For two-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing, he locked himself into the Chase by winning last Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and in doing so, picked up 10 precious bonus points that he’ll carry with him into the Chase when the top-12 driver’s point standings are reset to 5,000.

As other drivers root and gouge their way into Chase contention, one could assume that Stewart will take it easy. After all, he doesn’t have anything on the line. The worst point standing he could have to start the Chase is eighth, and the best is fourth. But with another 10 bonus points up for grabs at Richmond – points that transfer to the Chase – expect an all-out sprint for all 400 laps around Richmond’s .75-mile oval.

In fact, with making the Chase being somewhat anticlimactic, as 11th-place Greg Biffle has a 161-point lead over 13th, and 12th-place Clint Bowyer has a 117-point lead over 13th, the rooting and gouging may well be for the win. A checkers-or-wreckers mentality, for once, carries very little downside, as the top-12 that roll into Richmond will most likely be the top-12 that roll into the 10-race Chase.

It appears that Vince Lombardi was right, for winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. That suits Stewart just fine. His victory at Atlanta was the 38th Sprint Cup win of his career, and it kept a streak of logging at least one victory in each of his 12 Sprint Cup seasons going.

Seven times Stewart has scored back-to-back wins, and if he were to make it an eighth time with a win at Richmond, it would be a fitting location, as the Sept. 11 Air Guard 400 falls 11 years to the day of Stewart’s very first Sprint Cup (then Winston Cup) victory, which came on Sept. 11, 1999 when he drove a Joe Gibbs Racing-prepared Pontiac to a dominating win by leading 333 of the 400 laps available (83.2 percent). The triumph was impressive beyond that one race, as Stewart became the first rookie to win in Cup since the late Davey Allison did so on May 3, 1987 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

Since then, Stewart has gone to victory lane 37 more times, scored two Sprint Cup championships and even ventured into team ownership, procuring a 50 percent stake in Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009, which he co-owns with Gene Haas, founder of Haas Automation – the largest CNC machine tool builder in the western world.

So while Stewart will look forward to Saturday night, and specifically the upcoming Chase for the Championship, he’ll also have a chance to celebrate the past. And there’s no better way to celebrate than in victory lane.

TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You’re locked into the Chase. So, while other drivers face pressure to make the Chase, is there any pressure for you to just win?
“I’m racing 100 percent pressure-free because we have absolutely nothing to lose. We can’t be bumped out of the Chase. We can finish 43rd and it’s a non-event. Our goal is to try and do what we can to win and get those 10 extra bonus points. That’s our focus. It’s all or nothing for us. We’re not going to throw away a car trying to make a stupid mistake while trying to get those 10 points, but our goal is to go out and try to win the race. More than that, you don’t want to end up with 43rd-place finishes, you want to end up with some momentum on your side after Richmond. You’re still going to race smart.”

Since you’ve been in the Chase five of the past six years, does that give you an advantage at Richmond other drivers don’t have?
“How you get into the Chase is the same way you win the Chase. You’ve got to go out there and you’ve got to be good. You’ve got to be good in 26 races to get in the Chase, and then you’ve got to be good for 10 races after that to win the Chase.”

With three Sprint Cup wins and two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series wins, you’ve had a lot of success at Richmond. Is it one of your favorite tracks?
“It is my favorite track. It’s not one of them, it’s the favorite track of mine on the circuit. I’ve just always thought it’s the perfect-sized track for a Cup race. The other short tracks we run – Bristol and Martinsville – they’re cool in their own right, but there’s a lot of congestion at those two tracks. But at Richmond, it just seems like that extra quarter-mile, and that three-quarter-mile shape, and how wide the groove gets there, allows for good racing. It seems like we have to race ourselves and race the racetrack versus racing each other a lot of times. You do have to race each other, obviously, but there are a lot of times during the race when you have the flexibility to move around on the racetrack and try to find a spot your car likes better than somewhere else. A lot of times on a short track you don’t have the flexibility. You’re more narrowed down with what groove you’re going to be in.”

What’s the key to being successful at Richmond?
“You want to make sure your car is adjustable. We start the race at the end of the day, when it’s usually pretty hot but, as night comes, the track cools down and it changes quite a bit. Old pavement, new pavement – the same theory applies, and that’s not something you see at most of the races we go to. It’s pretty much isolated to just the night races. You’ve got to have adjustability because you know for a fact that the track isn’t going to stay the same all night long.”

Is Richmond similar to any other tracks you’ve raced on in your career?
“It just reminds me of some of the shorter tracks that I’ve run. It has kind of the same feel that three-quarter-mile tracks did with some of the other cars I’ve run with. It was like Phoenix the first time I went there. I hadn’t been to a 1-mile oval but once in my life, but when I got onto Phoenix, I adjusted and adapted to it really quickly. It was a place where I became very comfortable right away. I had that same feeling when I went to Richmond for the first time. I think every driver has a track they go to where they get that same feeling. There are just some places you go to where you adjust, and it really suits your driving style.”

DARIAN GRUBB, Crew Chief of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Richmond is a home race for you, as you grew up in Virginia in the tiny town of Floyd. Richmond is also the site of the press conference that was held in September 2008, when you were announced as Stewart’s crew chief at Stewart-Haas Racing. Do you pay attention to any of that, or do you put that on the shelf and not worry about it and just attack it like it’s any other point-paying race?
“We do attack it like it’s any other race, but it’s also a special place in my heart, because it is in Virginia, a couple hours from home, and the place where we did the announcement. But it’s also a special place for me because we know how well Tony’s run there in the past. He’s got a very strong, long history there. It was pretty cool to see the way he’s been able to run there in the past. You know we better be on our ‘A’ game when we get there. We’ve got to be ready to give Tony a car he can drive because we know he can get around that place. It’s a little bit of extra pressure, as well. We’re using it and, hopefully, we can take that to the front.”

Had you been to Richmond as a fan or had you worked on any teams before you became a mainstay in NASCAR?
“No. I’d only actually been to Richmond for the Late Model races. I hadn’t been to a single Cup race until I actually started working for a Cup team. The very first time I was there was the last time it had Armco barriers and then, after that, it was the new configuration we’re running, now. It was just amazing to take our little Late Model team up there to that big, monster three-quarter-mile oval. It felt like you were racing with the big boys when you showed up to that place after they re-did it.”

Part 1

Part 2

The Newman’s will be joined by other personalities in the NASCAR community such as; Clint Boyer, Darian Grubb, Kasey Kahne, Aric Amirola with fiancé Janice Goss, Tony Gibson, Marcos Ambrose, Martin Truex, Jr., Max Papis, Greg Biffle and more…

Since this is a Pit Road Pets book signing, fans must have or already purchased the original Pit Road Pets™: NASCAR Stars and Their Pets or the newest release of Pit Road Pets™: NASCAR Stars and Their Pets, The Second Lap book and get a ticket to get in line. Only 400 tickets will be given out at the Pit Road Pets booth located near the Kids Zone area in the New Holland Fan Zone starting Friday morning at 10:00 am. The Newman’s and others will sign copies of Pit Road Pets books in addition to one other item per person during the autograph session.

The newest edition of the book will be on sale at the Pit Road Pets booth from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Friday for $24.95 each. Books can also be purchased at Newman’s trackside merchandise trailer or ordered online at www.ryannewman.org. Proceeds from book sales during Michigan race weekend will be going to the Michigan Humane Society.

