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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TONY STEWART:
No, I mean, I've been champion in other series and it never changed. Like I said, instantly, as soon as we came in the tunnel yesterday, it was a reset button. I mean, right now I'm at zero points. Everybody else is at zero points. I got all the neat stickers on the side of the trailer saying we're last year's champion. Other than that, we're no different than anybody else coming into Daytona.

Q.
Does being the champion make you a target?

TONY STEWART:
Everybody says "a target". No, I mean, nobody's -- I think that part of it's overrated because all those guys that didn't win the championship last year are saying, All right, now it's our chance to do it, too. They don't care what we're doing. All they care about is what they're doing. At this level, it's just like any other professional sport, you worry about what you're doing. You don't worry about what everybody else is doing.

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Q.
Do you think you can repeat as champion? Jeff and Dale are on the outside looking in.

TONY STEWART:
It shows that everybody is vulnerable. Like we were just talking, it is because of what level the sport's at right now. You have to concentrate on what you're doing, not what everybody else is doing. If you're spending any ounce of your energy worrying about the rest of the race teams, you're already putting yourself as a disadvantage. You need to concentrate 100% of your effort and time thinking about what you got to do to make your team better right now.

Q.
Is it more competitive?

TONY STEWART:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's the same thing with everything in auto racing, every level of auto racing. The more technology's gotten involved, the more competitive it's gotten. I mean, I was home in the off-season, I was talking to Mark who I race go-karts for, we were talking. They have three different axles they carry to the racetrack, three different hubs, three different wheels, not counting all the compounds of the tyres. That's because of the different stiffness of wheels, this and that. If you went to try to go get involved in go-kart racing now, the average person couldn't get involved and be successful. It would be so mind-boggling and overbearing as far as the technology is involved, whereas when I started, shoot, I used the same go-kart on pavement and dirt. We ran dirt tyres. Now they run slicks on dirt. You run different wheels and all that stuff.