Conversation: Tony Stewart

One thing's for certain about Tony Stewart: he won't be reading this Conversation. He's learned, perhaps the hard way, that it's best not to pay attention to what people say and write about him.

Is that a sign of maturity? You be the judge. But these days, Stewart is all about doing his job as a driver ... and then going home. He's not concerned with what anyone thinks of him, including Ray Evernham, who had some harsh words after Stewart and Evernham driver Kasey Kahne got into an accident at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday.

TONY STEWART  •  Driver Page  •  Video Highlights  •  Merchandise

That crash prompted Kahne's crew chief, Tommy Baldwin, to head to Stewart's pit to talk with Stewart's crew chief, Greg Zipadelli. You've seen the fight that ensued all over television, and Baldwin was put on probation for triggering it.

Stewart himself is on probation for a post-race incident at Sonoma two races ago, so controversy seems to follow him this season, for whatever reason.

Stewart spoke with NASCAR.COM's Lee Montgomery about Sunday's race and its aftermath, as well as Stewart's approach to racing these days. You might be a little surprised at some of his answers.

Q: I don't know if fans understand, and I don't know if I understand completely, but on a restart when you guys get going, how difficult is that to judge what the guy in front of you is doing and what you're trying to do if something happens like Sunday?

Tony Stewart: It's very difficult in certain circumstances. If the guy is way in front of you and checks up, it's not a problem a lot of times. But if you're right behind a guy, which we were, and he has a problem, it's a big problem a loot of times.

	Credit: Autostock

You can't afford to have problems like that, especially when you've just passed a guy for position and got back in line. There wasn't a very big hole to fill anyway. It's not like I had the luxury of hanging back. It kind of puts you in a tough spot there.

Nobody anticipated there being a problem, so there was no way to anticipate that was going to happen.

Q: Do you think the win Sunday has overshadowed by the controversy? Or do people realize just how good a car you had?

Stewart: Probably to everybody else, it's been overshadowed by the controversy, but as far as I'm concerned, I've personally focused on the weekend that we had. Having the tough day that we had on Friday with the oil leak and losing the primary car, and then having to get a backup car out and qualifying 10th was a great accomplishment for us.

To dominate like we did on Sunday, to me, that overshadows something that happened on the racetrack that wasn't even my fault to begin with. To me, it doesn't overshadow it, but I know in a lot of other people's minds -- especially with what happened in the pits during the race -- it definitely overshadows it.

Q: I guess you saw where Tommy Baldwin got fined and put on probation. Do you have any reaction to that? Do you agree with that?

Stewart: You hate to see anybody get fined, and you hate to see anybody put on probation, and I'm speaking from experience. I don't have any ill-feelings toward Tommy. I like Tommy.

My first opportunity to drive, at that time, a Winston Cup car, I was driving for Harry Ranier. Tommy had just got hired to run the Cup program, but I didn't feel like I was ready. I did do a test with him and really enjoyed driving for him.

It's a shame that it gets to that, but it does show that there is a lot of emotion in our sport. Like I say, it's unfortunate that those things have to happen once in a while.

Q: Talking about emotion, when you get in a car, you seem to have an uncanny knack for blocking everything else out. Is that accurate?

Stewart: Yeah, I guess after 25 years of racing, if you haven't learned to block everything out, you're not going to be successful in this sport. It's just a situation that with as many race fans as we have that follow Nextel Cup racing, you're going to have some in your favor, you're going to have some that don't like you, and there will be some on the fence that don't know which way to go, as far as you're concerned.

But when it comes time to get in the car, I've got one job to do. I don't have three different opinions. I've got one job to do, so I go out and do it.

Q: And when you get in the car, what anybody else says or does doesn't really matter either, right?

Stewart: No. Pretty much this day and age in Cup racing, NASCAR has kind of set a standard now with what happened at Sonoma, as far as talk's cheap. Not from a sanctioning body's standpoint, but from a competitor's standpoint. Things that people say about me don't bother me a bit now.

To me, it's not an issue, because, basically, anybody is allowed to say anything they want about anybody to anybody. As far as I'm concerned, it falls on deaf ears now. It's all about going out and doing our job each week.

Q: I remember you said Sunday that you don't read the newspapers, you don't listen to radio or TV. Has that been a positive for you? That's one of the things you don't have to worry about.

Stewart: Yeah, because you don't have to worry about disagreeing with somebody. That's the great thing about our sport, and the great thing about our race fans is that you have different opinions and people are allowed to speak their mind.

	Stewart and crew chief Greg Zipadelli. Credit: Autostock

But at the same time, it's not fun to listen to people talk bad about you or read something that somebody's wrote bad about you. So the solution to that is don't listen and don't read. I don't pay attention to what anybody else says. I go to the racetrack, I do my job, I enjoy my race, and then when I leave, I go home, I hang out with my dogs and my girlfriend and my friends and family. I don't worry about the rest of it.

Q: How many dogs do you have?

Stewart: Three.

Q: Do they go on the road with you?

Stewart: One does.

Q: Which one goes on the road?

Stewart: The Chihuahua.

Q: Why the Chihuahua?

Stewart: Because she's little and travels easy.

Q: You talked about probation. I think a lot of people are confused about what that means. Are you? Has NASCAR said when the thing happened at Sonoma, "Well, this is what it means, and this is what happens if something else happens"? DO you understand what probation means?

Stewart: Yeah. It basically means that if I do something that NASCAR deems is not in the sport's best interest, I can be suspended. It's NASCAR's way of kind of giving you your one warning with a penalty, so to speak, saying, "If you do anything that we feel is not in the sport's best interest after that or is a rules violation, you can be suspended."

Q: Are you comfortable with that? That seems to be a broad picture their painting.

	Credit: Autostock

Stewart: Yeah, I'm comfortable with it. I'm the one who put myself in that position to begin with. I obviously didn't know that having the confrontation at Sonoma was going to lead to a probation, or else I wouldn't have gone down there. I had nothing to gain by going and talking to Brian about it. I didn't have the bad incident on the racetrack; he did.

Now I know. It's pretty clear what you're allowed to do, and what you're not allowed to do from a competitor's standpoint. Basically, it boils down to what it should be all about anyway: just go out and do your job and race, and at the end of the day when the race is over, go home. Don't worry about what's happened during the day.

Q: Is that easier for you now than it was a year, two years ago?

Stewart: Yeah, it is. You always thing you can change people's minds or change people's opinions and have them understand what you're thinking and what your side of a story is. You kind of learn that no matter what your side of it is, some people don't want to hear about it and don't care about it. It's better, like I said, to go to the racetrack, focus on working with the race team as a race team and doing what you can to support your sponsor and help promote their products and doing what we all really want to do on Sunday, and that's worry about going out and winning races, and then when the day is over, switch hats and worry about going home and taking care of your personal life.

Q: Last question. Did the win, the domination, is that kind of a signal to your other competitors who are talking about (Jimmie) Johnson and (Dale Earnhardt) Junior and (Jeff) Gordon for the championship, hey, don't forget about me?

Stewart: Definitely. Don't count us out right now. We've gotten a slower start than we typically have, but we're in a good position in the points standings right now. If we can keep doing what we've been doing and stay on the roll we've had the last couple weeks, we can go do the next eight or nine races before this championship deal starts and get on a roll, then we're a definite factor for those last 10 races.