Additional personalities for the event will be added weekly, so visit the appearance schedule on www.ryannewman.org for up-to-date information.

But unheralded Northern Iowa had other ideas. Yes, they were respected by the pundits, but they weren’t expected to derail mighty Kansas’ title bid. Yet when the final second ticked off the clock, the score read 69-67, with Northern Iowa advancing and Kansas going home.

It was David versus Goliath, and David won.

For drivers and teams in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, a similar dynamic could play out in Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.

Jimmie Johnson, the four-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion, is the racing equivalent of Kansas, particularly at Martinsville. Of the five races run this season, Johnson has won three of them, including last Sunday’s race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. And at Martinsville, Johnson has won six of the past 11 Sprint Cup races at the tight .526-mile oval. The lone drivers not named Johnson to score a victory at the southern Virginia short track during that span: Jeff Gordon (April 2005 and October 2005), Denny Hamlin (March 2008 and October 2009) and Tony Stewart (April 2006).

Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing, can be the Sprint Cup Series’ version of Northern Iowa this Sunday at Martinsville.

After all, he’s the last driver not named Johnson to win the Sprint Cup championship, as Stewart scored the second of his two titles in 2005 before Johnson went on his four-year march. And in his 22 previous Sprint Cup starts at Martinsville, Stewart has notched 13 top-10 finishes – a tally that includes two wins – and led a total of 1,193 laps, third-most among active Sprint Cup drivers. Lastly, Stewart is the most recent driver to test Johnson, as he made him work for his 50th career Sprint Cup win last Sunday at Bristol, battling him for the lead in the race’s final 10 laps before finishing .894 of a second behind him in the runner-up slot.

While some now jokingly refer to Martinsville as ‘Johnsonville,’ Stewart is not one of them. The 12-year Sprint Cup veteran is currently fifth in points and ready to stake his claim as a contender for this year’s championship. And instead of planting his flag on the grounds of Martinsville and claiming it as his own, Stewart would prefer to simply take the checkered flag in Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 and reclaim his spot in victory lane.

TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing:

How do you beat Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team when they’ve been so good for so long?
“The variable that people don’t take into account is that the technology changes every week, and it’s not something that’s huge and noticeable, but things constantly get better. You’ve got engineers and dynos and wind tunnels and simulation programs and all that stuff that changes week to week. It’s hard to answer that question and say this is exactly what we’re going to do to make sure we beat those guys because what we’re doing now will be totally different four or five months from now when we get ready for the Chase. So, it’s not that simple. It’s a lot more complex than that and as the sport evolves and setups change, you have to change with it, and that’s something the No. 48 team has been really good at – being able to adapt.

“In the Chase format you’ve got 10 races, and one bad race can take you out of that chance to win a championship. As good as the ‘48’ team is, they’ve still had a lot of luck go their way, too. You have to be good, but you’ve got to have some luck on your side at the same time, because there’s a lot more there that can go wrong than can go right.”

You’ve had success at Martinsville and a period where you were always a threat to win. What’s that like?
“You can have it, for sure. It’s knowing that feel, it’s finding that combination that works, and the next time you come back to that track you know what that feel is like and you know what you’re looking for in practice for it to be good in the race. During the race, the track changes quite a bit, but you know when you kind of have that rhythm. You have the timing of what it was like, you just know what that feel is in the car that you’re looking for, not necessarily to be good in Happy Hour as much as to be good for the race. When you’ve had a good weekend, the next time you go back it’s just easier to try to go back and mimic that feel. That’s why when guys hit on something they’re normally good for a while until the package changes quite a bit, and then once that changes, you have to learn a different feel. Normally for a while you can have that, and different guys, if you look over the history, have kind of had runs at it. It seems like whether it’s a three or four or five-race period, guys get that feel of it and know what that tire likes, what the chassis combination likes at that time, and they kind of have that and they know how to adapt to it.”

In last year’s spring race at Martinsville you finished third for what was the first top-five finish for Stewart-Haas Racing. In your first year as a driver/owner, how big was that race for you?
“It was a good feeling to get our first top-five at Martinsville. To go there that early in the year and get our first top-five – it was a big momentum boost for the whole organization. The same day that we got our first top-five here, Ryan (Newman, teammate) ended up eighth, but he charged from the back twice to do it. Even though he didn’t get the limelight at the end of it, he probably had more of an impressive day with his run then we had with ours. I think we both left there with the feeling that we had two great race teams that were able to be competitive and be able to fight back and have good runs.”

Short tracks seem to suit you well. Would you like to see more short tracks added to the schedule?
“Well, they haven’t built any new ones yet. Everybody that wants to build a mile-and-a-half track are the ones we look at and wonder why they’re doing that, especially when Martinsville is as good a race as it is and Richmond and Bristol are as good as they are. You have three of the best tracks on the circuit, but everybody wants to build a mile-and-a-half track and put grandstands down the front of it and not put as many seats as you can around places like Martinsville, Richmond or Bristol. You can get just as many people around a smaller track and have more room to park them and everything else. I’m all for it. I’m sick of seeing guys build mile-and-a-half tri-ovals. Be creative, be unique. Build something that is your own. Don’t copy somebody else’s track.”

DARIAN GRUBB, Crew Chief of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You grew up in the tiny town of Floyd, Va., about an hour northwest of Martinsville. How often did you go to Martinsville as you worked your way up the racing ladder?
“I actually never went to a Sprint Cup race until I started working in Cup. I went to a lot of Late Model races there from about 1991 on through 2000 working on cars that were racing, but that’s really the only time I made it there. I’ve never sat in the stands there. I’ve always been in the garage working.

“I worked with Johnny Rumley, Satch Worley and Jeff Agnew was probably the biggest name driver I worked with for a long time. I worked for him for about 10 years. Lots of memorable moments from that. I think it was my first year at Martinsville and I was there with Satch Worley and we were in practice and his steering wheel came off. He didn’t check it after he had gotten back in the car before going out on the track again. He absolutely destroyed that car and he came back to the pits with the steering wheel in his hands and said, ‘Guess I should’ve put this on a little better.’ That was my introduction to Martinsville. There were like 160 Late Models that showed up, and of course we didn’t make the show because we crashed.”

Do you have a lot of family and friends who come out to Martinsville to see you and take in the race?
“I have a lot of friends around that area. My family is really close to Martinsville. Everybody is probably within an hour-and-a-half of that area. A lot of friends come down and see me, and even when they can’t make the race, it sparks some memories and we’ll get on the phone and call each other. It’s cool to see everybody and catch up on old times.”

What goes into making a car good at Martinsville, beyond making sure the steering wheel is on tight?
“It’s all about the weight distribution and then comfort for the driver – getting everything exactly the way the driver would like to have it. His preference for every little detail from entry to the center of the corner and exit and braking, the throttle application – everything has to be just right, because Martinsville is all about rhythm. Rhythm is what’s going to give you a chance for the pole. Making sure everything is right and making sure you can get every little piece out of the car. In order to go as fast as possible, you have to get the most out of everything that you can get. Every foot of the straightaway and all through the corners – it’s tenths of seconds here and there that really add up. The whole field is probably separated by two- to three-tenths of a second.”

