Stewart, Zipadelli a 'marriage' of passion and definite patience

Similarities help keep the fiery duo on top.

By BRANT JAMES
Published February 12, 2005

DAYTONA BEACH - It's about trust. And passion. And respect.

If you find a person you can share those traits with, you might have something that will last a long time.

Tony Stewart did.

Not a companion. A crew chief. Hey, he's the one that calls it "a marriage."

Perhaps it's best to let Stewart explain his six-year relationship with Greg Zipadelli, the longest-running driver/crew chief tandem currently in NASCAR Nextel Cup racing.

"It's chemistry," Stewart said. "We have the same passion and desire to win. He understands me and I understand him. In all reality, I've never been married but I feel that with some of my buddies, it's almost like we are married. When I'm having a bad day, he has ways to pick me up and when he's having a bad day, I have ways to pick him up. That kind of thing."

Since being paired at Joe Gibbs Racing when Stewart jumped from the Indy Racing League, Stewart and Zipadelli have won 19 races in 212 starts, the 1999 rookie of the year award and the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup title, now called Nextel Cup.

Stewart will start eighth tonight as he attempts to win his third Budweiser Shootout in five attempts. Stewart is one of only three drivers to win consecutive Shootouts, doing so in 2001-02.

Working with a driver as intense as Stewart would seemingly require great patience, but Zipadelli can be just as fiery. The key, the crew chief said, is pure honesty.

"You call it patience, you call it what you want," Zipadelli said. "I think it's just (that) we've been able to be brutally honest with each other for six years. You don't take it personal. He can tell me my race cars s---. I better go home and figure out how to make it better. I can tell him his attitude s----- today and part of the reason we didn't run good, and he'll straighten it out. We've been able to be that honest and open about it, wearing our feelings on our sleeves.

"It hurts my feelings, I'm sure I've hurt his. But it's because we care about each other. We care about this group. We care about Joe Gibbs Racing."

Stewart says their relationship worked immediately. "It's not something that develops," he said. "It has to just happen. It's like fireworks when you see that special girl for the first time. Not that there were fireworks, we weren't parked making out on a cliff or anything."

Though Stewart didn't know Zipadelli when he came to the team, it was widely assumed that they were friends, if not relatives. Driver and crew chief share the same blockish frame, propensity for a five o'clock shadow and on occasion, a bit of a temper.

"I didn't know him. He knew me but I would have tripped over him if I saw him," Stewart said. "But honestly, it's one of the best things in my career to have Greg as a crew chief. We're like brothers, basically. The funny thing is that we'll be out and people will ask us if we're brothers. I don't know if my milkman was Italian or my mailman was Italian but I know my father wasn't Italian. It's fun to watch people around us thinking we're related to each other."

Similarities in physique and humor don't necessarily have anything to do with compatibility on the job. It was the way they channeled their passion for racing into an approach to winning, says Stewart, that made them a working unit.

Understanding Stewart's passion for winning, Zipadelli is a willing firewall when his driver flames out emotionally. When two bad pit stops helped ruin Stewart's chances of winning the 2003 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a venue he holds in reverance, Zipadelli stood outside the hauler and took questions from the media as Stewart escaped in a golf cart.

"He's been a very patient person when dealing with me," Stewart said. "But we've got the same passion and desire to win races. And I think that's probably been one piece of glue that's held us together more than anything. Every year we share a lot of the same frustrations. Just people see me act on them more than he acts on them. When you got two people whose minds think a lot alike from that standpoint, that's a pretty solid foundation to have a relationship work that long."

[Last modified February 12, 2005, 00:25:13]