Photo by Jerry Markland - Getty Images for NASCAR

RYAN NEWMAN met with members of the media at Kansas Speedway and discussed how his season has been, racing twice at Kansas Speedway, up-and-coming drivers out of Sprint Cars and much more. Full transcript.

TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR SEASON AND WHAT CHALLENGES KANSAS PROVIDES FOR DRIVERS. “Well the last few weeks have been a struggle for sure. Dover, the All-Star race was okay we didn’t have good track position but the Coca-Cola 600 was a struggle for us, just got caught u p in somebody else’s mess. Right place, wrong time, wrong place, right time call it what you want we just got caught up in a crash and that was unfortunate. It hurt us pretty good in the points. Look forward to Kansas, we’ve been in victory lane here before. The track has definitely aged, you can see that. I got a chance to go ride around in a Chevrolet Camaro yesterday and give some rides and see some of the aging in the last winter and the surface, a couple of little patches that they put down things like that that hopefully will give a little leg up on some guys.”

ON THE EVE OF THE 400^TH TRUCK RACE, TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT ITS LIKE TO RACE IN THE TRUCK SERIES. “It’s a great series. It’s another outlet to give drivers, young talent an opportunity to make it to where they want in the Sprint Cup Series. For me, I got an opportunity I guess to go back and race in the Truck Series even thought I never ran in it. For me it was a lot of fun. Just like Ron said had great truck owners with Kevin and Delana (Harvick) to be able to do what we did, winning that first start in Atlanta.”

DO CARS THESE DAYS HAVE DISNTINCT PERSONALITIES? “Not like it used to be. It used to be you could take two cars to a test and you end up with two different setups to run the same lap speed it seemed like. I think you still have to do that just a little bit but it’s much more subtle than it was mostly because of templates and the aero side of it are much more similar than they used to be. We used to have a lot more liberty with the bodies and that’s okay. Its more similar than it’s ever been and I’m guessing it will become more similar even yet.”

ANY TIME YOU HAVE A FINISH LIKE LAST WEEK THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK, SEEMED LIKE THE DRIVERS JUST HAVE THE THAT’S RACING ATTITUDE, IS THAT IT? “It’s a catch 22. You can look at it from one perspective and say yeah they were playing favorite and on the other side it’s a dangerous situation when you have cars that are going to be continuing to run out of multiple restarts. Was there a right or wrong, I don’t think so but obviously it played out the way it did. Kevin was the right man in the right position that time.”

FOR GUYS LIKE YOU WHO ARE ON THE SPRINT CUP SERIES, WHAT’S THE APPEAL OF RUNNING IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES OR TRUCK SERIES? “If you’re a dancer and you like to dance it doesn’t matter what dance it is or where it is, if you’re a racer you like to race so whether it’s a dirt late model race, a Truck Series race, Nationwide, Cup, Sprint car or whatever that’s what we like to do. We also like to do it with good equipment and at the right time and at the right places. Some people don’t like to dance on a dirt floor, or some people would rather have hard wood. We like different things for different reasons. Everybody is a little different. You take myself or Tony Stewart and we’ll go play in the dirt any time. We may not go run the truck at a certain race track or a Nationwide car at a certain race track just because it doesn’t appeal to us as much.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS RACE TRACK AND NOW HAVING TO CUP RACES HERE? “If you look back at 2001 I was fortunate, this was one of my first races at Penske Racing, and we finished second. Everything has grown up so much around that and part of that is because of the fans, part of it is because of the market. It was our first big outlet in the Midwest and I think that it’s a deserving place to come here two times. There’s been a lot of growth around here. There’s great race fans that continue to come back and there’s some other places we haven’t seen that, so I think it was a good call for us to at least sample coming here twice. That doesn’t mean we have to come here twice next year. I don’t have to as I don’t like it, I just mean according to what they make the schedule up.”

IN REGARDS TO KYLE BUSCH AND THE SPEEDING TICKET, IS IT HARD SOMETIMES TO FLIP THE SWITCH OFF WHEN YOU’RE NOT RACING? “Not if you are a professional. That’s what we do. It’s like a hockey player, is it hard for them to not go fight someone in a grocery line. You know what I mean? If you’re a professional it’s not an issue.”

WHAT DO YOU DRIVE AT HOME? “I’ve got an old ’66 Chevy pickup truck. That’s my running around truck, then when it’s really hot and I need the air conditioning I’ve got a brand new Chevy Silverado. I’ve got a bunch of other old cars.”

IF YOU DROVE A HIGH PERFORMANCE VEHICLE WOULD IT BE HARD? “Oh, my cars run pretty good. I’m like anybody else, I speed. If you go down the interstate very rarely do you find somebody doing less than the speed limit. But it’s that level of respect and it’s that level of responsibility of where you fit in. You’re going to be there matching everybody else’s speed or a little bit over or a little bit under. When you’re three times the speed limit that is way past crossing the line. I’m not saying that because I’ve gone three times the speed limit but in the right place and the right time, when there’s no cars around or people or roads or anything else.”

WHO IS THE NEXT BIG DEAL COMING UP OUT OF SPRINT CARS THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET A CHANCE; DO YOU SEE SOMEBODY OUT THERE THAT NEEDS TO GET A BREAK? “The first guy that comes to mind is Bryan Clauson; I think he’s done a really good job in the open-wheel series. He got a break to come and race some with Ganassi in the Nationwide Series and I don’t think it all panned out the way he wanted it to or the way Chip wanted it to, but I think he’s still a guy that can make one more trip back and if in the right situation make a big splash.”

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT OWNING A SPRINT CAR TEAM? “I’ve thought about it a little bit. I’m not really big on ownership, just the headache of dealing with people. If I had the right situation, if it was money that fell in my lap to run a deal like that, yeah that is something I would do but I wouldn’t go out of my way to try to spend money.”