Qualifying up front at Martinsville is obviously important. But how do you balance using your practice time to focus on making two qualifying laps when you also have to prepare for a 500-lap race?
“Luckily, you don’t have a whole lot of changes between qualifying and race setup. It’s more a few things you do for tweaks of speed here and there. Everything else is still about driver comfort, because if he’s comfortable in the racecar, he’s going to be comfortable for qualifying. You just add a few more things to it to get a little more speed out of it. You make the car a little more aggressive, basically. It’s a little more on edge in qualifying, but the driver can drive through that. When you get into race setup, it’s hard to pass, so you have to make him even more comfortable inside the car to make sure he can run his line so that he doesn’t get pushed out of the way very easily and doesn’t get pressured by somebody behind him, because the only way you can really pass there is by doing a bump-and-run. You need to get somebody else off their rhythm to get around them.”

Beyond a good starting spot, what does a good qualifying position give you at Martinsville?
“It’s huge there. The pit road is very tight and it’s very narrow. You have a lot of fighting going on to get into your box. The boxes are very short and you can’t get the angles you need to get in the box, do your pit stop, and then get back out of the box very cleanly if someone’s in front of you. It’s tough all the way around there. The pit crews – if you get too close to the wall you can’t get the jack up because you can’t move the handle as far down. And then the cars racing by you, they’re going to be four feet away because the wall is that close. It’s a hairy predicament all the way around. So, the better you can do in qualifying, the better pit selection you can get and help yourself out in some of those areas.”

How stressful is it for you as a crew chief, as you’re the one who has to call the driver into and out of the pit box?
“It’s not that big of a deal for the driver. It’s more for the crew guys because they have to get around the car and give it three-feet of room as he’s coming into the box, but there might be someone else coming into the box in front of him that they have to watch for. I have to give them the heads up as to who’s coming around them. There are a lot of things happening on pit road in a very short amount of time.”

TONY, GIVE US YOUR THOUGHTS ON YOUR FIRST YEAR AS A DRIVER AND OWNER OF STEWART-HAAS RACING:
“I am like a proud father. It has been neat to see over the last 13 months how this has all come together and progressed through the season. From that standpoint, I don’t think I could be any happier. Obviously, we wanted to win the championship this year and after leading the point standings, we felt like we had a good shot. We just couldn’t get that run these last 10 weeks that we wanted. We will do what we can next year to try and pick up on that and improve on it.”

COULD YOU SPEAK THE COMMENTS YOU MADE ON THE RADIO REGARDING DALE EARNHARDT, JR. AFTER THE WRECK LAST WEEKEND AT PHOENIX? HAVE YOU SPOKEN TO HIM?
“I haven’t actually. Everybody knows when we are in the heat of the moment, it doesn’t matter who it was, I would have said the same thing. It was being upset because we are running for all the points we can get right now and we took a hit in the points last week because of that incident. It didn’t matter who it was. That is heat of the moment.”

WHAT GRADE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR ORGANIZATION FIRST YEAR OUT OF THE BOX AND IN YOUR OPINION, WHAT MAKES CHAD (KNAUS) AND JIMMIE (JOHNSON) SO SUCCESSFUL?
“If we knew that, we would be doing it ourselves. As far as our team is concerned, I feel like for a first-year team I have to give us an A. If we could have won the championship, you would give yourself and A+, but for a first-year team an A or an A- is appropriate for what had to come together in such a short amount of time. The changes and trying to get people organized and equipment ready and just so many new people working together for the first time. I think we’ve done fairly well.”

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WHAT IS IT LIKE WHEN THERE IS A RACE WINNER’S CELEBRATION HERE AT THE END OF THE RACE BUT YOU AREN’T THE CHAMPION AND THERE IS ALL OF THAT GOING ON?
“We obviously can’t win the championship tomorrow night so our goal is to win the race. So if we can accomplish that, even though Jimmie or Mark are going to have their celebration tomorrow night, if you are that team that can win the race, that is a lot of momentum you carry in to the next season. This is the last chance to build momentum for next year. If you can leave this event tomorrow night winning the race, you carry that win all winter long. You are crowning a season-ending champion but at the same time, there is still an individual race that is being competed for and that is our goal.

DO YOU FEEL LIKE THE RACE WINNER GETS SLIGHTED AT THIS RACE?
“No, not at all. I watched the truck race last night. The interview with Kevin (Harvick) in victory lane was awesome and I thought it was appropriate and thought they did a good job with the champion’s celebration also.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN MOST ABOUT DARIAN GRUBB THIS YEAR AND WHAT HAS IMPRESSED YOU THE MOST ABOUT HIM?
“He is just a very smart, calculated crew chief. His demeanor is the one thing that I didn’t know much about going in to it but, his demeanor through the whole season has been very calm and collected. He just doesn’t get wound up. He doesn’t get super emotional on the radio and he has a great sense of humor too and that is something that does come out and I think that is where we complement each other. Our personalities are similar from the relaxing standpoint and humor standpoint. I think he has helped me with the calm demeanor on the radio.”

WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO THANKSGIVING WEEK, THE FIRST WEEK OFF BEFORE YOU FACE GETTING READY FOR NEXT SEASON?
“I’m going home. We will have our competition meeting on Monday like we always do every week. Depending on how Monday goes, if I need to be there Tuesday and Wednesday, I will stay. Most likely when we get done with our meeting, I am hoping to be able to go home as soon as possible. But, being a car owner, if I need to be there until Thursday morning, which is what I will do. A lot of it will be dictated on how our meeting goes on Monday.”

PURELY ON DRIVING ABILITY OUT ON THE TRACK, WHERE DO YOU RATE JIMMIE (JOHNSON) AND WHAT ARE HIS STRENGTHS VERSUS THE OTHER GUYS?
“It doesn’t matter, like you said, you have to have the package, it doesn’t matter how good of a car, crew chief and crew you have, if you aren’t a good driver, you aren’t going to make that package work. Jimmie does a great job behind the wheel. He proves it in the Cup Series. When he goes back and runs a Nationwide car, he runs well there. You don’t get to this level by not having talent. He has an extremely high amount of talent. He knows what he wants out of his race cars. He knows that feel that he wants. There are guys that are good qualifiers and fall off a little in the race and there are guys that are vice versa. Jimmie is one of those guys who excels at qualifying and the race. I think he is one of the more rounded drivers we have.”

AS A CAR OWNER AND DRIVER WHO RENOVATED A TEAM AND TOOK IT TO THE CHASE, YOU HAVE VERY GOOD PERSPECTIVE ON THE RED BULL TEAM AND BRIAN VICKERS. HOW DO YOU VIEW THEIR ACCOMPLISHMENTS THIS YEAR?
“They’ve done a great job. They’ve also brought a rookie driver in that’s starting on the front row tomorrow. That’s proof that their organization is doing a good job. Some of their resources have helped them with that and that’s important in our series. I mean that’s how you get to that level that they’ve gotten to is by having good resources and good people and there’s not an organization out there that makes the Chase that isn’t doing a good job. So they’ve obviously in a short amount of time done a great job of making adjustments. Their constantly changing personnel and upgrading their people and that’s what you have to do.”

FANS CAN’T FEEL THE EMOTIONS YOU’VE HAD IN MAKING THE CHASE. CAN YOU SHARE WITH THEM WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT ABOUT BEING IN THE CHASE AND THE EMOTIONS THAT YOU HAD?
“It’s no different than any other pro sports when you’re going through the playoffs. You know that everything you’ve worked for during the first 26 weeks of the season all comes down to these last 10 weeks. So you know if you have one bad race, that’s one-tenth of your opportunity to win a championship. As we’ve seen over the last two or three years, you can’t make that mistake and still have an opportunity to win the championship. So you place your whole season in those 10 weeks when you make the Chase, and if you have a bad week it’s hard on you.”

