before and had tires go out of balance and power steering go out, things like that. I’ve been in position; just haven’t been able to follow through.

You know, it’s all about the entire package, just like it is for everybody else on any given weekend. I’ve always says it’s much easier to go out there and be the quickest car on one lap than it is to be the best car on average over 500 miles. The longer you’re doing something, the harder it is to maintain that level of excellence.

I’ve been very successful there in qualifying, fortunately. I’ve had some unsuccessful moments in racing. So, you know, you just take it with what you can. It’s all about hard work and effort.

Q: You’re racing for the Wildlife Project has been really building up. You helped the Michigan Waterloo Recreation Area with some work. I know you love fishing. When I bring up the idea how much you helped Michigan, I’m thinking, have you ever gone ice fishing?

Ryan Yeah, actually just this past year out — we were snowmobiling with some friends out in Utah. They had a pond up there. We went ice fishing for a little bit and caught a few trout. That was a lot of fun.

But actually that was the second time in my life I went ice fishing. First time was with my grandfather when I was five or six years old. I remember we didn’t catch anything all morning. Bored our own holes. Decided to get some lunch at 11:30 or 12:00 when it was cold as could be. Came back. We left the lines in the water. I think one of us or both the us caught one without even being there. We caught fish the rest of the afternoon. That was a lot of fun. That was my first experience. I guess about 25 years later I got my second experience.

Q: I asked that question to Elliott Sadler. He said, You’d never catch me driving my truck out on a lake.

Ryan That would be driving a truck on a lake, not ice fishing.

Q: Ryan, we were talking about a follow-up on the qualifying. How much do you feel the speed if you’re so used to it? You’re so good there. How much do you feel that speed or are you conditioned to it?

Ryan I don’t think you necessarily feel the speed as much as you actually know the input you’ve given the racecar to make it go faster. I’ve always said, you know, from 140 miles an hour on up, I don’t think that you actually feel speed until something happens to you or you hit something. Case in point, flying an airplane. Nobody knows when they’re on a commercial flight they’re doing over 500 miles an hour until you hit turbulence, then that turbulence is pretty noticeable.

When you’re running 200 miles an hour at Atlanta, I don’t think you necessarily feel that actual extra one or two or sometimes three miles an hour. What you feel is the input you give in the car to make it go faster, getting back to the throttle a little sooner, getting into the corner a little bit harder, carrying a little more mid-corner speed. Those are the things that you feel that actually make you feel what you’ve done to pick up speed over a given mile-and-a-half.

Q: As speeds get faster and faster, are you cognizant of the fact that you actually have to do so much more to get to that point on the qualifying?

Ryan Well, that’s the thing. It’s really not that much more. It’s just a little bit here and there. It’s not like you’re closing your eyes and holding on for an extra three seconds. I mean, it’s a matter of 10, 15 feet max that makes the biggest differences. That 10, 15 feet at 200 miles an hour is literally a millisecond. It’s just a matter of picking your game up a little bit everywhere to be able to get the grip out of it and match that grip to your racecar to get everything you can for a given lap.

Q: Thanks a million.

Ryan You’re welcome, times a billion (laughter).

Herb Branham: Ryan, thanks very much for joining us today. Best of luck at Atlanta and the rest of the way.

Ryan Newman Thanks, everybody.