SPEAKING OF COLE WHITT, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF A 19-YEAR-OLD PHENOM LIKE THAT? DO YOU LOOK BACK AND MAYBE KIND OF SEE YOURSELF IN THEM OR DO YOU THINK THIS KID NEEDS TO PAY HIS DUES BEFORE HE COMES UP, HOW DO YOU VIEW A KID LIKE THAT? “Well I view him as I’m a part of him and he’s a part of me, we grew up doing the same things. USAC Sprint Cars and Silver Crown Midgets, that’s the ladder that we climb. People climb different ladders. I know what he is thinking; I know what he’s feeling. I know he’s in a good situation obviously leading the points. He’s been strong, he’s not ruffling any feathers and raising any cane, he’s out there just doing his job and he’s leading the points. Without knowing him, I’m going to say he’s doing it in lesser materials than some other guys out there. I’m proud of him. I watched him grow up, or he’s still growing up, I watched him grow up in the USAC ranks with this family and that says a lot too. His family stood behind him and was part of his crew and that’s something that is similar from my career.”

THE STATUS OF USAC RIGHT NOW, THERE’S A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT ARE KIND OF KICKING ON IT, THERE’S OTHER PEOPLE THAT ARE VERY PRO-USAC, YOUR THOUGHTS ON IT FROM WHEN YOU WERE THERE TO WHERE IT IS RIGHT NOW. “It’s not what it was. When I was there it was a big stepping stone for me to get where I am primarily with the TV shows, you know the Thursday night thunder, Wednesday night thunder and whatever night thunder it was they made it happen. It’s not like that anymore. They’ve split up the pavement racing with the dirt racing. I can’t say that’s right or wrong because that was kind of how it was back in the day as well but USAC has broadened their spectrum with the off-road truck and quarter midgets and things like that. I’m not saying that those things are bad but I don’t see them succeeding in the ways they should be succeeding with some of the series they have. Their car counts are much lower than they should be and obviously going back to the Silver Crown and what they tried to do with the Gold Crown cars, that was a big mistake in my opinion.”

YOU GAVE RICKY STENHOUSE A RIDE IN USAC, WHAT DID YOU SEE IN HIM?
“He was fast. He was young and he was fearless and knew how to stand on the gas so you know everybody at our shop enjoyed having Ricky and it cost us a lot of man hours for the things he tore up but there was no doubt every time he went on the race track he was giving 110%.”

BIG NEWS TODAY ABOUT CHEVROLET COMING BACK TO THE INDYCAR SERIES. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU?
“I am excited about it. I think it’s something that…………….this Honda program they had over there was a joke anyway. I mean the way that they did it and the way the guys were limited on practice time……..it was just a fiasco. So thank God we finally have an American-made engine back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”

DOES THAT INCREASE THE ODDS THAT WE WILL SEE YOU IN AN INDYCAR OR AS A TEAM OWNER?
“No. No, no, no and no. I don’t have any extra time to do any of that right now.”

HOW ABOUT MOVING ONE OF YOUR KIDS UP FROM THE OPEN WHEEL SERIES?
“USAC has a great program where the national champion is going to get a chance to run in the Indy Lights Series. I think that is definitely going to be a good step.”

HOW MUCH OF A SHOT IN THE ARM DO YOU THINK IT IS FOR THE SERIES OVERALL?
“Well, I am not in the middle of it. You have to remember that I have been totally removed from it for nine years now, so I haven’t been very close to it, I mean it’s something I have been passionate about but I haven’t been close enough to know to be honest with you.”

HOW WERE YOU HERE TODAY?
“I think we ended up fourth or fifth so I think we are pretty decent and we were happy with it in both race and qualifying trim.”

IS IT DIFFICULT WHEN YOU ARE NOT IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE TO KEEP YOUR FOCUS TILL THE END OF THE YEAR?
“Yeah, because all everybody wants to do is talk about the guys that are in it and all we want to do is worry about the stuff that we are doing that didn’t get us in it and trying to make our cars better. You know that is the stuff that we are trying to work on and t concentrate on our program and not worry about what everybody else is doing. And it is hard. You want to be in the middle of it and you want to be those guys that are there but at the same time when it doesn’t work out you have to sit there are trying to figure out things at the end of the year to try to figure out why you didn’t get yourself in that situation and you really work really hard now while they are still trying to fight for this year we are already fighting for next year now.”

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU GUYS ARE MAKING GAINS HERE AT THE END OF THE YEAR?
“I think if we had won Texas we would feel that way but I think we have got a ways to go still and it’s a sport of evolution and it just keeps evolving so fast you know, the week that you think you got it then something comes out a week or two weeks later and its changed again. It’s just a never ending process.”

YOU ARE HEADED TO AUSTRALIA AGAIN IN THE OFFSEASON. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THAT WHOLE EXPERIENCE THAT’S SPECIAL?
“(Laughs) I get to get away from the media. For a whole month I get to race and I don’t have to do media at all. It’s just going over and relaxing. Its summer over there and I don’t have to sit around in the winter and not be able to be outside and I get to race and visit a real beautiful area so it’s the best of all worlds.”

SO IT’S RECREATION FOR YOU?
“You have got to remember I am going over for a long period of time and I am only running on the track five days. I am doing something that is totally different and it gets me away from this and it’s something I like to do and when I get off days it’s something that I want to do and it’s not like I feel like I have to go do it so it’s definitely what I want to do.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BE THE MOST DIFFICULT ASPECT OF RACING HERE THIS WEEKEND?
“Nothing in particular. It’s no different than it has been any other time that we come here.”