WITH THE SUCCESS OF THE NO. 14 AND THE NO. 39 TEAMS THIS YEAR, DO YOU ANTICIPATE ANY PERSONNEL CHANGES WITHIN THE GROUPS ON EITHER TEAM GOING INTO NEXT YEAR? HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO KEEP THOSE SAME PEOPLE TOGETHER TO ENSURE SUCCESS?
“I think it’s important, but at the same time if you feel like you have to make changes, you have to do that. You hope that you have the right core group of people in place where you’re not making those changes, but you can’t sacrifice that for not making the changes that are necessary. So you evaluate where you’re at and that’s where the next couple of weeks will be pretty important as far as analyzing. I already know that there are one or two guys that want to come off the road that have just been doing this a long time and they’re ready to be home a little more. So you have to make changes because of that; you have to make changes because you’re trying to improve your program. But you try to keep that core group as intact as you can.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON MENTIONED THAT IT WAS COOL THAT YOU WON A PRE-CHASE CHAMPIONSHIP AND A CHASE CHAMPIONSHIP AND HE KIND OF WISHES THAT HE HAD A PRE-CHASE CHAMPIONSHIP. DOES HE NEED A NON-CHASE CHAMPIONSHIP TO BE CONSIDERED AMONG THE GREATS?
“Oh, gosh no; are you kidding me? What did I get for leading the point standings after 26 weeks? I didn’t get anything.”

NO, ONE CHAMPIONSHIP UNDER THE OLD FORMAT AND ONE UNDER THE CHASE FORMAT
“Oh, okay, I understand what you’re saying. Does he need that? Well, he doesn’t have that and with the format we have now he doesn’t have the opportunity. But no, you don’t need that. I feel like this is a tougher format than the old format was. Obviously, just the sheer math of it; you have one bad day out of 10, that’s one-tenth of your schedule. Whereas before it would be 1/36th of it. So one bad day didn’t affect the outcome as bad as it does now. I feel just the opposite. I feel like the way he’s done it in this format is more impressive than winning it in the old format.”

DO YOU TAKE SPECIAL PRIDE IN THE FACT THAT YOU DID IT BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER?
“I’d rather be in his situation and be running for my fourth in a row (laughs), so, not necessarily. Any time you win a championship it doesn’t matter what format it is whether it’s a single event championship or a season championship, you cherish them. So I can’t say that I value one over the other. They were both special in their own way.”

WITH THE RELEASE OF KRAIG KINSER, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN A REPLACEMENT FOR DONNY SCHATZ IN THE WORLD OF OUTLAWS? AND WHAT’S THE STATUS OF YOUR USAC TEAMS FOR 2010?
“We’re going to scale our USAC program back to two Silver Crown cars and one dirt Sprint Car. We’re not going to compete in the pavement Sprint Car races, but we’ll only have one team there and we won’t have any Midget teams next year. On the Outlaw side, Donny is obviously coming back next year and on Kraig’s side, the hard part was we waited to a part of the season that’s kind of hard for him, helping him get a ride for next year, which we’re doing everything we can to help with that. It was kind of hard for both of us. We saw some improvement early fall that we thought was going to continue and it fell back off at the end of the year. So we’re just trying to find someone that we feel like is a better fit. Kraig and Donny ran two different packages, chassis-wise and engine-wise and we’re trying to figure out how to bring that together where both guys are running the same chassis and same engine package. So we’re trying to find a driver that likes the J&J car like Donny does and somebody that we feel will be an asset to Donny as a teammate and be able to work together with him. So that’s what we’re working toward.”

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR CHASE, AFTER KANSAS IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE WELL-POSITIONED TO CHALLENGE JIMMIE JOHNSON FOR THE TITLE. IS THERE ONE RACE OVER THE LAST SIX THAT YOU REALLY FEEL COST YOU, MOMENTUM-WISE? OR WAS IT SIMPLY A CASE OF THE NO. 48 TEAM STEPPING UP THEIR GAME?
“Well they’ve definitely stepped up. You can’t take that away from them at all. Obviously the Talladega wreck didn’t help us any and last week’s wreck didn’t help us any. So that’s two weeks where we finished 20th or worse and that was a huge hit to us.”

Neither team had much on the line as it entered the baseball postseason, with Red Sox securing the American League wild card by eight games over the Texas Rangers and the Rockies wrapping up the National League wild card by four games over the San Francisco Giants.

It’s a far cry from the wild card race facing drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, as Sunday’s AMP Energy 500 at the vast 2.66-mile oval that is Talladega is make-it or break-it time… literally.

Talladega, especially the series’ fall visit to the track, is the biggest wild card on the 36-race Sprint Cup schedule. Horsepower-choking restrictor plates slow the cars enough so that if they get sideways, they won’t carry enough speed to launch into the air as the car’s aerodynamics become reversed. Chevy Impalas, Ford Fusions, Dodge Chargers and Toyota Camrys weren’t made to go 200-plus mph, even when they have crazy paint schemes and numbers painted on their roofs. Formula One machines they aren’t, and in the name of safety, the restrictor plate is rudimentary technology that keeps these rudimentary cars grounded… most of the time.

Every now and then a launch button is pushed, and a spectacular somersault of a crash that appears over and over on the next day’s rounds of network morning shows penetrates the mainstream. That’s exactly what happened in the series’ last visit to Talladega in April, when Carl Edwards’ floating Ford was tagged by Ryan Newman’s Chevy, punting it into the metal catch-fencing roughly 100 yards from the start/finish line. It was a last-lap crash that culminated a day’s worth of calamity, for in that race, three major multi-car accidents, better known as Big Ones, jumbled the point standings as front-runners crashed out while others notched strong results.

The Big One is bound to happen again at Talladega, and if history is any indication, more than once during the race’s 188 laps. Who comes out with decent finishes will be the ones still in the hunt for the championship. But for those at the other end of the spectrum, their championship hopes are going to look like their racecars – unsalvageable.

Many have a tenuous hold on their championship aspirations to begin with. Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), is one of them.

With Jimmie Johnson running roughshod over the field, his bid for a fourth straight championship seems almost assured. His nearest competitor, Mark Martin, is 118 points behind. Third-place Jeff Gordon is 150 points back, and fourth-place Stewart is 192 points down. Juan Pablo Montoya is just behind Stewart in fifth, 200 points arrears Johnson. There is a precipitous drop-off after Montoya, with Kurt Busch 240 points back and Newman, Stewart’s SHR teammate, 312 points out. They’re racing to secure a top-five spot in the season-ending standings.

For Martin, Gordon, Stewart and Montoya, Talladega is the race where their championship chances will either remain intact or get blown up. They need to run well and they need Johnson to experience difficulty.

Many find that scenario far-fetched, but it actually happened when the Sprint Cup Series visited Talladega in April. The three Big Ones sent four current Chase drivers to finishes of 30th or worse, and three of those drivers are currently ahead of Stewart in the standings. Johnson finished 30th, Gordon was 37th and Martin was dead-last in 43rd.

