Motorsports

From a grizzly to a teddy bear

Tony Stewart combines a rough on-track demeanor with a fuzzy personality.

By BRANT JAMES
Published November 6, 2005

FORT WORTH, Texas - Tony Stewart got the joke.

"I know what you guys are thinking, because I was thinking the same thing," he laughed from the stage of yet another sponsor event.

Seated next to Richard Petty, Stewart was about to watch a new line of commercials in which he joined "The King" pitching headache powders in a campaign dubbed "Mr. Petty's Neighborhood." The sponsor representative had just commented how "Tony makes a lot of sense" for such a product.

The jab at the pricklier side of Stewart's multifaceted personality drew a chuckle from the easy-going one. That's the side that charms, or at least placates, most everyone around him, no matter how much he bad-mouths them on television or how hard he bumps them at a crucial point in a race. If they play their cards right, they could be dealing poker hands to Stewart a week after he suggests they deserve a thorough choking. Or fishing with him, or driving sprint cars.

"He's a good guy - he's just aggressive on the racetrack," Kasey Kahne said. "If you make him mad on the track, he'll make you mad out there, too. It's just the way things go. But I think he forgives things, too."

Drivers mostly regard the sullen, serious, on-track personality as Tony just being Tony. They know what to expect inside the garage and on the asphalt. But his penchant for convincing his foes bygones are bygones serves him well as the Nextel Cup points leader seeks three more uneventful races in pursuit of a second Nextel Cup championship.

Most say Stewart's gift of schmooze is not quite as refined as the one Dale Earnhardt Sr. used to punish drivers on the track, then make them feel like a brother off it, and there's no reason to believe his friendship with many of the garage's kindred spirits is bogus. But he does remind Nextel Cup driver Kevin Harvick of the man he replaced at Richard Childress Racing.

"He's got a lot of those traits in him," said Harvick, who hired Stewart to race for his Busch series team part time.

Greg Biffle, an occasional poker buddy, admits Stewart is generally one of the easier drivers to race around, but said Stewart intentionally sent him into the wall late in the race at Martinsville two week ago. Biffle questioned who the "idiot" really was. Stewart, in a postrace interview, referred to Biffle by that label and said it was "No wonder Kevin Harvick has wanted to kill him so many times." He said he might have strangled Biffle if Biffle had wandered by at that moment.

Biffle has yet to deal back into Stewart's game, but they have at least established a truce.

"I just consider the source and move on," he said last week. "Tony called me on Tuesday (after the race) and we talked about it and it's behind us. That's the way it is. ... I don't need to throw daggers at anybody."

If anyone could be forgiven a grudge, it's Kahne. A hot-shot rookie who flirted with a Chase berth all of last season, he twice was spun out of races by the man he idolized as a former sprint car star. Kahne led a restart at Chicago in July 2004 when Stewart bumped him from behind, sending him to a 36th-place finish. Kahne missed the Chase by 27 points. Kahne felt betrayed and exchanged words during television interviews after the race. After weeks of awkward silence, Stewart approached Kahne.

"Tony's done a lot for me and he had before then and he has since then, and I was real upset with a few things that went on last year, and he was probably mad at a few things I said," Kahne recalled. "We really didn't talk much last year at all. Late in the season we started talking again a little bit, got everything figured out, and we're fine now. He's probably one of the better guys to race with each week."

The prolonged silence with Kahne was unusual for Stewart.

"I think whatever situation it is, he'll talk to you and figure it out," Kahne said. "He's not scared to talk to anybody. He's not scared to try to make things better or figure out what's going on, whether he wants to tell you you're an idiot or tell you everything is fine. He doesn't care. He's all about trying to get things better and just racing."

Petty had only seen the racing side of Stewart until their recent commercial shoot in Greensboro, N.C. A disc of outtakes illustrated the other side for everyone. In one scene, Stewart opens the door to his new home and is greeted by Petty holding a green bean casserole. After Petty fumbles a line, Stewart points to an imaginary catch fence, referring to his recent habit of climbing them after wins. Petty, NASCAR's all-time leader with 200 victories and a seven-time champion, retorts, "Imagine if I had to climb that fence 200 times."

Hilarity ensued.

"Oh, yeah, he's full of it," Petty said of Stewart's light side. "I had never been around him much, not an all-day deal. He comes off the wall with a lot of pretty good stuff sometimes."

Petty said he was surprised how Stewart was able to shed the race persona where he "gets mad and starts throwing things."

"He is so intense when he gets to the racetrack," Petty said. "He turns the Tony personality off and turns on the racing personality. And that's good, because when he's away from it he can sort of get away from it. But when he's at the racetrack the only thing he sees is that racing out in front of him. That's the reason he's winning races and winning championships."

And making life easier by winning friends.

[Last modified November 6, 2005, 02:02:18]