Motorsports

Even in poker, Stewart battles

He's as competitive in that - and most other pursuits - as he is on the racetrack. Next up is the Pepsi 400 this weekend.

By BRANT JAMES
Published June 28, 2006

DAYTONA BEACH - This was supposed to be a breeze of a media day; a couple laps around Daytona International Speedway in a truck, trying to scare the bejesus out of some contest-winners, an anecdote or two with track president Robin Braig promoting Saturday's Pepsi 400 and a couple hands of poker for a photo op.

But Tony Stewart had breezed into an ambush June 20 in the Daytona 500 Club. Moments after he sidled up to the casino-style card table next to NASCAR vice president of communications Jim Hunter - a frequent, frustrating, but lesser foe - and started counting piles of red chips in his head, Stewart's attention was directed to the back of the room.

Stewart recognized the man in the black dress shirt and glasses immediately: Corey Bierra, as in 2005 World Series of Poker runnerup.

"Oh, nice," he said, grinning. Gotten and gotten good.

Beyond a poker enthusiast - online, in the motorcoach, with the boys back home in Columbus, Ind. - Stewart was no longer the apex predator in the room, but he played his part, exchanged quips, bemoaned Hunter's unintelligible style and grinned when Bierra had the gall to trash talk after a few "lucky" hands. It was all fun and games, but even in the most casual of circumstances, Stewart didn't sit down just to play. If he's there, he expects to win. When things started going better, when the cards improved and Stewart was able to give some lip back, the smile broadened and his jabs got a little louder.

"I like to play with Hunter because he doesn't know what he has in his hand half of the time," he said, joking. "I will say this about Hunter, you can play poker with him and you can't raise him out of a pot. He can have the absolute worst hand and he'll play it until the end. He likes to go down with the ship and his cards."

The utter need to win permeates Stewart's personality, whether he's in a race, on his new bass boat on his lake, fishing in the dark - landed seven beauties the other day, he said - or playing poker with nothing at stake but bragging rights.

"It drives him crazy for people to call him from time to time. He would like to force people out," Hunter said, chuckling at the knowledge his vague playing style flusters Stewart. "He plays poker flat-out, just like when he races. When the game ends, he wants to be the one with all the chips."

Stewart was therefore a very happy man last July when he started from the pole and led a record 151 of 160 laps to dominate a Pepsi 400 that started late and ended just before 2 a.m. While Stewart could have been forgiven any amount of mental fatigue - especially with a car so clearly superior that night - he said he wiled away the mid-summer showers without a care.

"That was perfect for me," he said. "That's the best time of my day. You guys are all in bed sleeping and thinking about going to work and I'm thinking, 'Man, I'm enjoying time right now.'

"After 27 years of racing, you can turn being ready to go racing on and off like a light switch. We got rain-delayed and I went back and started a poker tournament and was in the money and they said, 'Drivers to your cars,' and I had to leave and instead of winning the tournament I finished third, so that's the only thing that messes you up."

Stewart was having the kind of enchanted summer in which he could dash out of a poker tournament and into Victory Lane in 2005. He came to Daytona last July a victor at Sonoma the previous week and about to win five times in seven races to stoke a drive to a second Nextel Cup title.

"Last year it was everything for us," he said. "We had a second-place run at Michigan that really got us started, but having the win at Sonoma and then backing it up at Daytona and breaking the record for laps led in a 400-mile race here, that built so much momentum in three weeks it was all downhill from there."

This season suggested its petulance from the beginning. Before the beginning, actually.

Stewart broke ribs in a preseason sprint car crash in Tulsa, Okla., a shoulder blade in a Nextel Cup car in Charlotte in May, tumbled a Busch Series car at Talladega in April, finished 41st because of an early accident at Michigan and 28th at Sonoma on Sunday because of mechanical problems.

And still he's seventh in points. This season is shaping up as one tricky hand, he said.

"Probably Jack, seven off-suit, right now," said Stewart, pondering what kind of poker hand his season has been. "Just good enough a hand to get you in trouble, basically. We've been all over the board. It's not been a typical year for us by any means, but at the same time, the good thing is we're all very comfortable with where we're at."

Back at Daytona, still in the game, playing to win.

[Last modified June 28, 2006, 06:12:53]