In the role of hunter, Stewart sniffs opportunity. He’s the defending winner of the AMP Energy 500 and he’s also the most recent restrictor-plate race winner having dominated the July 4 race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway – the sister track to Talladega. In that contest, Stewart led nine times for a race-high 86 laps, and the car he used to inflict that pain is the same car he will use this Halloween weekend at Talladega.

With nothing to lose and everything to gain, Stewart’s restrictor-plate prowess is a trick he expects will treat him to some well-earned points in a race that puts the “wild” in wild card.

TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Is the fall race at Talladega slightly more nerve-wracking, because when you’re in the Chase there’s more on the line?

“It is if you’re leading the points. I don’t think for us, with the situation we’re in, that it’s at all nerve-wracking. We’re looking at it as an opportunity to gain some points and positions. Every time you’re at Talladega you try to take care of yourself and your equipment by not getting yourself in compromising positions that are going to take you out of an opportunity to get you to the end of the race. For me, it’s no different whether the race is in April during the regular season or in October when I’m in the Chase.”

With four wins, five if you include the non-points NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C., a Chase berth along with your teammate earning a spot in the Chase – all in your first year as a driver/owner – would you still be disappointed if you don’t win the championship?

“In the next four races, we have to get 193 more points than he (Johnson) does. That’s the reality of it. There is nothing that says if we do this, this, this and this that it’s going to guarantee that we can even get there. A lot of it is dictated by what those guys do in front of us. It’s about math. There is no magic to it. We just have to figure out how we can outperform them, and this is a part of the year when they are strong. I don’t know if we can do that. So to answer your question if we are going to be disappointed, of course we are going to be disappointed. But at the same time, we’re happy for what we’ve been able to accomplish this year. Is it going to be the end of our world? Absolutely not. No matter where our two teams end up this year, we have a lot to be proud of by just by making the Chase. We did more than 99.9 percent of the people said we could do to begin with, and we exceeded our own expectations. What we get from here forward is a bonus. But we are competitors. We want to win every time that we go out. Of course we want to win the championship, but it’s not going to be the end of the world if we don’t win it.”

Your win last October at Talladega had a little bit of controversy, as you weren’t the first car across the finish line, but you were the first car to legally cross the finish line. Regan Smith, who was ahead of you at the finish, wasn’t awarded the win because he passed you below the yellow line, which is out-of-bounds territory according to NASCAR. After the race, Smith claimed he was blocked below the yellow line. Looking back, what’s your take?

“I’ve lost Daytona 500s and I’ve lost races at Talladega because somebody blocked. That’s the name of the game. Last year’s race wasn’t any different than the last 19 races I’d run there. There’s always been people blocking. The nice thing is that, for once, I was actually on the right end of it. Trust me, I have no regrets about what I did. I did exactly what I needed to do to win the race, and it worked out.”

What is your interpretation of the yellow line ruling, which is used only at restrictor-plate races?

“The first thing that David Hoots (Managing Event Director, NASCAR) always says in the driver’s meeting is, ‘This is your warning.’ The driver’s meeting is your warning about staying above the yellow line and racing above the yellow line. They always say that starts with the drop of the green flag to the end of the checkered flag, with emphasis in the corners and the tri-oval. It’s been the same speech since they came up with that rule. They’ve never wavered off of it. It’s pretty self-explanatory.”

Talladega and Daytona are always mentioned in the same breath because they’re both restrictor-plate tracks. But what makes them different?

“Daytona is a handling track and Talladega is a speed track. Nobody has a bad-handling car at Talladega. They all drive well, whereas at Daytona, 90 percent of the battle is getting your car to handle well. It’s more of a chess match at Talladega, and that’s because the place was repaved just a couple of years ago. It’s such a smooth track. Daytona is old. It’s got bumps in it and the surface is worn out and it takes grip away, and that’s why the mechanical setup of the car is so much more important. At Talladega, because it’s so smooth with such a fresh surface, it’s got a lot of grip to begin with. Bumps are what normally take grip away. As soon as you start having to work on your suspension, that’s when you give up grip. With Talladega being so smooth, it doesn’t matter. You can go anywhere you want to go and you have grip.”

As a driver, how much input do you have in making the car go fast at Talladega?

“The race situation is a lot different from practice. You tend to have a much larger pack of cars and that makes a really big difference. But you’re still able to figure out what your car likes and dislikes in the draft during practice. It may not be exactly what you’ll experience in the race, but it’s the closest thing to it. Basically, it gives you an idea of what your car is capable of and where you need to be to make the moves you want.”

When you’re in the draft, how much control do you feel you have inside the racecar?

“It depends on the circumstances. You can’t see the air and you hit different pockets (of air). You hit a pocket where you get a real big tow or you hit a pocket where it seems they’re getting a tow and pulling you back, and you just have to play the circumstances. That’s why we spend so much time and run so many laps in practice. You just try getting in different scenarios and try to learn if you get in the middle of the draft, what does it do? Will it give you a push? Will it not give you a push? If you get next to this car, does it suck you up or does it slow you down? That’s why so many guys will stay out for so long in practice. It’s trial and error, but at the same time, it’s like pulling a pin on a grenade. You know through that process that if one guy makes a mistake, the car’s torn up for the race. It’s just a delicate balance of how hard you go, how many things you try, and how much time you spend doing it.”

DARIAN GRUBB, Crew Chief of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Do Johnson and the other drivers in front of you need to have problems if you’re to have a shot at the championship?

“That is what everybody in the whole series is thinking right now. He’s got a dominant performance going and he’s out there pulling away from everybody. You have a good strong run and you still lose points. That’s a hard day to swallow.

“You never wish bad luck on any of your competitors or any of your friends or anyone out there, but you have to go out there and perform to the best of your ability and hope to capitalize if they do have a bad day. Just whatever happens, you have to be the one to win the race and get the most points. Not only at Talladega, but every track is that way. You never know what is going to happen. We are on the same Hendrick chassis and engine program as they (Johnson and the No. 48 team) are. We really hope we’re going to go down there and win the race and see what happens from there. It’s still up for grabs. Anyone can have trouble any day, but this Office Depot/Old Spice team is pretty strong. We’re just going to keep fighting and see what happens and how it shakes out after it’s all over.”

[nichemate]0,1,1,’Tony Stewart’,,US,,,,,,,,1[/nichemate]

The driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) earned his 22nd top-10 of the season and his 13th top-10 in 22 career Sprint Cup starts at Martinsville.

“It was definitely a survival day for us,” said Darian Grubb, crew chief of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet. “We were a lot better taking off on a run at the start of the race. We made the car better all day. About the middle of the race, we had the car really good, but had a bad pit stop and fell back in traffic. We had to make up for that and try a little strategy, but it ended up putting us back in the field. We were able to run up into the top-five from there, but late cautions didn’t play out for us. We struggled to hang on to a top-10 in the end.”

A sequence of events in the final 50 laps of the 501-lap race provided a microcosm of the up-and-down day Stewart, Grubb and the entire No. 14 team endured.

After making what would turn out to be his final pit stop on lap 444, Stewart restarted the race in 11th-place on lap 448. From there, the two-time Sprint Cup champion picked off six drivers in front of him and was fifth by lap 466.

He fell back to sixth on lap 478 when his SHR teammate, Ryan Newman, slipped past him, but with slightly more than 20 laps remaining, it appeared a top-five could still be in the cards for Stewart.

