Q&A: Tony Stewart.

Saturday, 11th February 2006

As he prepares to defend his 2005 Nextel Cup Championship, Tony Stewart talks NASCAR, his holidays, or lack thereof, Daytona, the Bud Shootout, if he can remember when it starts, sprint cars, cell phones and girls.

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Q.
What role does skill play?

TONY STEWART:
The bad thing, I mean, it's 50% what you do and the other 50% is what everybody else does when you do that. That's the only disappointing thing about restrictor plate racing. It's nerve-wracking to run in a big pack like that. The disappointing side of it is it's not about who's got the skill, it's about who moves and me goes with them at the right time. This guy goes with this teammate. If you don't have a teammate that's around you, the odds are stacked against you. It gets to be where that's the only side of it that makes restrictor plate racing not fun because it's not what you do as an individual, it's what you and your teammates can do now.

You can't pry Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon away from each other during a restrictor plate race. That's to their credit. I mean, they're smart, they know that's the way to do it. They've been really successful doing that. You just got to try to get yourselves in that situation and try to use that team play to your advantage.

The rest of my day is going to suck. This is what I was looking forward to because this is where you have the most fun because everything else sucks. You can put that on the record, too.