Tony Stewart Chatting At Preseason Thunder

Excerpts from Tony Stewart's NASCAR interview:

In his new team of Stewart Haas Racing, driving No. 14 Chevrolet with Old Spice/Office Depot sponsorship, Tony Stewart says it's different for sure, as an owner and a driver but something that he's looking forward to. (Until the insanity sets in!) We're had a great off season. For Tony, it's been the most exciting off season he's ever had because of the anticipation.

As far as driver development under Stewart Haas Racing, he says right now he just wants to keep his job as a driver right now. For now, they're focused on him and Ryan and getting the two teams they have competitive.

In case you haven't heard, NASCAR ADDED A WILD CARD RULE for the SHOOTOUT that allows a manufacturer to add a wildcard driver. For Tony that means he now can run the Shootout and has that extra track time and he's excited about that. Not to mention that it was a nice cover / fix by NASCAR on their own oversight of some of the drivers while they were letting newbies into the Shootout... oops... but nice cover. It's nice to be able to make your own rules as you go. (Anyone remember Calvin-Ball from Calvin and Hobbs)

He felt his timing was most fortunate in being able to sign Ryan Newman on board and getting their sponsors before the bottom fell out of the economy.

With the advent of picking up the Office Depot sponsorship, someone asked if we'll be seeing back flips when he wins. LOL. He said only if he wants to go to the hospital and be in traction for two or three months.

In regards to the economy and all of motorsports, including Indy racing, he said it was a fortunate amount of timing for his team since other teams were letting people go and it created a kind of buffet of available talent.

The down side to team ownership was that he never realized there was a 6:00 a.m. until this year, now that he has to actually get up that early. Poor guy.

As far as personal driver goals, he doesn't have a set date for when he's going to stop driving and he's really focused on winning the Daytona 500 in addition to winning at Darlington and Vegas and California where they haven't won yet.

Source: NASCAR Press Release