When an untimely caution came out on lap 485, Stewart and Grubb knew immediately they had a tough decision to make – stay out and keep the track position or pit for fresh tires. The duo decided to stay out, but unfortunately for them, every car behind them entered pit road, meaning every car behind the No. 14 would have the advantage of more grip and thus, a faster racecar.

Stewart put up a valiant fight against the faster cars behind him, and he was aided by a late caution from laps 496-499 that ended the race in a green-white-checkered finish one lap past its originally scheduled 500-lap distance.

“Everything didn’t fall the way we needed it to,” Grubb said. “It wasn’t what we wanted. I think we had a top-four or five car. We just needed to get the car up in that track position and we just didn’t get it when it was all over with.”

Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army/Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala SS for SHR, finished seventh to score his 15th top-10 finish of 2009 and his eighth in 16 career Sprint Cup starts at Martinsville.

The last time both SHR cars finished in the top-10 came in September at Dover (Del.) International Speedway when Stewart finished ninth and Newman placed 10th.

Denny Hamlin beat three-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson under caution to win the TUMS Fast Relief 500 and score his seventh career Sprint Cup victory, his third of the season and his second at Martinsville.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished third, while Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top-five. Jamie McMurray, Newman, Mark Martin, Stewart and Kevin Harvick comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 15 caution periods for 77 laps, with 11 drivers failing to finish the event.

Both SHR drivers are represented in this year’s Chase for the Championship. Stewart remained fourth in the standings, but is now 192 points behind Chase leader Johnson. Newman gained one spot to seventh, 312 markers out of first.

With only four races remaining before a champion is crowned following the season finale Nov. 22 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the top-12 drivers competing for the title rank as follows:

1. Jimmie Johnson (6,098 points) +/-0
2. Mark Martin (5,980 points, -118) +/-0
3. Jeff Gordon (5,948 points, -150) +/-0
4. Tony Stewart (5,906 points, -192) +/-0
5. Juan Pablo Montoya (5,898 points, -200) +1
6. Kurt Busch (5,858 points, -240) -1
7. Ryan Newman (5,786 points, -312) +1
8. Greg Biffle (5,748 points, -350) -1
9. Denny Hamlin (5,746 points, -352) +2
10. Carl Edwards (5,685 points, -413) +/-0
11. Kasey Kahne (5,659 points, -439) -2
12. Brian Vickers (5,568 points, -530) +/-0

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Nov. 1 AMP Energy 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The race begins at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ABC beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

So what is a Sprint Cup driver to do? Well, if you’re Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS and 155 points down to Johnson, you audition for a supporting role on the “Jimmie Johnson Show.” According to industry sources, Stewart appears to have the inside track. After all, he led the championship standings for 13 straight weeks before the points were reshuffled for the final, 10-race Chase for the Championship. He then notched his fourth win of 2009 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, site of the third Chase race.

But Johnson made it emphatically known that he is the star of the show by winning three of the five Chase races run thus far – Dover (Del.) International Speedway, Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., and Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C. And with his lead status seemingly secure, casting has turned its attention to the show’s supporting characters.

Auditions ramp up again this weekend at the studio set known as Martinsville (Va.) Speedway with the TUMS Fast Relief 500 to see who will play “Kramer” to Johnson’s “Seinfeld.”

Johnson will again command the spotlight, for he’s won six times at Martinsville, including five of the last six Sprint Cup races held at the .526-mile oval. But Stewart could quickly blow through the door of Johnson’s apartment and prove to be a Kramer-like scene stealer.

In addition to being a two-time Sprint Cup champion and the most recent champion not named Johnson, Stewart is also a two-time victor at Martinsville. And when he isn’t winning at the venerable short track, he’s running up front, having led a total of 1,193 laps and scoring 12 top-10 finishes in 21 career Sprint Cup starts.

Starting up front has helped Stewart run up front. Of his 10 career Sprint Cup poles, three have been notched at Martinsville, including his most recent pole, which came 143 races ago on Oct. 21, 2005.

The stats are good, but compared to Johnson’s, they’re understudy stats. Yet at the moment, every Sprint Cup driver is an understudy to Johnson.

While the championship appears to be Johnson’s to lose, with fives races still to go, it can indeed be lost. Waiting in the wings for the moment when, if, there’s a stumble will be Stewart. He’s ready to provide the ultimate plot twist, and considering its fall sweeps, there’s no better time than now.

TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Do you have any sort of strategy for narrowing the point gap between yourself and Johnson?

“All we can do is just do our job. Even if we win the race for the last five weeks in a row, there is still no guarantee that we could close the gap. All we can do is worry about ourselves right now. It really takes the pressure off of us. All we can do is go for broke now.”

Is Martinsville a make-or-break weekend to get back into championship contention?

“No, anything can happen to any of the teams. At this point, who knows? Until somebody comes up and says ok, mathematically you are out of it, until then, we have got a shot. That is all I can say about it. That is all we know. There is no blueprint that says, this is how you win or don’t win a championship. So as long as mathematically you still have a chance, you’re still in it. Until they tell you that you can’t physically or mathematically catch up, then you are still in it. You still have a shot.”

Everyone seems ready to give Johnson his fourth straight championship. What makes you feel like you still have a shot at winning your third championship?

“When we won the USAC Silver Crown Series championship in ’95, we were the third driver of three that had a shot, mathematically, to win it. There were two drivers, Jack Hewitt and Dave Darland, that were neck-and-neck in the point standings, and we were kind of the third wheel. We were only included in the group media sessions because we were mathematically in the hunt. Both of those drivers ended up having problems in the race, and we won the point championship by two points. You realize when you use that experience, knowing that as long as you’re mathematically in the hunt, you still have a shot.”

Survival is a term often used to describe racing at Martinsville. How do you survive at Martinsville?

“You learn how to protect the car. You learn how to not beat it up. You learn it’s a lot more fun racing when you use a lot more patience. Patience seems to be the biggest variable that can hold you up at a place like Martinsville. Needless to say, after going there a couple of times, I’ve learned how to be patient – out of necessity, basically.”

Short track racing has been known for beating and banging, where contact between two cars usually results in at least one car getting spun out. But has the current generation racecar, with its common nose and rear bumpers, changed that dynamic?

“It has. With these cars you don’t have the kinds of accidents where guys get turned around because the bumpers on all these cars match up so well. If you get in a situation where a guy checks up in front of you and you run into him by accident and the guy behind you hits you, you’re not going to spin each other out. That’s made short track racing fun again. You’re not worried about having to explain to somebody that whatever contact you had was an accident. And short tracks aren’t cookie-cutter. They’re all one-of-a-kind and they all have their own personality. Martinsville fits that bill, and it also has a cool trophy that’s a one-of-a-kind.”

No matter what kind of racecar you’re driving, brakes are incredibly important at Martinsville. How does a driver conserve his brakes for 500 laps?

“You try to stay off the brakes as much as possible. You always hear the crew chief talking about floating the car into the corner, and what they mean by that is instead of driving it really deep into the corner and using a lot of brake pressure, the theory is to lift a little earlier and use less brake pressure. You’ll end up running virtually the same lap time as you would if you drove hard into the corner. But when you’ve got a 500-lap race at Martinsville and you’ve got to use the brakes hard twice a lap, that’s 1,000 times during a race where you’re asking that brake system to slow down a 3,400-pound racecar. If you can be easy on those brakes for the first half of the race or first three-quarters of the race, then when you really need those brakes to battle for the win at the end – you’ve got ‘em.”

