Tony Stewart Racing - A Fans View

The Orlando Sentinel’s Ed Hinton spent two days with Tony and discovered why Smoke remains a fiery soul.

Tony Stewart, in bed with the covers up to his neck, is handed a cell phone by his chief publicist, and his work week begins.

He is nowhere near a race car. Very little of his job is done in and around a race car — less than 10 percent, he reckons.

That is his chronic frustration and the cornerstone of his reputation as NASCAR’s most volatile and candid star.

It is 11:37 a.m. on a Thursday, but don’t misunderstand the lateness in the morning. Stewart’s biorhythms were developed as a night racer on grass-roots tracks where races rarely ended before midnight. Then it was off to wash the mud off the sprint cars, and then to some all-night restaurant for dinner at 3 a.m.

He remains in heart and mind the pure racer, the pure warrior (this by consensus of his peers in the Nextel Cup garages), and all he ever asked for was a chance to race.

Now, just to race, he must navigate the tempests upon tempests of the hype and marketing machines of NASCAR, his Joe Gibbs Racing team, and myriad corporate sponsors.

So if you want to know what Tony Stewart’s problem is, come on along. Shadow him for the better part of two days leading up to the Oct. 13 Bank of America 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C.

Here’s the story at the Orlando Sentinel.

Greg Zipadelli, Joe Gibbs Racing, NASCAR, Nextel Cup, Tony Stewart