DAYTONA BEACH Fla. - To say Tony Stewart had a surprising season in 2011 might be a bit of an understatement. He was winless for three quarters of the season and although he did make NASCAR’s season ending Chase for the Sprint Cup, not many expected Stewart to be a serious contender, even Stewart himself.
Stewart however went on a tear, winning five the ten races in the Chase and won his third Cup title and his first as an owner-driver in a tie breaker. You might think that Stewart would want to keep his championship winning team together in hopes of riding the momentum and continuing his success in 2012. You’d be wrong.
During NASCAR’s short off season Stewart added a new crew chief, Steve Addington, a new director of competition, his former crew chief Greg Zipadelli and even a third driver, Danica Patrick who will race under Stewart’s tutelage for ten Sprint Cup races in 2012.
As the 2012 Daytona 500 fast approaches, Stewart took time to answer a few questions in the preview of the Daytona 500 and talked about his off season, Danica Patrick and how it feels to win a third NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.
With the kind of intensity you and the team displayed in winning the championship, do you think it’s possible to pick up where you left off after having had some time off?
“Honestly, I think it’s easy to keep that intensity up. The difference is, there are some variables that have changed. So you realize it’s a different focus than necessarily what we had at the end of the season last year. There is always something when you get three or four races from the end of the year, and you know you’ve got a shot at it, that there is a redirected energy. It’s like nothing else matters. Now, everybody’s hit the reset button. We’re all starting at zero again. You go down to Daytona and start at day one just like everybody else. You realize that intensity’s still there, but you realize there is a learning process that’s going to go on with learning a new crew chief. It’s just part of the process, but you still keep that focus as high as you can.”
Did you have much of a chance to get away and enjoy your offseason?
“I didn’t really do anything like that. There’s been a lot of work that’s gone on in the organization and I’ve pretty much stuck around just for moral support. When you hire a new crew chief and competition director, you don’t want to hire them and say, ‘I’m going on vacation. You guys can work. I’m going on vacation.’ So I felt like I needed to be at the shop a little more. I didn’t do anything other than just be there for moral support for them. I think that meant a lot to those guys and to the team, that we were there a lot.”
Can you talk about what you like about Steve Addington and the decision to bring him on board as your crew chief?
“When we saw him at Joe Gibbs Racing and worked with him and Kyle (Busch) together, Steve’s one of those guys who has a lot of practical knowledge, having been in the sport a long time. But he’s one of those guys who I think is really easy to work with. I mean, in team meetings with him, he was easy to talk to. That communication was really easy. It wasn’t always easy to talk to some of the other crew chiefs we had. So, having him on board, I think that’s part of why we made that decision, because I felt like he’s a guy I could work with really easily. He’ll be my third crew chief, now. The first two guys I had were easy to work with. So I think we’ve been really lucky from that standpoint, to have guys we communicate well with and get along with. Steve just kind of is one of those guys who is a lot like Darian (Grubb, former crew chief). I think he may not have all the engineering background that Darian has, but I think he’s got the practical knowledge and is a better fit for me.”
It seems like a no-brainer bringing somebody like Danica into your system. But was it that easy of a decision?
“No, it was not. We went through the same process that we’ve looked at with other drivers. Obviously, she’s great at the marketing side, but she’s got talent behind the steering wheel. We would not have hired her if we didn’t think she could do a good job driving the racecars. That was first and foremost on my mind. Having a partner like Go Daddy that came with her is a luxury. I don’t care how good the sponsorship is, if the driver can’t drive, we’re not interested. We felt like the decision to add her to the program was made based on her driving ability, first.”
Now that you’ve had some time to look back and think about your third championship, what kind of feelings does that bring?
“I’m very appreciative. I guess the question was, ‘How did it change my life?’ My life hasn’t changed. I’m still the guy who the day after was trying to figure out how to get ready for upcoming races, and to get ready for the next season. But to be part of something from a car ownership side and knowing we were able to be part of helping that organization grow and getting in this position, it’s a different feeling than you have from the driver’s side of winning a championship. It’s fun. I mean, winning never gets old. You never say, ‘I’ve won enough.’ All winning does is make you want to win more because you want that same feeling again. When you sit back and look at the category and look at the record books and look at the group that we’re in now, it’s a pretty humble feeling to know that we’re in pretty good company like that.”
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