|
|
|
|
When you purchase a computer from us, you can help the driver & team Click here to help sponsor him!!
BIO:
TonyStewart.com
Tony Stewart has spent three full years in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, and in each of those years he’s been labeled as a championship threat. During his rookie year in 1999 he finished fourth in points. In his sophomore year he finished sixth in points. And in 2001 he was runner-up to Winston Cup title winner Jeff Gordon. Continued success is expected of Stewart in 2002, but the majority of that pressure doesn’t come from the outside – it comes from Stewart. “If we’re going to win the championship, then we need to have consistency,” said Stewart. “Anyone who’s won the Winston Cup championship has done so because they were consistently better than everyone else. That means no DNFs (Did Not Finish), and no races where you’re riding around in 35th place. You might be able to get away with two or three bad races, but that’s it. Finishing each race is a must. There’s a big difference between having a DNF and finishing 43rd, and having a bad day and finishing 30th. Winning helps too, but consistency – front-running consistency – is what it’s all about.” Stewart speaks from experience. As a winner of an Indy Racing League (IRL) championship and numerous USAC championships, the Rushville, Ind., native knows what it takes to be called “champ.” He’s walked the walk in other divisions, and has seen the path it takes to win a Winston Cup championship by looking out the windshield of his #20 Home Depot Pontiac. In 1999, he watched Dale Jarrett beat his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate – Bobby Labonte – for the Winston Cup title by 201 points, only to see Labonte come back in 2000 and win the title over the late Dale Earnhardt by 265 points. Now it’s Stewart in the role Labonte played in 1999 and 2000. Gordon handily won the 2001 Winston Cup championship, ending his season with a 349-point advantage over Stewart. But it was Stewart who came from fifth to second in points in the last three months of the season, riding a wave of front-running consistency that at times outpaced Gordon. It is that late-season surge that points to Stewart as being the biggest threat to Gordon’s shot at a fifth Winston Cup championship. “Bobby (Labonte) laid a pretty good blueprint of what it takes to win a Winston Cup championship,” said Stewart. “Our goal this year is to eliminate the DNFs and work to better ourselves at some of those tracks where we just weren’t that good. It sounds simple, but with so many things being out of your control, it’s far from simple. Still, that’s our goal. We just have to go out and execute it this year.” In his three seasons of Winston Cup competition, Stewart has compiled one of the most impressive records in series history. Twelve wins, four poles, 40 top-five and 66 top-10 finishes are numbers that will surely be improved upon as the 2002 Winston Cup season unfolds. Stewart’s quick ascension up the Winston Cup ladder has been likened to another superstar – Gordon. The fellow Hoosier from Pittsboro, Ind., earned the Rookie of the Year title in 1993, won two races and finished eighth in points the following year, then went on to win the first of four Winston Cup championships in 1995. With three Winston Cup seasons under his belt, Stewart’s statistics are looking eerily similar to those of Gordon. Stewart won the 1999 Rookie of the Year award in record fashion, winning three races and two poles along with 13 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes – good enough to place the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing operation fourth in the series point standings. It was the first time since 1966 that a rookie had finished his season within the top-five in points. Year two brought six wins, two poles and a sixth-place point standing. Stewart won two more races than anyone else on the Winston Cup circuit, and eclipsed Earnhardt’s mark for the most wins by a sophomore driver, a record previously set by the seven-time champion in 1980 with five victories. Three more wins came in his third year, as well as a Herculean rise in the point standings. Following the season-opening Daytona 500, Stewart was 36th points. By mid-season he was sixth. When the season was complete, he was second. And what about this year? “I feel like I’ve hit the lottery with this Home Depot team,” said Stewart. “We’ve won 12 races in three years together. To be able to do what we’ve done in such a short period of time – I’m very excited about what the future holds for me.” To understand the possibilities that lie in Stewart’s future, one must look to the past. Stewart’s racing career began at age seven behind the wheel of a go-kart, with his father, Nelson, serving as car owner and crew chief. “He never let me settle for second,” said Stewart of his dad, who still frequents races whenever his schedule permits. “He didn’t like it when we ran second, and he knew that I didn’t like it when we ran second. If he saw that I wasn’t giving 100 percent, then he was on me pretty hard about it. He pushed me to be better. “He never pressured me to be the best race car driver in the world, but he did pressure me to be the best race car driver that I could be. He never compared me to anybody else. He expected that what I could do was what I could do. He never said that because this guy over here could do something, that I should be able to do it, too. He pushed me hard, but he was fair about it. That’s probably why you see so much fire in me today, because he always wanted me to be the best that I could be.” In 1983 at the age of 12, Stewart had won his first championship – the International Karting Federation Grand National championship. Another karting championship was won in 1987, when Stewart collected the World Karting Association National championship. In 1989, Stewart began the transition from go-karts to higher-horsepower open-wheel machines. He raced Three-Quarter Midgets before turning his attention to the USAC ranks in 1991 where he won Rookie of the Year honors. Stewart notched his first USAC championship in 1994 by winning five times in 22 starts in the National Midget category. It was a prelude to even bigger things, as 1995 was the year Stewart made USAC history by winning the Triple Crown. He won the National Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown titles all in the same year, a feat never accomplished by anyone before Stewart, or since. After earning the Rookie of the Year award in IRL competition in 1996, Stewart won the championship the following year. While 1997 bore an IRL championship, it also bore the seeds to Stewart’s current NASCAR success. A slate of 22 NASCAR Busch Series, Grand National Division races with Joe Gibbs Racing in 1998 prepared Stewart for his assault on the Winston Cup ranks in 1999. During that remarkable rookie season, Stewart also competed in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day. The grueling trek, known as “Double Duty,” saw Stewart compete in a Home Depot-sponsored Dallara Aurora IRL entry at Indianapolis before flying to Concord, N.C., to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 that evening in his Home Depot Pontiac. He became the first driver to complete both races in the same day, finishing ninth and fourth respectively. All told, Stewart drove a total of 1,090 miles. Stewart repeated this feat in 2001, when he drove a Target/Home Depot G-Force Aurora for Chip Ganassi at Indy. He bettered his mark from 1999 by finishing on the lead lap in sixth before jetting off to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600. He improved that finish as well, coming home third in the 600 miler. When it was all said and done, Stewart completed all 1,100 miles – breaking his own record for most racing miles driven in one day. While it wasn’t a driving championship, Stewart did earn a championship on the World of Outlaws circuit. His team, Tony Stewart Motorsports with driver Danny Lasoski, won the 2001 World of Outlaws championship in their rookie year. In addition to being a championship driver, Stewart had become a championship car owner. “After winning that championship with Lasoski, I know how Joe (Gibbs) must’ve felt when Bobby won him a championship,” said Stewart. “I want that Winston Cup championship for me and for Joe.”
Driver has not signed up yet | |||||||||||||
|
Send mail to
webmaster@sponsoradriver.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
| |||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