It’s sometimes debated that because of Martinsville’s rural location that it doesn’t deserve two dates on the Sprint Cup schedule. As a racer and as a promoter – you own Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio – what do you think about that?

“Martinsville deserves two dates. All you’ve got to do is come watch a race at Martinsville to realize that. There are no bad finishes at Martinsville.”

There was a time early in your career where you weren’t that fond of Martinsville. What changed?

“You’re right. I can remember saying that we ought to fill it up with water and have the Bassmasters Classic there, or demolish the whole infield and pave it and make it a mini mall. But since then, Clay Campbell (track president) has done a lot of work at Martinsville and made huge improvements to make it what it is now. It’s a fun, racy racetrack. “Back in the day, if you couldn’t stay on the bottom, you were in big trouble. If you got moved to the outside, you were getting freight-trained. That wasn’t fun. But now, you can pass on the outside, you can race on the outside, and sometimes, the groove where you want to be is on the outside depending on how your car is driving. “Clay took the time and the effort to make a whole new garage setup, where everyone has a really nice garage stall. They’re some of the nicest garage stalls on the circuit. To do the things that they’ve done, the days of turning Martinsville into a mini mall are long gone. Clay is one of the more proactive promoters in the series, and he’s tried really hard to make things better.”

DARIAN GRUBB, Crew Chief of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You grew up in the tiny town of Floyd, Va., about an hour northwest of Martinsville. How often did you go to Martinsville as you worked your way up the racing ladder.

“I actually never went to a Sprint Cup race until I started working in Cup. I went to a lot of Late Model races there from about 1991 on through 2000 working on cars that were racing, but that’s really the only time I made it there. I’ve never sat in the stands there. I’ve always been in the garage working. “I worked with Johnny Rumley, Satch Worley and Jeff Agnew was probably the biggest name driver I worked with for a long time. I worked for him for about 10 years. Lots of memorable moments from that. I think it was my first year at Martinsville and I was there with Satch Worley and we were in practice and his steering wheel came off. He didn’t check it after he had gotten back in the car before going out on the track again. He absolutely destroyed that car and he came back to the pits with the steering wheel in his hands and said, ‘Guess I should’ve put this on a little better’ That was my introduction to Martinsville. There were like 160 Late Models that showed up, and of course we didn’t make the show because we crashed.”

Do you have a lot of family and friends who come out to Martinsville to see you and take in the race?

“I have a lot of friends around that area. My family is really close to Martinsville. Everybody is probably within an hour-and-a-half of that area. A lot of friends come down and see me, and even when they can’t make the race, it sparks some memories and we’ll get on the phone and call each other. It’s cool to see everybody and catch up on old times.”

What goes into making a car good at Martinsville, beyond making sure the steering wheel is on tight?

“It’s all about the weight distribution and then comfort for the driver – getting everything exactly the way the driver would like to have it. His preference for every little detail from entry to the center of the corner and exit and braking, the throttle application – everything has to be just right, because Martinsville is all about rhythm. Rhythm is what’s going to give you a chance for the pole. Making sure everything is right and making sure you can get every little piece out of the car. In order to go as fast as possible, you have to get the most out of everything that you can get. Every foot of the straightaway and all through the corners – it’s tenths of seconds here and there that really add up. The whole field is probably separated by two- to three-tenths of a second.”

Qualifying up front at Martinsville is obviously important. But how do you balance using your practice time to focus on making two qualifying laps when you also have to prepare for a 500-lap race?

“Luckily, you don’t have a whole lot of changes between qualifying and race setup. It’s more a few things you do for tweaks of speed here and there. Everything else is still about driver comfort, because if he’s comfortable in the racecar, he’s going to be comfortable for qualifying. You just add a few more things to it to get a little more speed out of it. You make the car a little more aggressive, basically. It’s a little more on edge in qualifying, but the driver can drive through that. When you get into race setup, it’s hard to pass, so you have to make him even more comfortable inside the car to make sure he can run his line so that he doesn’t get pushed out of the way very easily and doesn’t get pressured by somebody behind him, because the only way you can really pass there is by doing a bump-and-run. You need to get somebody else off their rhythm to get around them.”

Beyond a good starting spot, what does a good qualifying position give you at Martinsville?

“It’s huge there. The pit road is very tight and it’s very narrow. You have a lot of fighting going on to get into your box. The boxes are very short and you can’t get the angles you need to get in the box, do your pit stop, and then get back out of the box very cleanly if someone’s in front of you. It’s tough all the way around there. The pit crews – if you get too close to the wall you can’t get the jack up because you can’t move the handle as far down. And then the cars racing by you, they’re going to be four feet away because the wall is that close. It’s a hairy predicament all the way around. So, the better you can do in qualifying, the better pit selection you can get and help yourself out in some of those areas.”

How stressful is it for you as a crew chief, as you’re the one who has to call the driver into and out of the pit box?

“It’s not that big of a deal for the driver. It’s more for the crew guys because they have to get around the car and give it three-feet of room as he’s coming into the box, but there might be someone else coming into the box in front of him that they have to watch for. I have to give them the heads up as to who’s coming around them. There are a lot of things happening on pit road in a very short amount of time.” [nichemate]0,1,4,’Tony Stewart’,,US,,,,,,,,1[/nichemate]

ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT THROUGH THE FIRST FOUR RACES THE TOP-THREE GUYS ALL HAVE FINISHING AVERAGES OF 3.5 OR BETTER AND DO YOU THINK THEY CAN SUSTAIN ANYTHING NEAR THAT OVER 10 RACES?
“I would about guarantee one of the three will. It’s hard to think that after four races when you’ve already got three of those guys that have made it that far somebody of those three won’t go ahead and finish it that way. That’s what makes this Chase cool. To have a Chase that’s that tight and that competitive nobody is going to back in to this championship. If you win it you’ve got something to be proud of this year.”

LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW IT DOESN’T LOOK GOOD FOR TONIGHT; DO YOU CARE WHETHER YOU GET OUT THERE TONIGHT?
“No, not really. I’ll be honest I won’t qualify fourth or better so it’s probably better off if we do get rained out for qualifying. I would like to get in the Nationwide car obviously since I haven’t driven for the No. 5 car team over on that side. I’m more excited about getting in the car tomorrow and getting race practice than I am qualifying.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR FIRST YEAR AS AN OWNER AND HOW THE REALITY COMPARES TO THE EXPECTATIONS YOU HAD COMING IN?
“At this point it’s easy to say we’ve exceeded our expectations for what we thought and what everybody else thought we could do. We’re happy about it. I don’t know that I would change a thing so far to this point. It’s been a pretty smooth ride for the first 32 races of the year. I’m like a proud father of our organization. I’m proud of the people that we have. I’m proud of the effort they put forth. Extremely proud of the results that come with that but it’s not because of me it’s because of the people we have.”

THERE WERE SOME PEOPLE WHO QUESTION HOW SUCCESSFUL YOU WOULD BE THIS FIRST YEAR; DID THAT IN ANY WAY FUEL YOU TO PROVE PEOPLE WRONG?
“No, not at all. Contrary to everybody’s popular belief we don’t really care about that much what everybody says in the media center. It doesn’t motivate our life. It doesn’t change the direction of our life. We do it because we want to do it not because people say we can or can’t do it. We just go do what we think is right.”

