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INDIANAPOLIS -- Tony Stewart has won three races this season. That equals the combined total of Bobby Labonte, Dale Jarrett and Dale Earnhardt -- the top three in the Winston Cup point standings heading into Saturday's Brickyard 400.
It's also more than any other driver in the series.
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You always want to win here growing up this close to the Speedway. ... I definitely want to win this race being a hometown hero. ” |
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— Tony Stewart |
That says a lot for Stewart, a native Hoosier who left full-time open-wheel
racing last year at age 27 to join the Winston Cup Series and then
easily became its rookie of the year. He won three races in 1999, finished
in the top five 12 times and placed fourth in the final standings.
So far, there hasn't been a sophomore jinx. And although he got off to a slow start, he's now sixth in the standings with 13 top-10 finishes.
Now, as Stewart returns to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he
believes that he is a better driver than last year. And that means he has an improved chance of winning at Indy -- a goal he's had in mind since he started driving quarter-midgets in his nearby birth place of Columbus, Ind.
"Anytime you only go to a racetrack once a year, your first year is kind of
a throw-away year," said Stewart, who qualified 11th and finished seventh in his first Brickyard 400. "You don't know what to expect. I didn't
know how the track was going to change.
"With how the race went last year, now I know more on the preparation and
just the race setup more than anything, knowing how to get the car where we
need to get it. That's what I'm going to concentrate on this year. So that
gives me more of a direction of where to focus on this race."
Stewart and crew chief Greg Zipadelli are in the midst of their second full season together. Stewart thinks that the crew did a better job than he did early last season as he made the switch from Indy-style cars. He came on strong starting with the spring race at Talladega and had only six finishes outside the top 10 thereafter.
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STEWART AT BRICKYARD
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| Stewart |
Here's a look at Tony Stewart's results at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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Year
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Finish
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1999 (Brickyard 400)
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7th
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1999 (Indy 500)
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9th
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1998 (Indy 500)
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33rd
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1997 (Indy 500)
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5th
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1996 (Indy 500)
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24th
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This year he's had some forgettable finishes -- 42nd at Bristol, Tenn., and 34ths at
Atlanta and Talladega. And he also failed to collect any bonus points in the first 10 races. He then picked up 50 bonus points in the next eight races -- winning three times in six races. He comes to Indy, however, off a disappointing 26th-place run in the Pennsylvania 500 two weeks ago.
"I've learned a lot," he said of his time in a stock car. "Going back to the beginning of last year, we had a better team than a race car driver for the first half of the year. I started catching up as the year went on. This year I'm gaining more knowledge.
"I'm working with the same guys. We haven't switched anybody, so the guys I
'm working with I'm more familiar. They're more familiar with me.
"I'm just starting to get smarter. Every time we make a change, they let me
know why we're making it and what it's supposed to do. And I'm starting to
get more involved in that. I'm a little more confident as a driver knowing
what the changes are, knowing how the car will react every time.
"It just makes me a more confident race driver."
Stewart cut his racing teeth in the USAC midgets, sprints and Silver Crown
cars. He won an unprecedented sweep of the three series titles in 1995 before stepping up to Indy-style cars with the advent of the Indy Racing
League.
He qualified for the front row in his first Indianapolis 500 in 1996 driving for John Menard and started on the pole due to the death of pole winner and teammate Scott Brayton in a practice crash. Stewart led 44 laps before engine failure took him out of the race but still earned the Bank One Rookie of the Year Award.
He and Donnie Allison are the only drivers to have won both Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR Winston Cup rookie honors.
Stewart went on to win the 1996-97 Indy Racing League championship.
Winning the Brickyard would be nice, he said, "but it's not going to replace winning the Indy 500, by any means.
"You always want to win here growing up this close to the Speedway. I want
to win every race I run anyway, but if I had to say I'd trade Loudon (where he won July 9) for this, I'd do it in a heartbeat," Stewart said.
"I definitely want to win this race being a hometown hero."
Points leader Labonte and Stewart are teammates. Stewart insists there is no overt competition between them within the garage. In fact, during recent
testing at the speedway, Labonte found something that helped Stewart pick up
a half-second per lap, Stewart said. Labonte immediately shouted over to his
stablemate and told him to check out the change.
"Even with how we ran the last half of last season -- and we were running
good -- he was still helping us as much as he could," Stewart said.
"I think the relationship between both of us and the way we work together
is showing this year. I think it just makes us better race car drivers, and
that makes the whole program better." | |
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