4TH IN PRACTICE, IS THAT YOUR GOAL?
“We are going to get everything we can get and we are going to do the best we can and get every spot we can and this is a track that has been good to us in the past and our West Coast home away from home. We are going to do absolutely everything we can to get every spot we can.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT IN A SURVEY OF YOUR PEERS THEY THINK YOU ARE ONE OF THE MOST TALENTED DRIVERS IN THE GARAGE?
“That is a huge honor. It’s voted on by the guys that you are racing wheel -to-wheel with every week so that is a huge honor.

WHO DO YOU THINK HAS THE MOST TALENT?
“I think Juan Montoya but I am thinking outside the (Sprint) Cup realm too. Everything across the board……I think he is the most talented guys I have ever raced with.”

OVER THE PAST COUPLE YEARS YOU GET MOSTLY CHEERS FROM THE FANS WHERE IN THE PAST IT HAS BEEN ABOUT 50-50. WHY DO YOU THINK PEOPLE HAVE EMBRACED YOU SO MUCH?
“Because I have stayed true to who I am and I am honest and say what is on my mind and I don’t take crap from anybody and have just always stayed who I am. I have never changed who I was and have never changed my views on things to be popular. I have just stayed the course and I think people respect that stuff.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT CHAMPIONS WEEK AND THE DIFFERENCES FROM NEW YORK AND VEGAS?
“I am much happier going to Vegas. There is a lot more for me to do. I am not much on dressing up and I don’t think anyone cares what you wear in Vegas. It’s just about going out and having a good time. The atmosphere is a lot more laid back and it’s not as proper. There are not many of us that dress like we have to dress when we go to New York every day. Those clothes get put up and the next year you get them out to go to New York so I am a lot better being me in Las Vegas.”

DO YOU NOTICE ANY MORE FAN INVOLVEMENT?
“Yes it’s pretty obvious. It’s New York City versus Las Vegas and it has always been historically a lot more things to do in Las Vegas.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO ATTACK THE YOUNG DEMOGRAPHIC FOR NASCAR?
“I don’t know. Go ask Brian France because he can tell you lot better than I can.”

DO YOU THINK TRAVIS PASTRANA IS GOOD FOR THE SPORT?
“Sure he is. There is nothing negative about having him here so it’s going to be a big learning curve for him and he obviously has a natural feel and you can tell that in the confidence in when he rides. So it will be fun to watch.”

How many championships? Twelve in all – nine in USAC and three in the World of Outlaws, with the most recent title coming Oct. 16 when one of his two USAC drivers, Levi Jones, won the National Silver Crown Series championship. Stewart and Brownsburg, Ind.-based Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) will get one more this weekend, as Jones leads the USAC Sprint Car standings by 92 points heading into the season finale Saturday night in Tulare, Calif. By simply competing in the event, Jones will take the crown. It will be his fourth career Sprint Car title and his second straight.

So while this year’s NASCAR Sprint Cup title may be out of reach for Stewart, championships in the other series where he has an ownership stake are well in hand. That should signal to Stewart’s competitors in the NASCAR garage that the man nicknamed “Smoke” will continue to be a championship presence. Just as his open-wheel program got better with age, expect the same with Stewart’s NASCAR operation.

Evidence of that came earlier this year at Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) when SHR’s Ryan Newman scored the victory. It was the fifth point-paying Sprint Cup win for SHR and Newman’s first with the team since joining the organization from Penske Racing in 2009. Stewart added two more wins to SHR’s tally this year when he crossed the stripe first Sept. 5 at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Oct. 10 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. One more win would give Stewart 40 career Sprint Cup victories.

That Sprint Cup win No. 40 could come at Phoenix is certainly not out of the question. The driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala has a win, seven top-fives, nine-top-10s and has led a total of 327 laps in his 17 career Sprint Cup starts at Phoenix. His average Sprint Cup finish at Phoenix is 11.7 and he has a lap completion rate of 99.8.

On top of all that, there is perhaps no driver who has logged more laps at Phoenix than Stewart. He’s competed at the 1-mile oval in Sprint Cup cars, NASCAR Nationwide Series cars, Indy cars, Supermodifieds and USAC Midget and Silver Crown cars. Add up Stewart’s laps spent testing at the desert mile, and Stewart is in a league of his own.

As the penultimate race of the 2010 season comes to Phoenix, it’s a three-way battle for the Sprint Cup title between Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick. Nonetheless, expect Stewart’s wealth of experience and prodigious amount knowledge of PIR’s intricacies to potentially steal some thunder from these championship hopefuls as he builds SHR into a championship contender in 2011.

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

You’ve been a car owner of open-wheel teams for nearly a decade. Did that help make the transition of becoming a car owner in NASCAR that much easier?

“It definitely gave us some insight on what it was going to be like. Obviously, at this caliber, and with the amount of people we have at the Cup level, it was hard to know exactly what it was going to be like. But having that experience of being a car owner in the past definitely got us pointed in the right direction when it came time to make the decision to be a Cup owner.”

Because you’re a driver, do you think the success of your teams is due, in part, because you know what type of driver you need to have and what that driver needs to be successful?

“I think I’ve been around the sport long enough that I’ve seen how it’s not about individuals. It’s about how to put the whole package together. It’s about the right driver with the right crew chief with the right equipment, and if you can do that, a lot of times it leads to success.”

How long have you been racing at Phoenix?

“I started racing there in ’93 when I ran a USAC Silver Crown car. And since then, I’ve run USAC Midgets, Indy cars, Supermodifieds, Nationwide Series cars, and of course, Sprint Cup. So, I’ve logged a bunch of laps there. To think that it all kind of started at Phoenix, I guess you could say it’s the place where my career came full-circle.”

Did you take an immediate liking to Phoenix in 1993 when you ran there in USAC?

