Even a season that has seen Stewart win three races, record 12 top-five and 17 top-10 finishes in the season's first 29 events, and one that finds him currently third in the Winston Cup point standings, is barely mediocre by his own standards.

	Tony Stewart has never hid his disdain for Martinsville Speedway.

"I would give our grade a 'C' right now if I was a schoolteacher" Stewart said. "I'd say we've had some good performances and some very disappointing performances. It's been one of those roller coaster years. You couldn't go to an amusement park and get on the ride we've been on, as far as our season has gone."

Indeed, for all the strong showings he's had in 2001, Stewart has admittedly had a few flops along the way as well. But in the last six races, Stewart has taken the rest of his fellow Cup competitors to school, with no finish lower than eighth, including his last win six races ago at Bristol, as well as a runner-up showing in last Sunday's race at Charlotte.

That's why Stewart is more shocked than anyone else that he's third in the standings heading into this weekend's Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.

"Absolutely, I'm surprised," Stewart says. "If you look at the way the season was last year, the top few drivers didn't have a DNF in the series. To have as many DNF's as we've had and as many disappointing runs that we've had, to be that high in the points standings, it's a big surprise."

The reasons for some of his early-season struggles are several, but Stewart has buried them in the recesses of his memory bank, never to be drudged up again. He only wishes that his most recent success had come sooner -- and more plentiful -- this season. That way, he might be where current points leader Jeff Gordon is in the standings, rather than what Stewart considers a mediocre third-place ranking.

While most other drivers would be ecstatic to be in third place in the standings, Stewart never has been like most other drivers. He's a lone wolf, one of NASCAR's angry young men. And settling for anything less than first just isn't good enough in his vernacular. He cites engine problems within his own camp and a slower-than-normal learning curve on adapting to the new rubber compound Goodyear has included in its racing tires this season as the primary reasons he's not currently in first or second place.

"The tire compounds being different -- everybody has the same compounds, so that's not saying we have something that somebody else doesn't have," Stewart said. "But any time you have something that major, you need to make adjustments within your team to compensate for it. Some guys figured it out earlier than we did, and we're starting to figure it out, but it comes at the wrong end of the season. That's a big factor.

"Plus, our engine program has been down the majority of the season. We've been down on horsepower. We know what the problem is, it's just been hard to overcome it with what we've needed to do. There's been a lot of variables that have set us back from where we were last year, on top of crashes and DNFs this year. It's all variables that equate into the big picture."

With seven races remaining and being 390 points behind Gordon (but a more attainable 153 points behind second-place Ricky Rudd ), Stewart says some of the trials and tribulations he's endured this season, as well as lessons he's learned along the way, do not exactly mean he can carry over any of his experiences or use them as early building blocks for the 2002 campaign.

"It's hard to say," Stewart noted. "Every year in the fall, everybody asks if you can take what you learned this year and use it for next year. But every year, the tires change -- we start over at the beginning of the season.

"As far as I'm concerned, when we go to Daytona next February, I'll know then what we've got. Historically in the past, taking what we learned in the previous season hasn't really helped us in the following season."

Stewart streaking
Stewart comes into this weekend's race at Martinsville riding a fairly good string of recent performances there, including being the event's defending champion. He finished seventh there in this spring's Virginia 500, preceded by a sixth place showing in last spring's Goody's 500 and a win from the pole in last fall's Napa Auto Care 500, taking home one of the most coveted and unique trophies in motorsports: the traditional winner's grandfather's clock for capturing the checkered flag at Martinsville.

"It's the most unique of any of the trophies I've ever received, for sure," Stewart said. "It sits in the office at my house. They delivered it, set it up and showed me how to make all the bells and whistles work. It's a neat reminder for every time we get ready to go to Martinsville of what the prize is for winning."

As for the tight .526-mile oval layout there, Stewart jokingly refers to the southern Virginia complex as a "parking lot with curbs around it," even despite last year's victory there.

"It's still a parking lot with curbs around it," he said. "But now it's a parking lot with curbs where if you win they give you a really nice grandfather clock. And they should give you something really nice after winning a race there."

On a more serious note, Stewart adds, "Martinsville is Martinsville. It's a lot like Darlington (S.C.). It's a tough surface to get a hold of, but it's got a lot of tradition and history behind it. So, any time you can win a race on a short track you respect it, but especially when it's at a place like Bristol (Tenn.) or Martinsville. Those are two really hard tracks to win at."

Martinsville's unique short, tight stretched oval layout not only makes for close, exciting racing, it also makes for races that usually have a propensity for numerous crashes.

"You never know where they're going to go," Stewart said. "Sometimes they slide up. Sometimes they don't slide out of the way at all. Sometimes they slide down to the inside.

"It's really unpredictable, and even if it happens four or five cars in front of you, you're most likely going to get caught up in it somehow just because you're racing so close together. It's a tricky track to get around all day for 500 laps without getting some kind of battle scar on The Home Depot Pontiac."

"I definitely don't dislike it as much as I used to," Stewart said. "Winning did help that. But I tell you what, the one thing that saves that place is the people who are there and the fans that are there. You can see 'em every time you're out there practicing.

"Every time you get into the car you can look across the fence and see them and they're yelling good luck to you. That's the only thing that saves that place in my opinion. But it's just a tough place. I mean, if I can get through that whole day without getting a scratch on The Home Depot Pontiac, it'll be a miracle.

Busy weekend
Stewart will be doing double duty this weekend. In addition to racing Sunday in the featured Winston Cup event, he'll return to his short-track roots by competing Saturday night in a USAC Midget race at nearby South Boston (Va.) Speedway.

"It was a great opportunity for me to go back and run for (midget car team owners) Steve Lewis and Bob East," Stewart said. "Being able to take off after happy hour and get there on time and be able to do what we're going to do is just going to be a lot of fun.

"I had planned on trying to run both the Midget and the Sprint car, but with a 500-lapper at Martinsville the next day, I think driving a Midget will be plenty of work for one night. If anything, just running the Midget will be an escape for a couple of hours. I'll just go, have fun, reset myself and see some people that I don't get an opportunity to see that much anymore."

Having fun at South Boston may be just the ticket Stewart needs to set himself up in a positive -- and winning -- frame of mind for the lengthy and arduous 500-lap event the next day.

"At Martinsville, it's more of a mental challenge rather than a physical challenge," Stewart said. "Your muscles are sore because for 500 laps, you just tense up. You're running so close to people all day long and it's easy to bump into the guy in front of you or get bumped into from behind. There's so much that can happen. It just drains you."

But that's nothing another victory this weekend wouldn't help.