Forget the 4 a.m. wakeup call. Unplug the gallon-sized coffee pot. Scratch having to fill up the jet and helicopter. Skip the need for two different and clean firesuits -- and making sure he wears the right one for each race.

Unlike last year, Tony Stewart can sleep in Sunday.

	Tony Stewart climbed into his car just before the start of last years Coca-Cola 600.

He doesn't have to worry about hopping out of one race car at the conclusion of the Indianapolis 500, boarding a helicopter for a quick commute to the nearest airport, flying from Indianapolis to Charlotte in a private plane, and then climbing into another helicopter for a short jump to Lowe's Motor Speedway to race in that evening's Coca-Cola 600.

Stewart's attention Sunday will be focused on one thing: finally earning his first career win at a track where he has come close, but still has found victory elusive. And even though he's forgotten about the potential $1 million-plus prize he could win at Indianapolis, Stewart can take home that same kind of paycheck at Charlotte by winning the race and the accompanying cool one-million dollar Winston No Bull 5 bonus.

In essence, he can potentially earn as much money as he would at both Indianapolis and Charlotte, but have to do only half the work. And if Stewart wins, a lucky fan also goes home with a million bucks as part of Winston's "They win, you win" promotion. What a country!

"I don't know how you could feel any better than helping someone become a millionaire," Stewart said.

Having Stewart around all week while preparing for Sunday's race has also made crew chief Greg Zipadelli a happy man. He doesn't have to hold his breath that Stewart will be involved in a wreck at Indy and force the team to put a replacement driver behind the wheel for the Coca-Cola 600.

"Obviously, he'll be 120 percent focused here the whole week," Zipadelli said. "I'm sure someday down the road he is going to want to do it (Indy and Charlotte together) again. Hopefully, things will go as smoothly (at Charlotte) as they have in the past for us."

After finishing sixth at Indianapolis last Memorial Day, Stewart flew to Charlotte and wound up third. In fact, in the six career races he's had at the venerable 1½-mile oval, Stewart has done just about everything but win there, with a second-place showing in last fall's UAW-GM Quality 500, last May's third-place finish, plus two other fourth-place finishes in six career starts.

Now, the natural progression would be for the driver of the No. 20 Pontiac to win it all Sunday night in NASCAR's longest, most grueling race of the season, a 400-lap, 600-mile event that starts out in daylight and finishes in the gloaming of night.

"In all reality, it's no different than any other race," Stewart said. "It is an extra 100 miles, but that's not that much longer of a distance, physically, to worry about running. We have short races, we have long races. This just happens to be the long one. It's probably more of a challenge for the engine builders this year than anybody right now."

Indeed, Sunday's event, which marks the end of the first third of the 2002 campaign, will be the biggest test to date of NASCAR's newly-imposed one-engine rule. All cars will use the same motor for Thursday's qualifying and practice, Saturday's Happy Hour practice and finally for race day Sunday. In total, cars will likely log 700 or more miles on one motor, with 600 of those miles just in the race itself.

"It's no different than any other race other than wear and tear on the motor and keeping your fingers crossed that with the new motor rules -- which I think is a great thing for our sport -- that you don't run into any problems," Zipadelli said. "It gives you an extra 100 miles to adjust on your car. That's how we look at it.

"It may hurt some of the people that lose their concentration a little bit here and there and can't get back in the zone. A big part of this thing is driver's focus and concentration, crew members and everybody else. It's a little bit longer and a little bit more drawn out. But, you've got to focus and pay attention a little bit longer."

In one sense, it's not surprising that Stewart is not trying to pull off racing's so-called "double double." His attitude and approach this season have been noticeably different than in his first three years. He seems more mature, focused, less combative and adheres strictly to Zipadelli's in-race calls. In essence, Stewart has become practically the perfect driver in 2002.

Most importantly, Stewart has gotten rid of all other distractions -- like Indianapolis -- and has committed himself 100 percent to winning the Winston Cup championship this season.

"We're in a good position right now in the season," said Stewart, who is currently eighth in the standings, and is tied for the series lead in wins with two. "We've been running really good everywhere we've been this year. I have the opportunity to run for a million dollars and help a very nice race fan hopefully win a million dollars, also.

"We don't want to take a chance on doing anything that could jeopardize any of those chances for any of us. We feel like this is our best opportunity to win a championship. Our performance on the track has been good enough to do that. We just need a little luck on our side. We haven't had that, so why add another event that could be bad luck for us?

"We've had four bad races out of 10 or 11 so far, and are still in the top-10 in points. I think that's pretty impressive and shows the strength of this Home Depot team."

When asked the million-dollar question -- is he prepared to win the title -- Stewart shoots back point-blank.

"We've been trying that since Daytona in February," he said. "We're still doing the same things we typically do. It just seems like historically in the past, and we're somewhat optimistic and hoping that it goes along with the past, that this is the part of the year where we'll really start getting on a run and get some consistent top-fives and hopefully some more wins here pretty soon.

"To a certain degree, I'm actually happy about the position we're in in the point standings right now. I would much rather be the hunter than the hunted right now. I think it would be a lot more stressful situation for the guys that are in the top two or three in points right now. The pressure is on them to stay there. The pressure is not on us to try to catch them as much as it is for those guys to stay ahead of us."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.