“When we ran the USAC cars out there it was pretty cool because I had never gone that fast before. It’s just one of those tracks that to run a Midget and a Silver Crown car there, it definitely got your attention. It was pretty fast.”

Did you get a pretty good paycheck that day?

“Well, at that time, yeah, absolutely. When I was thinking about the $5 hours I was working at a machine shop, $3,500 was a pretty good payday.”

Is it safe to say you have Phoenix figured out?

“I’ve definitely spent a lot of time there. Myself and Arie Luyendyk were the two lead test drivers for Firestone when we were in the IndyCar Series. We spent a lot of time in Phoenix because the weather is so good out there all year long. We would spend three days out there tire testing and we had two or three of those sessions through the winter. I got to spend a lot of time running around Phoenix. I probably know every line around the track that’s ever been ran and why it’s been ran. It helps when you get in the stock cars or anything you get in when you’re out there. I pretty much know how to get around there.”

How did you transition from one type of racing to another?

“It’s more fear than anything that I’m going to have to get a real job if I’m not successful. That’s the great thing about running USAC and being in Indiana where not only did we have winged Sprint cars and non-winged Sprint cars, Midgets, Silver Crown cars, we ran on dirt tracks one night and pavement the next. We ran Modifieds and Late Models. There were just so many things to drive around there that you learned how to adapt, and you learned how not to have a preconceived notion about how a racecar is supposed to feel and drive. You learned to read what the car was telling you as far as what it liked and disliked, and learned how to change your driving style accordingly. Especially at Phoenix, every car we’ve driven there, even though the track’s the same, they all drove different. You just had to adapt to it and learn to read the racecar, instead of thinking this is what the car I ran last night felt like and it’s supposed to feel like this today. It doesn’t work that way.”

Can you explain how Phoenix differs in the way the car handles in turns one and two as opposed to turns three and four?

“Every type of car that I’ve driven here – from USAC Midgets and Silver Crown cars to Supermodifieds to Indy cars to Nationwide cars and now the Sprint Cup cars – running all those different divisions, the one common variable is the two ends of the track are unique and different from each other. It’s always been a situation where if your car is really good in (turns) three and four, you’re normally a little bit tight in (turns) one and two, and if you get one and two really good, you’re normally a little bit too loose in three and four. You do have to weigh the options and try to find that balance of which end of the track is more important to you. You know you’re not going to be perfect in both ends, and you’ll have to pick one end or the other to get your car really good. I do have a preference, but I don’t tell everybody else that. That’s what having all these years and these laps of experience there does for me. It’s the one secret variable that I try to use to my advantage.”

Because you’re so familiar with Phoenix, do you enter this weekend’s race with an added sense of confidence?

“Sure. Any time you go back to a facility that you’ve had success at, you’re always excited to go back there. It’s not only the performance that we’ve had there, it’s the total draw for me enjoying Phoenix so much. It’s just kind of the total package when I go out there. It’s a great facility. Obviously, there aren’t too many tracks you go to that you look over the backstretch and you see mountains and cactus everywhere. You hear people talking about cowboys going up there in the morning with a bag and grabbing rattlesnakes the day of the race to clear them out so people can sit down. It’s just a pretty special racetrack.”

That the speedway is in its centennial era has much to do with drivers’ reverence for the 2.5-mile oval. It’s been hosting automobile races since 1909, and not just any race, but the Indianapolis 500. And because of its archaic – at least in racing terms – lineage, parts of Indy’s surface, namely the frontstretch, remained clad in bricks until 1961 when asphalt was spread across all but a three-foot strip at the track’s start/finish line. Hence, it’s nickname – the Brickyard – and why so many drivers’ bric-a-brac collections contain an old brick from the Wabash Clay Company, the Veedersburg, Ind.-based company that supplied nearly all those “Culver Blocks” on which legends tread.

As years pass, those bricks become harder and harder to come by, which is appropriate considering that each passing year raises the level of competition in all forms of auto racing, which makes finding victory at the Brickyard equally elusive.

Winning at Indy was hard in an Indy car, and when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series began racing there in 1994 via the inaugural Brickyard 400, the stock car set found out first-hand what folks like Lloyd Ruby, Rex Mays, Ted Horn, Tony Bettenhausen Sr., Michael Andretti and Tony Kanaan found out in 79 collective Indy 500 starts – winning can be hard to come by.

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing, knows this better than anyone. In five Indy 500 starts, Stewart went winless, despite leading a total of 122 laps and starting from the pole as a rookie in 1996. It appeared that his Indy 500 luck followed him to NASCAR when he came to the speedway as a rookie anew in 1999. In six agonizing years, which included a start from the pole in 2002, Stewart’s best Brickyard 400 finish was fifth in 2004, despite leading 43 laps in 2002 and 60 laps in 2003. But finally, in 2005 on his march to his second Sprint Cup championship, Stewart nabbed a win at the famous Brickyard.

It wasn’t just any win, for Stewart is a favorite son of Indiana, with the Columbus, Ind., native lauded alongside such other homegrown talents as Larry Bird, James Dean, John Wooden, John Mellencamp and David Letterman. The “local boy does good” angle is one that has earned Stewart many fans in the Hoosier State, but it’s also been Stewart’s well-chronicled adoration of Indy that has earned him a devout following.

The former USAC and IndyCar Series champion grew up about 45 minutes from the historic track in the towns of Columbus and Rushville. In fact, before Stewart made his debut at Indianapolis in the 1996 Indianapolis 500, he drove a tow truck while trying to make ends meet as an aspiring USAC driver.

Stewart would drive down Georgetown Road toward 16th Street, running parallel with the speedway’s 3,330-foot-long frontstretch, and wonder what it would be like 300 feet to the left running at 200 mph.

He finally got to experience that feeling in 1996, but it would be an agonizing 10 years before Stewart experienced his ultimate wish – winning at Indy.