WHAT’S BEEN THE MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE TO YOU THIS YEAR IN YOUR MONDAY THROUGH THURSDAY PART?
“Obviously with the success we’ve had this year, I think it’s seeing the people that were at Haas before I got there and seeing how happy they are to finally have results. Without being there the last six years and seeing what they had to go through, to be a part of seeing these guys have success for the first time, the most pleasant part of it coming in there and seeing these guys smiling every day and happy that they’re finally seeing results out of that organization. I think that’s the most gratifying part.”

JIMMIE JOHNSON IS ON HIS THIRD REAR TIRE CHANGER OVER THE LAST NINE RACES, AS A DRIVER/OWNER DOES THAT MAKE YOU NERVOUS HAVING A PERSONNEL CHANGE AT THAT SPOT?
“Not if they get the job done when it comes time to do their job on the pit stops. You can close your eyes as long as when that jack drops you go and it’s the time that you want it really doesn’t matter.”

TALK ABOUT THE DYNAMIC THAT YOU’VE HAD WITH DARIAN THIS YEAR AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIM AND GREG ZIPPADELLI.
“I’ve always been fortunate to have good crews and good crew chiefs to work for. Darian is more of an engineer type, Zippy (Greg Zippadeli) was more of a practical racer knowledge type. I don’t think there’s any negatives to either one of them. They both have their strengths. I don’t think there’s weaknesses, either one of them. Zippy and I were both very similar personality wise and Darian and I are quite a bit different personality wise but he still has a good sense of humor and that’s why it works well for us. Darian just doesn’t get wound up over anything even when we have something dramatic happen he just doesn’t get wound up and that’s the only real difference I see.”
[nichemate]0,1,2,’Tony Stewart’,,US,,,,,,,,1[/nichemate]

Yes, he’s leading the points and yes he’s coming off a win at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., but there are still six races remaining in the 10-race Chase, and three other drivers are within 100 points of Johnson, one of whom is Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR). And when a total of 161 points can be won or lost in a single race, this year’s title is far from over.

The halfway point of the Chase comes this Saturday night with the NASCAR Banking 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C. And yes, Johnson has five career Sprint victories at Charlotte, but Stewart is no slouch at the 1.5-mile oval either.

Witness his win in this year’s NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, where he led the race’s final two laps to score the first win of any kind for SHR. Witness also his victory at Charlotte in October 2003… and his six top-fives, 11 top-10s and 598 laps led in 21 career Sprint Cup starts at Charlotte. And remember the seemingly surefire victory in the 2008 Coca-Cola 600, where Stewart started 31st yet powered his way to lead four times for 23 laps and open up a five-and-a-half second advantage over second-place Kasey Kahne, only to see it vanish three laps short of the finish when he suffered a flat right-front? In an instant, victory turned into an 18th-place finish.

So, pardon the chip resting on Stewart’s broad shoulders, for the first-year driver/owner has done what no driver/owner has done since Alan Kulwicki did in 1992 – contend for a Sprint Cup championship.

Remember last year when Stewart decided to leave the comfy confines of Joe Gibbs Racing, where he won 33 Sprint Cup races and two championships, and people openly questioned whether he’d ever win again, never mind place himself in the thick of a title hunt? Stewart responded by taking the point lead after round 13 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway and building that lead to as high as 260 points thanks to impressive wins at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in June, Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in July and Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International in August.

And remember when that massive point margin was erased following the regular season cutoff race at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway and Stewart actually dropped to second in the standings, 10 points behind Chase leader Mark Martin? He responded by winning the third Chase race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas Speedway and providing a reminder that Johnson’s fourth title is anything but a sure thing.

Yet here we are again, with talk that this year’s title race is already decided. That’s like saying that even with two divisional series and a World Series still to play that the Yankees are this year’s World Series champions. The Angels, Phillies and Dodgers might have something to say about that, just like Stewart, Juan Pablo Montoya and Martin have their respective eyes on claiming this year’s Sprint Cup title for themselves.

The NASCAR Banking 500 provides another opportunity for Stewart and his counterparts to usurp Johnson from his perch atop the points. And you can take that to the bank.

TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You’re fourth in points, 84 points behind Johnson. Can you still win this championship and collect your third career Sprint Cup title?

“My standpoint has always been, until they say that you’re mathematically out of it, you always have a shot. We won the USAC Silver Crown Series championship in ’95, and we were the third driver of three that had a shot, mathematically, to win it. There were two drivers, Jack Hewitt and Dave Darland, that were neck-and-neck in the point standings, and we were kind of the third wheel. We were only included in the group media sessions because we were mathematically in the hunt. Both of those drivers ended up having problems in the race, and we won the championship by two points. You realize when you use that experience, knowing that as long as you’re mathematically in the hunt, you still have a shot. If we have a chance to win the championship at the end, trust me, we’re all for that and we would love nothing more than that. But I think right now where we’re at and how many points we need to make up, I think it lets us have a go-for-broke attitude and just go out and try to do what we did at Kansas and win races. I’ve always said, if you win races, the points will take care of itself. We could still, by theory, win the next six races in a row and still not win the point championship. For us, it’s about going out and doing what we can do, and the other 11 drivers are going to dictate their fates, too.”

Because Johnson has been so successful and because he’s back atop the point standings, is he the guy to beat for the championship?

“I don’t feel like that’s the only guy we’re worrying about. I feel like we’ve got to worry about Mark (Martin) just as much and Juan (Montoya) just as much. Right now, we’ve got a bunch of guys that are consistent every week. You can’t just narrow it down to one right now.”

After finishing 14th and ninth, respectively, in the first two Chase races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon and Dover (Del.) International Speedway, you rebounded in decisive fashion with your win at Kansas. What did that performance say about your Old Spice/Office Depot team?

“I’m really proud of Darian Grubb (crew chief) and all the guys on this Old Spice/Office Depot team. There is no quit in this team at all. We just keep digging. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care if we have to go 12 laps down and have the right side knocked off of it, if it gets us a top-five at the end of the day, that’s what we have to do the rest of the season. At the end of the day, no matter what the circumstance that got us behind, we’ve been able to rebound from it – not get all the way up to where we wanted, but we were able to make gains on it at the end and salvage a better finish than where we were. Whatever the scenarios were, we were able to overcome part of it. As long as you do that, then at the end of the day the facts just shows this team doesn’t have any quit in them, and that’s what it’s going to take to get back on top

Of the upcoming tracks in the final six races on this year’s schedule, which one are you looking forward to the most?

“I think this weekend, in all reality. This weekend and Martinsville, Talladega, Texas and Phoenix are places where we’ve had a lot of success, but I think the way that we’ve ran the last couple of races at Charlotte here, we’re pretty excited about it. I feel like we’ve got a shot at this weekend’s race. If we can do what we’ve been doing, we’ve got just as good a shot as anybody else.”

You’ve had a handful of races in your career that you feel like you should’ve won, but is the 2008 Coca-Cola 600 the one that sticks out most?

“Yeah, that’s definitely the one that sticks out the most in my mind. I mean, we had a five-second lead with three laps to go. We lost the right-front tire, but it wasn’t because of a mistake by Goodyear, it was the fact that we had run 100 laps on the right side tire, so it just physically melted the bead on the right-front. So it wasn’t any fault of Goodyear’s, it was just circumstances.”