YOU GET TO WATCH YOUR WORLD OF OUTLAWS TEAM AT THE TALLADEGA DIRT TRACK TOMORROW NIGHT, ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT IT? “Yes, I’m excited to go watch because I’ve seen all six races that they ran there and four of the six were three-wide for the lead with less than 10 to go. I’m excited to go see it.”

ARE YOU RACING? DID YOU THINK ABOUT IT? “No. Honestly hadn’t been (thinking about it), just have been busy. I just knew I was going to watch anyhow.”

CAN YOU JUST SHARE SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT HAPPENED SUNDAY AT LAS VEGAS AND THEN GETTING BACK IN A CAR THIS WEEKEND? “It is definitely a tragedy. It doesn’t affect us getting back in the car. We all know that can happen every week. It’s been a part of racing forever. I don’t know that it’s necessarily why we do what we do; but, we know those risks going into it. It is part of the sport. It always has been and it always will be. You’re never going to make it 100% safe. Safety in both IndyCar racing and stock car racing has come a long way in the last 10 years.”

FIRST PRACTICE OUT THERE WITH THE NEW RULES, ANYTHING DIFFERENT OUT THERE? “I didn’t see anything any different. I think the temperatures, the water pressure, is what you are still focusing on right now. We have a cooler day than what we had here in the spring, so, it’s pretty similar right now because of the temperatures.”

DID YOU WORK WITH GILLILAND IN PRACTICE? “We haven’t yet. We don’t know. I’ve kind of heard the Ford guys are kind of being told they have to stay with Ford guys. So we’re not sure exactly who we are going to run with on Sunday yet.”

ARE YOU HAVING TO SCRAMBLE A LITTLE BIT BECAUSE OF THAT? “I just ran with Bobby Labonte in that first session. I’m not sure who we are going to run with in the second session. We have all day today and tomorrow to figure out who exactly it’s going be with us. We don’t really have to know right now I guess. It’d be nice to know, but, we thought we had a plan and then it sounded like it got dismantled. So, we are going to have to try to come up with something else for Sunday now.”

BECAUSE YOU ARE SO GOOD HERE, DO YOU WAIT FOR PEOPLE TO APPROACH YOU THAT THEY WANTED TO RUN WITH YOU? “Oh no, I definitely want to be more proactive than reactive with it for sure. So if I can go out and pick somebody I want I rather do that than wait for them to come. There is no benefit to waiting on somebody to come to you, you are better off going and trying to get the guy you want.”

HOW DO YOU PICK SOMEBODY? “I think it’s real important to have the similar philosophy on how you want to run this race and where you want to be when. If you got a guy that wants to go up and lead the whole race verses somebody like me that likes to hang around the back the first half of the race, those philosophies aren’t going to match so you go and find somebody that wants to run the race the same way you do.”

SO WHAT’S THE ETIQUETTE, CAN YOU BREAK UP ANOTHER PAIRING SO TO SPEAK? “I don’t know. I don’t think they signed contracts for pairing up so I think everybody is fair game at this point. It’s just who you can get and there’s going to be times in the race where you don’t necessarily get with the guys you want to be with anyway. You’ve always got to do the Peyton Manning; you’ve always got to be ready to call an audible at any point so just wait and see what you can get.”

HAVE YOU HEARD ANY REASON WHAY THE FORD GUYS WOULD ELECT TO DO THAT THIS TIME? “You have the recorder go ask them.” I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT HAVE SOME INSIGHT. “Of course, because I do go around and talk to them all the time. I ask them questions like that a lot.” I DIDN’T KNOW IF IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN BECAUSE OF THE NEW RULES. “I don’t know. I’m going to wait on you to come back with all the insightful answers and tell me so I know.”

HOW DOES THE INDYCAR ACCIDENT EFFECT YOU, I KNOW YOU HATE IT FOR THE SERIES TO SEE THAT HAPPEN. “You know you hate it for everybody involved. Randy Bernard has been getting beat up over it and he shouldn’t. It’s part of racing, its part of what can happen. Everybody is a back chair quarterback going no we should do this or shouldn’t do that. It’s racing; I mean it’s always been racing. I mean auto racing as a whole is safer than it’s ever been. It still boils down to the people that are steering the cars around. It’s not that the cars are unsafe, there’s still people that tell the cars where to go so we’ve got to take responsibility. There is no reason for anybody to point fault anywhere. There’s no fault in it. It’s racing.