But after standing inside the speedway’s victory circle in 2005, it only took a year and 209 days for Stewart to score his second Indy triumph when he led seven times for a race-high 65 laps en route to a dominating win in the 2007 Brickyard 400.

Stewart earned those wins as just a driver. They were big – the biggest of Stewart’s career – but trumping them would be winning a third Brickyard trophy as a driver/owner with Stewart-Haas Racing.

That opportunity presents itself this Sunday, and just as Stewart has seized other opportunities in the past, he aims to pick up another prized “brick”-a-brac in this year’s running of the Brickyard 400.

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

How would winning the Brickyard 400 as a driver/owner with Stewart-Haas Racing compare to your first Brickyard win?

“It would be awesome. A perfect example was the first year we won the Chili Bowl, which is the biggest Midget race in the country. I won it for good friends of mine, Keith Kunz and Pete Willoughby. Then we were able to win it two years later, but it was the first time I had won it driving my car, and it was just an unbelievable feeling knowing that I had a hand in helping build the program.

“It’s always been a dream to win in Indianapolis, and I’ve been very blessed and fortunate to win it twice now, and that’s something that if I died tomorrow I would die a happy man because of those two races. But it would be that much more special to win it as a team owner, too. It’s been so much fun working with this group of guys, and even if I didn’t win it, if Ryan (Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing) won the race, I would have the same feeling of gratification just being a part of it and being able to help Ryan realize his dream. It would mean just as much to be the winning car owner for Ryan as it would to win it as a driver and owner.”

Do you approach this race any differently as an owner rather than just as a driver?

“No, honestly you can’t. You hear people talk about it when it goes to playoff time or anything like that in any other sport, you pretty much stick to what you’ve been doing and what’s working for you. You don’t come here and try to do anything any different. That’s when you get yourself outside the box.

“The great thing for me is I’ve got a great support structure at Stewart-Haas. It allows me the flexibility to just come here and worry about doing what we do best, and that’s drive. It’s hard to play the owner role and the driver role on the weekends. I mean, I don’t want to sit there and worry about what the tire bill is for the weekend. I want to worry about making sure I know what I need to do as a driver. We’ve worked really hard to establish that system, so we won’t change it when we come to Indy.”

The Brickyard 400 pays the same amount of points as any other Sprint Cup race. Why is it such a big deal for you?

“It’s my home race, obviously. Growing up in Indiana and every year watching the Indy 500 and the whole month of May leading up to it, a race at the Brickyard is more than just a regular points race. It’s always been a big race to all of the Cup drivers, but then when you grow up in Indiana, it just makes it that much more important.”

What was it like to finally win at Indy?

“You dream about something for so long, you become consumed by it. When I was in USAC trying to make a living as a racecar driver, I drove a tow truck for a guy I raced Sprint cars against. I would drive down Georgetown toward 16th Street, parallel with the frontstretch, and wonder what it would be like 300 feet to the left running 200 mph. I got a chance to do that, and finally, after years of trying to win, be it in Indy cars or stock cars, I got to know what it feels like, to see that view coming down the front straightaway, seeing the checkered flag and knowing that I was the first driver to cross the stripe, versus the second, third or fourth-place guy. I had wanted that moment for so long, and I finally got it.”

Do you have a favorite story from growing up and coming to races at Indy?

“I rode my bike to school every day, and your parents beat it in your head to stop at stop signs and wait for green lights before you cross the road. Well, I played ‘Frogger’ going home, basically with a bicycle, trying to get home as fast as I could trying to get the TV on. That’s my biggest memory is just growing up and watching, loving the opportunity to get home. I didn’t care how much homework I had. It was the last priority when the month of May was going on and whatever coverage was on TV. You were just glued to it. There wasn’t any one particular moment. It’s just been something that’s been a huge, huge part of my life.”

What was your first childhood memory of Indy?

“I came with my father. We were in some bus that had a luggage rack in the top of it. You had to get up at o-dark-30 to get on the bus to ride up to Indy for race day. They threw me up in the luggage rack. Somebody gave me a pillow and everybody started throwing their jackets on top of me to keep me warm. The ride home wasn’t nearly as cool, because after a long day at the track, everybody but my dad and I were kind of rowdy. I was probably 5 years old. We sat in turns three and four. We were two rows up, right in the middle of the short chute. The hard thing was you could hardly see anything. The cars were so fast. They were a blur. But to see those cars under caution and smell the methanol fumes and everything, it was still pretty cool.”

What makes Indy such a hard track to get around?

“It’s a place that is a momentum-driven track. You don’t just have two ends to the racetrack and two big 180-degree corners. You’ve got four 90-degree corners to negotiate. If you have one bad corner at Indy and if your car’s not right, you’re going to be bad in four corners versus two corners a lap. And with it being two-and-a-half miles, you carry so much speed, if you lose momentum at that track, it just seems like it’s really a big penalty.”

On that note, how important is the team element at Indy – from crew chief to engineers to tire specialists?

“That part of it is no different from any other race. You still need the same people in the same places and you need to have the right equation. Track position is important. Pit strategy is important. There’s just a lot of variables and a lot of things that in 160 laps can either go right or go really wrong.”

Can you compare a lap around Indy in an Indy car to a lap around Indy in a stock car?

“In an Indy car you just don’t lift – if the car’s right. But in a stock car, even if it’s right, you’ve got to lift and you’ve got to brake for at least two of the corners. With the other two corners, you just lift, basically. It’s a challenging track in a Cup car. It’s a challenging track in an Indy car too, but if you can get it right in an Indy car then you can run it wide-open around there, and that’s one less variable you’ve got to worry about when it comes to getting around the racetrack.”

