A new champion
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Flash back three years. Tony Stewart had just won his first Cup championship, arguably doing so under some of the most difficult circumstances ever seen in the NASCAR world.
After several run-ins that season with reporters and photographers, along with being placed on unprecedented double probation by both his own team and its primary sponsor, and after being counseled and then sent for anger management work by team owner Joe Gibbs, Stewart still managed to hold together enough to claim the title.
But right after the smiling Stewart raised the championship trophy above his head in jubilation, the critics that had battered him throughout the season felt compelled to get in their biggest punch yet.
Stewart is going to be both the worst champion and the worst ambassador that NASCAR and the sport have ever seen, the naysayers claimed. Having such a volatile walking time-bomb as its No. 1 figurehead was only going to seriously set back whatever gains in popularity and attention that NASCAR had made in the previous few years.
As it turned out, winning the championship was the best thing to ever happen to Stewart, but from more than just a celebratory standpoint. It helped him start on the long road toward confronting his own anger. He finally saw that some of his personal attributes unquestionably were professional hindrances rather than assets.
It's at that time that Stewart began to grow up. Indeed, he turned out to be a great champion and ambassador. He released a deep-seated charm and sense of humor that have made him more popular with the media and fans the last couple of years.
Even die-hard fans of other luminaries such as Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr. can't but help admire NASCAR's new-look bad boy.
This weekend, as Stewart celebrates his second Cup championship in four years, there's no concern about what kind of champion he'll be this time. He'll represent NASCAR and the sport as well as he did in 2002, if not better. If anything, he could become one of the most colorful and engaging champions since Dale Earnhardt.
When Earnhardt won his first title in 1980, he was brash, unrefined and far from engaging.
But by the time the Intimidator won his seventh and last Cup title in 1994, he was a polished, successful, wealthy, mature and very refined champion, totally distant and different from how he was after his first crown.
It's the same with Stewart this time. He's gone from brash to confidently cocky, from volatile to almost charming, from a joke to a great joke teller.
And now Stewart is ready to write the next several chapters of his career in Nextel Cup racing.
Stewart now can be counted in some very exclusive company as a multiple Cup champion, moving him into the same category as six of the sport's all-time greats – Terry Labonte, Ned Jarrett, Joe Weatherly, Buck Baker, Tim Flock and Herb Thomas – as two-time Cup champions.
And who knows, by this same time next year, Stewart may be putting the finishing touches on his third Cup title, joining the exclusive club that is the sole province of Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Lee Petty.
Why stop then? On the horizon would be four-time champ Jeff Gordon and seven-time champs Earnhardt and Richard Petty.
Can Stewart get that far? If you would have asked me that after he won the 2002 title, I'd have said no.
But now I say sure, it's attainable, but it will take the same ingredients that he utilized in building this year's title, namely consistency and a looser and more relaxed personality. He'll need to continue curtailing some of his noted worrying and the resulting stress, and must continue his relationship with arguably the best crew chief in the game, Greg Zipadelli.
Stewart's 2002 crown was barely earned, wrapped around controversy, chaos and a serious attitude problem.
Stewart's 2005 crown was not only earned, he did it in the kind of outstanding fashion befitting a true champion. There is no controversy this time. While he earned the 2002 title for Joe Gibbs Racing, the 2005 title is solely Stewart's.
He did it and deserved it. And in so doing, he may just have written an entirely new legacy for a man with a completely different makeup than the guy who so many loved to hate not too long ago.
Now he's a guy to be truly admired and congratulated.
