Tony Stewart
- Tony Stewart
- 14
- Chevrolet
- Height: 5-9
- Weight: 180
- Born: May 20, 1971, Columbus, IN
News and Notes
Nov 4
This week: Stewart is a former Texas winner, in this race in 2006, and has four top-five and nine top-10 finishes in 15 starts. He was 16th in this race last year and fourth in April. "This track, the grooves have moved around, especially in the last couple of years," Stewart said. "We've seen the track start getting wider, and Eddie (Gossage, track president) took the initiative to try to get the bumps smoother in (turns) one and two. A lot of promoters wouldn't have done that. They wouldn't have taken that much time and effort, but it's made it to where you can move around on the race track and where you can run the top side or the bottom side. It's nice from a driver's perspective to be able to have that flexibility behind the steering wheel, knowing that if your car's not driving exactly the way you want it to, you can move around the race track and find a spot the car likes better. Anytime you put more seasons on a race track, the better it gets because it seems like the pavement wears out on the bottom and it makes it to where you can run the top and be fast and you can run the bottom and be fast. It makes the whole race track, speed-wise, about the same, versus when they pave a race track and the only groove is right on the bottom. The fastest way is the shortest way, because it all has the same amount of grip, so the shorter distance is faster. Every year that we come here I think the racing just gets better and better, as far as being able to move around on the race track and guys not having to just follow each other and get stuck behind each other. You can actually pass. You can race. You can get away from guys if your car's fast."
Last week: Stewart finished 35th after he was part of the multi-car crash on the backstretch that sent teammate Ryan Newman's car sailing through the air. Stewart led one time for one lap.
Etc.: Stewart admitted he was surprised when he found out his former teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, Kyle Busch, was getting a new crew chief when the team decided to "reassign" Steve Addington. "I'm kind of shocked by it," Stewart said. "I don't know what the reasoning was behind it, but you know at the end of the day there was a reason that made them make that switch. I don't know what that is, but I was like, 'You're joking, right?' It was hard to believe that they are going to split that combination up."
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