This year marks the 17th annual Brickyard 400. Do you remember how you felt as an aspiring open-wheel driver from Indiana when after a NASCAR tire test in 1992, it was announced that stock cars would race on the hallowed grounds of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

“I’ll be honest, when I first heard about the test that was going to happen there, I was against it. I’ve always said that. But on that day, I was a guy that had grown up in Indiana. I remember the month of May, literally being the full month of May at Indianapolis, and I was against anything other than Indy cars being on the track. But, after seeing the test session there and after the first race there, it was like, ‘Wow, this really does work and it really does belong there.’ I was against it because I thought that the Indy 500 was the only thing that deserved to be at the Brickyard. But, as time has gone and obviously what we’ve seen with the success of the Brickyard 400, Formula One came in, I thought it was a great idea. You realize that you have this great facility, and to be able to bring the major forms of racing into one facility like that was a pretty cool deal.”

When you raced in USAC you had an eye pointed toward Indianapolis, but only in regard to running an Indy car. Now drivers running in USAC still seem to have their sights set on Indy, but it’s in regard to running a stock car. What caused this change?

“Jeff Gordon was probably the biggest influence. He had a lot of success in USAC – won a lot of races. He wasn’t just handed an opportunity in NASCAR. He earned his way down there. When he got the opportunity to go to NASCAR, he opened up a lot of opportunities for drivers like myself. And the TV package that USAC had at the time with the Thursday Night Thunder Series on ESPN, it brought guys from all over the country because of the recognition that could be earned from running USAC. We had guys coming from Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, Wisconsin and Illinois to participate in USAC races because of Jeff’s success and the opportunity that he had to come to NASCAR. Indy cars weren’t an option at the time because unless you brought a big-dollar sponsor, you weren’t going to get a ride. When Jeff had his success down South, it boosted everybody’s spirits and helped show everyone in USAC that it was a reality and that if they had the same kind of results that Jeff had on the track, then it could happen to them, too.”

For a while, USAC was producing a lot of NASCAR stars – you, Gordon, Newman, Kasey Kahne, etc. But lately it seems not as many USAC drivers are making the jump to NASCAR. Why?

“There’s definitely a lot of talent in USAC. You have Bobby Santos that ran at New Hampshire in the Modified, Levi Jones who drives for us in USAC, and Bryan Clausen who has run some stock car stuff here. There’s definitely a lot of interest. The hard part right now is that the economy’s kind of got everything backed up a little bit to where it’s hard for these drivers. Unless they have millions of dollars in sponsorship that they can bring, their talent alone won’t get them the opportunity they deserve. There’s a ton of talent not only in USAC but all over the country in different forms of racing. The hard part is there’s only so many spots here to fill. It’s really hard to get your opportunity down here. But there’s definitely a lot of drivers, not only in USAC, but across the country that have the talent to do it.”

Was that time when you and Kahne and Newman and even J.J. Yeley made the jump from USAC to NASCAR a lightning-in-the-bottle-type moment?

“I don’t know that it’s necessarily just with us. The hard thing is to have their opportunities, there has to be somewhere for them to go when they get here. That’s the problem. There’s just not enough good opportunities for them to come down here right now. Bryan Clausen has been running. He went back to running Sprint cars. Josh Wise is running races in the Nationwide Series. There’s just not a lot of cars available for these guys to get in. That’s the hard part. There has to be cars for them to drive before they can actually make that move.”

How many championships? Eleven in all – eight in USAC and three in the World of Outlaws, with the most recent titles coming last Saturday night when Donny Schatz claimed this year’s Outlaws championship for Brownsburg, Ind.-based Tony Stewart Racing. And Stewart will officially get one more this weekend, as his USAC driver, Levi Jones, leads the Sprint car standings by an insurmountable 178 points heading into the USAC season finale in Tulare, Calif. It will be Jones’ third career Sprint car title.

So while this year’s NASCAR Sprint Cup title may be out of reach for Stewart, championships in the other series where he has an ownership stake are well in hand. That should signal to Stewart’s competitors in the NASCAR garage that the man nicknamed “Smoke” will continue to be a championship presence. Just as his open-wheel program got better with age, expect the same with Stewart’s NASCAR operation.

NASCAR’s April visit to Phoenix International Raceway was a case in point. After top-10s turned into top-fives during the season’s first seven races, Stewart scored the first runner-up result for Stewart-Haas Racing when he finished second to race winner Mark Martin. That run served as a precursor for a string of success achieved by Stewart-Haas Racing, for a month later, Stewart won the non-point NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C. His teammate, Ryan Newman, then won the pole for the prestigious Coca-Cola 600 the next week. Stewart then took the championship point lead in early June after a second-place finish at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. The first point-paying win came the next week when Stewart won at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.

Stewart went on to notch three more wins while Newman locked down another pole, and all the while the two were completing the most laps of any of their competitors, as the duo is currently ranked 1-2 in most laps completed. Stewart has completed all but 22 of the 9,913 laps available and Newman has only missed 23 laps. Their nearest challenger in this category, David Reutimann, has failed to complete 84 laps.

With the series returning to Phoenix this weekend for the penultimate race on the Sprint Cup schedule, winning is all that really matters, which suits Stewart just fine. With the championship being a match between Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon, Stewart is content to drive his No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS all out.

All-out is an appropriate way for Stewart to be at Phoenix. The two-time Sprint Cup champion began his professional racing career at Phoenix back in 1993, and has logged more laps there than any other driver. He’s raced and practiced stock cars, Indy cars, USAC Midgets and Silver Crown cars and even Supermodifieds around the venerable 1-mile oval. It’s a self-described West Coast home away from home for the Columbus, Ind., native.

And now in his return trip “home” via Sunday’s Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500k, Stewart aims to finish just one spot higher than he did back in April.

