February 17, 2000
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Tony Stewart talks just about as fast as he drives. Sometimes, that isn't so good for the Winston Cup rookie of the year.
"Sure, I've gotten in trouble with some of the things I've said, but you guys don't want cookie-cutter quotes, and I'm not going to give you any," Stewart said.
And if he wins the Daytona 500 on Sunday, no one will have to search hard for a good quote.
"Every time I go into the media center people say, 'Don't change,"' he said. "You've got to be politically correct at times, but there are times when it's nice to express what's on your mind.
"I've been a firm believer that if a guy asks you an honest question you give him an honest answer. Sometimes, it's not what they want to hear."
Once last season, they heard nothing. A couple of months before he got the first of his rookie-record three victories last season, Stewart ran out of gas in a race where only bad luck could beat him. He left New Hampshire International Speedway without comment, and was ostracized by the media.
That taught him that superstardom means accessibility in good times and bad, as well as accountability to megabucks sponsor Home Depot and ultra successful Joe Gibbs Racing.
"Tony Stewart is never going to do that again," he said.
Stewart has become a star of such magnitude that orange No. 20 paraphernalia is beginning to lighten the hue of a grandstand crowd for so many years dominated by the dark colors of Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin.
Even Jeff Gordon, the star of stars and media darling of NASCAR, managed to finish second to Stewart last year on the attention scale.
"Tony Stewart is a great driver," Gordon said, explaining that he meant the entire package on and off the track.
At least once a day, a long orange line at the souvenir trailer means the Rushville Rocket is back on the midway.
It seems like such a fast trip from those weekend nights as a record-setting sprint car driver in Indiana and those lonely Sundays as the Indy Racing League champion America never knew.
Now, everybody in racing knows him and more people want a chunk of his time. Stewart is thinking about preserving some of it.
"We're going to try to give me one day off every week," he said.
On Memorial Day weekend last year, Stewart commuted between Indianapolis and Charlotte, N.C., racing in both the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day.
It doesn't figure to get any easier this year, with Stewart among the favorites for the series title.
Still, he'll probably have some time to enhance his reputation as the circuit's best wisecracker. Last year, when asked about interacting with foreign-born drivers in the IRL, Stewart said he understood almost everybody in NASCAR.
"In the garage, they speak all English, except Ward Burton," Stewart quipped. "He speaks, well, he speaks Ward."
Burton, a Virginian with a deep drawl, laughed at that.
"I break his chops, too," Burton said. "I just not going to tell you how."
But there's another side to Stewart, who figures even more success will come if he controls his temper. He lost it once last year, throwing heat shields from his shoes at Kenny Irwin after they tangled and Stewart wrecked.
NASCAR fined Stewart $5,000, not much for someone making millions. But he got the message.
"I think my temper is something we need to work on," he said. "But if I was out there running in the back of the pack, I wouldn't have to worry about it because nobody would care."
