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1999 In Review
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Points: 4th
Wins: 3 (Richmond, Phoenix, Homestead, Fla.)
Poles: 2
Top 5s: 12
Top 10s: 21
Earnings: 2,451,939
What Went Right?
He joined Winston Cup. Name it and Tony Stewart did it as a rookie, setting standards for wins, poles and points in his first year behind the wheel of a stock car. The former Indy Racing League driver won three times, captured two poles and finished higher than any rookie in the sport's 51-year history. He won consecutive races in Phoenix and Homestead, Fla., and scored more points than any other driver over the second half of the season.
What Went Wrong?
The season ended. Actually, Stewart's only blemish in 1999 was his temper, which got the best of him at times. But it's his competitive fire that made him so special as a rookie. He ran out of gas while leading at New Hampshire and blew off the media. He then got into a on-track scuffle with Kenny Irwin at Martinsville. If you really want to get picky, he did finish outside the top 15 five times.
-- Ron Buck
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Well, we can stop calling Tony Stewart a rookie. The label never really seemed appropriate, anyway. A contender for the Winston Cup championship, even the favorite to win the 2000 Winston Cup crown, fits much nicer.
Stewart will enter the 2000 season as the 1999 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year. But as we all know, this is not your father's second-year driver. Not since Dale Earnhardt won the '79 Rookie of the Year and his first Winston Cup crown the next season has a driver threatened to burst onto the scene as boldly as Stewart.
Sophomore drivers rarely dream about the things Stewart will be expected to challenge for in 2000. The Winston Cup Series just doesn't allow such thoughts in Year Two. But then again, Stewart isn't bound by Winston Cup tradition. He's the outsider who crashed the party, broke all the rules -- and records, for that matter -- and drove away with the sport's blessing.
And 1999 was just the beginning. As NASCAR turns the corner into the 21st Century, it's premier racing series has a new star who grew up in the Midwest dreaming about winning the Indianapolis 500 and wound up barnstorming the south.
"It's just an honor to be with this group of drivers that's in this room," Stewart said during the Winston Cup awards banquet in New York. "It's obviously a great honor. It's nothing that we could have predicted would have happened this year. But, at the same time, we felt real fortunate to be able to do the things we were able to do this year and it really gives us a lot to look forward to in years to come."
Stewart's unparalleled first season in Winston Cup is well chronicled. Fourth in points, three wins and two poles -- all rookie records. He was the first rookie since Davey Allison in 1987 to post a win in Winston Cup, but scariest thing about Stewart's debut was the momentum he was building as 1999 came to a close.
While he didn't break through with his first win until Sept. 11 at Richmond, nobody scored more points in the second half of the season than Stewart. And while everyone was counting down the races to Dale Jarrett's coronation, it was Stewart who posted seven of his 12 top 5s in the final 13 races of the season. And by the way, in case you forgot, Stewart won two of the final three races of the season.
It's easy to see why Stewart enters the 2000 season with such high expectations. His first-year numbers were better than those of Earnhardt, Allison and Jeff Gordon in their rookie seasons.
"The fact that if the points season would have started halfway through this season, we may have been a contender for the championship. That's exciting," said Stewart. "But it's just nice to be able to have the rookie season out of the way. Obviously, we have a lot to learn still, but the knowledge we do have we feel like will give us a
pretty good starting point for next year.
"If we can have the same kind of season in the year 2000 like we had in the last half of 1999, then hopefully we'll be sitting at the head (banquet) table next year."
If Stewart can win a championship in 2000, he'd join Earnhardt as the only driver to win the Rookie of the Year and Winston Cup in successive seasons. By comparison, Jeff Gordon finished eighth in points a year after winning the Rookie of the Year in 1993 -- the highest finish by a second-year driver in the '90s.
Talk of winning a Winston Cup championship so soon doesn't phase Stewart. Once again, the old rules don't apply to Stewart. Not when you're used to breaking new ground so regularly -- like becoming the first driver to finish both the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, something he also accomplished in 1999.
So when the subject of the 2000 Daytona 500 comes up, Stewart speaks as if he's telling you what to expect.
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What About 2000?
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"If we can have the same kind of season in the year 2000 like we had in the last half of 1999, then hopefully we'll be sitting at the head (banquet) table next year."
-- Tony Stewart
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"I want to win everywhere. But when you become involved with the Winston Cup Series, it's very easy to understand the importance of Daytona for everybody," Stewart said. "Obviously, we want to win Daytona very badly."
Sounds like the old adage of a driver needing experience to win at Daytona may be the next rule Stewart breaks.
For as much confidence as Stewart exudes, the company he's keeping keeps him grounded. And while the expectations may be enormous, Stewart won't allow them to affect his approach to 2000.
"The only pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself. I've never felt like I've received any pressure from anybody but myself," Stewart said. "I've probably put more pressure on myself at times than anyone else could.
"But over the past 20 years of my life in racing, I've kind of set my own goals and my own agendas. That's what I've stuck to. I feel my ability to shut out that outside pressure is what's helped me get to where I am."
No question, Stewart will enter the season as a favorite to win the Winston Cup championship. While the Ford and Chevy drivers work out bugs in the new 2000 Monte Carlo and Tauraus, he and teammate Bobby Labonte should set a pretty good pace in their Pontiacs. Ironically, it's Labonte and the ability of both Joe Gibbs teams to work together that helped Stewart so much in 1999. Come 2000, the sharing of notes could get tricky if a championship hangs in the balance.
But that's something Stewart wouldn't mind having to work out next season.
"We worked very closely together. Both Bobby's cars and my cars are in the same room together," Stewart said. "We are different from most multi-car teams, the fact that we don't have separate shops for each team. We are all in on building
under one roof and we are very good at sharing information. I think it helped both teams.
"Still, there is no textbook pattern on how to win a championship. There are 43 guys who run the race on each Sunday and nobody runs each race the same way. There is just one guy does it better than the other guys obviously each year. That's what we hope we can do in the future."
Again, it just sounds like he's telling us what to expect. Doesn't it?
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ALSO SEE
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Gordon Spotlight: Entering a new era
Earnhardt Spotlight: Still intimidating
Wallace Spotlight: 'I'm still hungry'
Ward Burton: A foundation built for success
Skinner spotlight: Keeping 'big picture' in mind
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