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

How impressive was Donny Schatz’s Outlaws championship this year?
“Any time you win a national championship, it’s impressive. This is a series where your points are accumulated all year long. It’s not a Chase format. And to go out on the road and run more than 60 races a year like those guys do, it’s a tough, grueling schedule. For him to win the championship four years in a row, and two years in a row for us, is really impressive. I’m really proud of him and Ricky Warner (crew chief) and all the guys on the Armor All/STP Chevy. It’s an awesome way to cap off the season for us.”

What are your thoughts on adding another championship with Levi Jones wrapping up the USAC Sprint car title? And a TSR-affiliated driver, Josh Richards, won the World of Outlaws Dirt Late Model championship last weekend. Tell us about that.
“I don’t know for sure, but I think we probably set a record there being the first organization to win a World of Outlaws Sprint Car championship and a USAC Sprint car championship in the same season and on the same night. That was a pretty cool deal, especially for Josh Richards. We’re not his car owner, but we’re part of his program. To have him win the Late Model championship on the same night, that’s pretty impressive.”

You’ve been a car owner of open-wheel teams for nearly a decade. Did that help make the transition of becoming a car owner in NASCAR that much easier?
“It definitely gave us some insight on what it was going to be like. Obviously, at this caliber, and with the amount of people we have at the Cup level, it was hard to know exactly what it was going to be like. But having that experience of being a car owner in the past definitely got us pointed in the right direction when it came time to make the decision to be a Cup owner.”

Because you’re a driver, do you think the success of your teams is due, in part, because you know what type of driver you need to have and what that driver needs to be successful?
“I think I’ve been around the sport long enough that I’ve seen how it’s not about individuals. It’s about how to put the whole package together. It’s about the right driver with the right crew chief with the right equipment, and if you can do that, a lot of times it leads to success.”

How long have you been racing at Phoenix?
“I started racing there in ’93 when I ran a Silver Crown car. And since then, I’ve run USAC Midgets, Indy cars, Supermodifieds, Nationwide Series cars, and of course, Sprint Cup. So, I’ve logged a bunch of laps there. To think that it all kind of started at Phoenix, I guess you could say it’s the place where my career came full-circle.”

Can you explain how Phoenix differs in the way the car handles in turns one and two as opposed to turns three and four?
“Every type of car that I’ve driven here – from USAC Midgets and Silver Crown cars to Supermodifieds to Indy cars to Nationwide cars and now the Sprint Cup cars – running all those different divisions, the one common variable is the two ends of the track are unique and different from each other. It’s always been a situation where if your car is really good in (turns) three and four, you’re normally a little bit tight in (turns) one and two, and if you get one and two really good, you’re normally a little bit too loose in three and four. You do have to weigh the options and try to find that balance of which end of the track is more important to you. You know you’re not going to be perfect in both ends, and you’ll have to pick one end or the other to get your car really good. I do have a preference, but I don’t tell everybody else that. That’s what having all these years and these laps of experience there does for me. It’s the one secret variable that I try to use to my advantage.”

How did you transition from one type of racing to another?
“It’s more fear than anything that I’m going to have to get a real job if I’m not successful. That’s the great thing about running USAC and being in Indiana where not only did we have winged Sprint cars and non-winged Sprint cars, Midgets, Silver Crown cars, we ran on dirt tracks one night and pavement the next. We ran Modifieds and Late Models. There were just so many things to drive around there that you learned how to adapt, and you learned how not to have a preconceived notion about how a racecar is supposed to feel and drive. You learned to read what the car was telling you as far as what it liked and disliked, and learned how to change your driving style accordingly. Especially at Phoenix, every car we’ve driven there, even though the track’s the same, they all drove different. You just had to adapt to it and learn to read the racecar, instead of thinking this is what the car I ran last night felt like and it’s supposed to feel like this today. It doesn’t work that way.”

Is it safe to say you have Phoenix figured out?
“I’ve definitely spent a lot of time there. Myself and Arie Luyendyk were the two lead test drivers for Firestone when we were in the IRL. We spent a lot of time in Phoenix because the weather is so good out there all year long. We would spend three days out there tire testing and we had two or three of those sessions through the winter. I got to spend a lot of time running around Phoenix. I probably know every line around the track that’s ever been ran and why it’s been ran. It helps when you get in the stock cars or anything you get in when you’re out there. I pretty much know how to get around there.”

Stewart had proven himself long ago as a guy who could race stock cars on road courses. His first road course win came at Sonoma in 2001 and he has since notched three other road course wins and a total of 10 top-twos in 21 career Sprint Cup starts on the series’ two road courses — Sonoma and Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, site of Sunday’s Heluva Good! at The Glen.

Kahne, meanwhile, was more of a surprise. The sixth-year Sprint Cup driver had never finished better than 14th in 10 road course starts, but he was able to at least match Stewart lap for lap, and in the end, beat him, even during a nail-biting string of late-race restarts where Stewart was breathing down his neck.

It was a breakthrough win for Kahne and another strong run for Stewart, who wound up second. While Stewart was genuinely happy for his USAC wingman, he left the twists and turns of Sonoma wanting more.

Stewart looks forward to the two road course events on the 36-race Sprint Cup schedule. They break up the monotony of oval racing, and the different discipline allows for a different technique — one the driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing has honed to near perfection.

As Stewart returns to road course racing with this weekend’s stop at Watkins Glen, he sees opportunity. And why shouldn’t he? The two-time Sprint Cup champion has not finished worse than second in his last five Sprint Cup starts at the 11-turn, 2.45-mile layout in upstate New York. And in 10 career Sprint Cup starts at The Glen, he has an average finish of 5.7.

Thwarted for the win six races ago at Sonoma, Stewart is intent on finishing one spot higher in the final road course race of the 2009 season.