“Racing has always been dangerous. That’s why people come to watch races because there is an element of danger involved. You’re never going to get it all out but like we said it’s safer than it’s ever been. It’s a freak thing that happened and it can happen every race. It can happen every race that we run but it’s safer than it’s ever been. I think everybody has got to take a deep breath and let the emotions settle down. Everybody is obviously thinking about Dan and his family, his wife and two children, there’s a lot of great charity stuff coming up to help them out which we are really proud to be a part of but I think everybody has to take a step back from it and realize this is auto racing.

“It’s always been dangerous but everybody still does it. If it was so bad none of us would want to do this but we still love doing this every week and it’s just part of the sport unfortunately. It’s never going to be 100 percent safe.”

A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK ITS NASCAR VS. INDYCAR WHEN IN ALL REALITY ITS MOTORSPORTS. “I think when you see how many people have donated to Dan’s charity deal; I think you’ll realize that nobody does that except the media. I think fans are fans, they will watch racing no matter what. When we’re not racing we watch IndyCar races, if they’re not racing they watch our races. Racing is racing and race fans are race fans. They want to see racing. It’s stupidity to compare back and forth and make it into that situation.

WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY IS BECAUSE PEOPLE THINK THAT THEY THINK MAYBE PEOPLE WOULD BE ROUTING FOR INDYCAR TO FAIL … “I don’t think there is anybody doing that.”

DO YOU WORRY FOR THEM, THAT SERIES AT ALL? “I don’t worry about it because I don’t think anybody

actually thinks that way. I think it’s ludicrous if somebody does think that. There’s always been IndyCar racing and stock car racing and it’s coexisted for years and it’s always been fine.”

I GUESS WHAT I’M GETTING AT IS THE INSTABILITY OF THEIR SERIES, DO YOU WORRY ABOUT INDYCAR ITSELF? “No, they had 34 cars at Vegas. That’s an incredible field. That’s the biggest field I’ve seen in years. I don’t think so. I think that’s a sign that they’re gaining a little bit and I hope they are. I’m a big fan of IndyCar racing. I always have been and I always will. I prefer to watch them on the ovals verses the road courses. I’ve always been a fan of it.”

DID THAT ACCIDENT MAKE YOU THINK AT ALL ABOUT YOUR ACCIDENT THERE? “No, they were totally separate, totally different circumstances. Still the same facility but you know the track being changed had nothing to do with it. Our accident was totally, it was opposite ends of the spectrum of what happened with their wreck.”

WOULD YOU RACE ANY RACE IN INDYCAR BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T RACED ONE OBVIOUSLY IN A WHILE, YOU’VE NEVER HAD ANY SAFETY CONCERNS HAVE YOU? “No, never. Not once.”

IF YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WOULD YOU GO RUN ONE OF THOSE? “If the opportunity was right. The hard thing is that series has gotten really competitive. You aren’t just going to go show up and drop in one and be up to speed right away. That’s why it makes it so hard to go do something like that. It would be like trying to go run a top fuel dragster next week. I’ve never done it and its going to take you a while to get used to something like that. The reason we don’t do it isn’t even remotely safety issue-wise it’s just time-wise and it you’re going to do it you want to be competitive doing it. You want to make sure when you show up at a race you’re competitive and ready to go.”

PRIOR TO SUNDAY, HOW DID YOU FEEL LIKE THAT SERIES WAS DOING THIS YEAR UNDER RANDY’S DIRECTION? “I don’t know I was just watching races. I didn’t really think about it. Like we said, we watch the races and qualifying every chance we had so I was enjoying watching the races this year just like always.”

LOOKING AHEAD AT MARTINSVILLE, WHAT’S THE MOST CHALLENGING ASPECT OF THAT TRACK FOR YOU? “It’s been everything for us. If you get a good handling car your brakes aren’t really an issue anymore there. We’ve fought handling the last couple of times there and it does make it harder because you’re trying to make up more in the braking zones. It’s just getting your car to do what you want it to do just like any where else but if it’s not right it does bring that brake element back into it.”

DO YOU THINK THE COOLER TEMPERATURE WILL IMPACT HOW MUCH YOU HAVE TO SWAP? “Yeah, that’s why they did that in the first place. We’re supposed to have a little warmer day on Sunday. I think it’s supposed to be 70 or 71. I’m not sure what it is today, it’s in the mid-60’s today. The warmer it gets the more often we’re going to have to swap so it will definitely help out with that.”

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.”