ShareThisWhen the long ribbon of Sprint Cup Series trucks, car haulers and transporters pulled out of Michigan International Speedway in the fading strands of light on Sunday evening, Tony Stewart should have been riding shotgun in the lead vehicle.
He should have coaxed celebratory blasts out of the horn as the caravan wound past small Michigan towns such as White Lake, Springville and Tipton. Stewart should have been there to receive the waves and shouts of support along Chicago Boulevard in Tecumseh, and then reprised that role as the fleet slowed to cross the railroad tracks in Britton.
Stewart is king on the stock car racing mountain right now and even with two Cup Series championships resting on the credenza at home, he is an unlikely monarch -- at least at this moment -- 15 races into his baptismal season in the usually impossible role of owner/driver of a racing team.
After coming in seventh in Sunday's LifeLock 400, which evolved into a stunning war of attrition when nine cars ran out of fuel on the final lap, Stewart leads NASCAR's lucrative Chase for the Sprint Cup standings. After the first 26 races, the top 12 drivers in points compete in the Chase over the final 10 races for the overall Cup championship and a huge barrel of prize money.
Stewart, who won the 2002 and 2005 Cup championships while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, left the security of that long-established team at the end of last season and partnered with Haas CNC Racing to form Stewart-Haas Racing.
It was clear Stewart would be under the microscope of scrutiny, and the historical record was tilted steeply against him. A driver/owner had not won a Cup race since 1998 when Ricky Rudd did it at Martinsville. Former Sprint Cup Series champion Bill Elliott has 44 wins in his career, but none of them came in the more than 200 races he ran as an owner/driver.
"I know there won't be any guarantees," Stewart said as he prepared to start the 2009 season and be the guy signing the checks. "I expect to be successful, but I'm also well aware of what a huge challenge this is in front of us."
But with the Cup Series better than half way to the cutoff point for the Chase, Stewart leads the pack, and teammate and fellow Indiana native Ryan Newman stands fifth in the points. The team has been exceptionally consistent -- 30 starts for its two drivers, 19 top-10 finishes.
"It was supposed to be so stressful to do this, especially this year with the economy being what it is. It was supposed to add stress. It has actually taken stress away," Stewart said at MIS. "It's awesome. Every day when I wake up, I look forward to going to the shop. I look forward to going to the track. I haven't had this much fun for a long time."
For Newman, the South Bend native and Purdue vehicle structural engineering grad that won 13 races and 43 poles in his nine years with Penske Racing, the grins of recent success are contagious.
"I'm having a lot more fun so that's the one thing that changes me, because I can carry my smile a little further throughout the day," Newman said. "It's been a blast to be a teammate to Tony Stewart with all the things that we've accomplished on and off the race track. In general, I'm just happy to be where I am."
Stewart, who won the exhibition Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway a month ago and then captured his first points-race win as an owner at Pocono a week before racing at MIS, said the intense competition at this level of stock car racing kept him from setting his sights too high in his debut season as an owner.
"I'm not sure that I thought we could win a championship the first year," Stewart said. "You look at everything on paper, and you think you have a shot just like everybody else does. But you get to the track and see the guys you are up against, and the competition we are racing against -- there are no slouches."
At MIS, Stewart gained his series-leading 11th top-10 finish in 15 races to date. Stewart leads second-place Jeff Gordon by 47 points as the Cup Series moves to Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., for a road course race this weekend.
"We've been good all year," Stewart said after his seventh-place finish at MIS. "And to say we had a bad day and still end up with seventh, is a good day."
(Contact Matt Markey at mmarkey@theblade.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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