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

You had a pretty impressive battle with Kasey Kahne for the win in June at Sonoma. Kahne proved victorious, and his win surprised a lot of people because he hadn’t really shown that kind of performance in past road course races. Did he surprise you as well?

“I was surprised because I don’t remember him in the past being a big road course racer. I don’t remember ever having to race him at a road course race. But man, he was good. We ran the whole race together. We seemed to be on the same pit sequence during the whole day. Whether I could see him in front of me or in the mirror, we were always right around each other. When we were at the back of the pack and had tires and had to drive through the field, we were matching each other lap for lap At the end it became a shootout between us and it wasn’t surprising at that point of the day, but during the day with him running the pace he was running, I wasn’t used to seeing that from him. But he did it consistently all day, and obviously he’s picked it up and has got it figured out.”

Toward the end of the Sonoma race it was restart after restart. With the new double-file restarts, did they help or hinder you in your attempt to get past Kahne?

“He kept picking the right-side lane on the restarts, which was very smart. He made the right decision, where most of the guys were picking the left-side lane during the day. He was really the only guy that I remember that actually picked the right side, especially when it counted. He made the most of it, because it got us hung on the outside. We just kept the pressure on him and tried to force him into a mistake and he never made it. He just was very composed and solid there to where on all of those restarts we couldn’t get him to bobble.”

Were the double-file restarts any different at Sonoma, because back in the day you would’ve had lap-down cars alongside the leaders? And will the double-file restarts present any issues at Watkins Glen?

“At Sonoma, you don’t get a lot of lapped traffic, so it wasn’t ever really a factor, and it never really was at Watkins Glen. The double-file restarts will be more conducive at Watkins Glen than they were at Sonoma. Turn one doesn’t seem to be quite as line sensitive. You can run both lines and still be in good shape.”

Knowing how strong you were at Sonoma despite finishing second, can things that you learned at Sonoma carryover to Watkins Glen, especially since you were able to log another test at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in preparation for Watkins Glen?

“We tried a package I wasn’t familiar with at Sonoma. It was good enough to run second, but it wasn’t good enough to win. So, we went and tested at VIR to try and sort a couple of things out. I was very pleased with our run there at Sonoma. We always run well there and we always run well at Watkins Glen, and after a second-place run at Sonoma, we’re pretty confident and excited about going to Watkins Glen and getting that one extra spot.”

You’ve won six road course races altogether — two at Sonoma and four at The Glen. Does success at one venue transfer to the other?

“The two tracks, while both road courses, are still pretty different. At Watkins Glen you don’t have to finesse the throttle near as much as you do at Sonoma. When you get the car turned, you can get in the gas and then stay in the gas. Watkins Glen is much faster than Sonoma. I think there are the same amount of passing opportunities, but because of the speeds that you’re able to run at The Glen, brakes become a much bigger factor than I think they are at Sonoma. It’s pretty much a horsepower track. It’s horsepower and aerodynamics just like it is anywhere else we go. It just happens to be in the form of a road course. Sonoma has a lot less grip in the racetrack. You have to really be careful with the throttle there, and that puts more of the race in the driver’s hands. If anything, Sonoma is probably more technical than Watkins Glen because there’s hardly any time where you get a chance to rest. You’re always either shifting or accelerating or braking or turning or doing something. At Watkins Glen, at least on the frontstretch and on the backstretch, there are three straightaways where you get a little bit of time to take a break. Watkins Glen seems to be more in the crew’s hands and the engine builder’s hands. Obviously, there’s still a job that I need to do in the racecar, but I’m relying on the equipment and the crew a lot more at Watkins Glen.”

With all those wins, do you feel you have a better opportunity to win on a road course than you do at some of the oval tracks?

“It’s definitely a place I feel like we’ve got the potential to win, even before we make a single lap.”

What is it about you and road courses? Because it’s such a different discipline, do you go in and just throw caution to the wind, or is it a little more involved than that?

“I’ve just always liked it. I won a national championship racing go-karts on road courses, so the concept of what it took to win races on road courses wasn’t totally unknown to me, but driving cars with suspension, and definitely driving cars that you had to shift, that’s something that came relatively easy to me, and still comes easy to me as far as knowing how to synchronize the gears without having to use the help of the clutch. Even in the sports cars that I’ve driven with guys who have driven road courses all their life, I’ve gotten out of the car and the crew has torn the gearboxes apart and said that the dog rings in my transmission look better than when those guys are done with a transmission. There’s just something about the shifting side of it that’s been really natural to me, and it’s fun. I like having a different discipline to race on. I like having the opportunity to do something twice a year that we don’t get a shot at doing very often. I take the same amount of pride that someone like Ron Fellows or Scott Pruett does when they come into a road course race. I take that same pride in running well that they do in these cars. I don’t look at it from the standpoint that it’s a negative weekend. I look at it as a positive, that it’s something we enjoy and I feel like that gives us a leg up on most of the guys we race with at these tracks.”

How much do you look forward to racing on the road courses?

“I love the two road courses. It’s nice because it kind of breaks up the monotony of the season. We do the same thing every week and it’s nice to have two road course races thrown in the mix that give us a chance to do something a little bit off-center for all of us. It’s kind of like the ‘Prelude’ with no dirt added, unless you drive off, which a lot of us do. We still get a dirt aspect in it, I guess.”

(The “Prelude” is the Sept. 9 Gillette Young Guns Prelude to the Dream, an all-star dirt late model race featuring many of NASCAR’s top drivers at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, a half-mile clay oval owned by Stewart. Televised live on HBO Pay-Per-View, the event has raised nearly $2 million for charity. This year’s event will benefit four military-themed charities — Wounded Warrior Project, Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, Operation Homefront and Fisher House. — Ed.)
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