Stewart understands that rules must be fine-tuned

LONG POND, Pa. -- Like some others in the NASCAR community, Tony Stewart doesn't agree with a lot of NASCAR's decisions. However, he understands the position they're in.

Really.

A day after NASCAR announced procedural changes aimed at cutting down on the number of caution laps during events, Stewart said he realizes the sanctioning body is in a difficult position.

	Tony Stewart

"We just have to keep in mind it's all a work in progress," Stewart said. "As every problem comes up, they're going to look at it and address these problems each time."

That doesn't mean Stewart doesn't have suggestions on how to fix things, such as an idea given to him Larry Howard, one of his former crew chiefs.

"He called me and said why do they not just do like every other series and every other racetrack across the country and when the caution comes out, go back to the last lap.

"It's very simple. It's logged in the system. It's bullet proof," Stewart said. "I don't know why they don't do that."

On Friday, while announcing that NASCAR would depend completely on a "scoring loop" system to determine scoring after a caution, NASCAR president Mike Helton acknowledged that the sanctioning body needs to make things simpler for the fans and the teams.

ALSO  •  Helton says changes should reduce caution lengths

"We need to rethink our procedures and policies that are forwarded to the competitors, but are simple enough for the people to follow," Helton said.

"We still need to figure out how to keep it simple," Helton continued. "The best thing in sports is to keep it as simple as you can keep it so everybody can follow it, and you spend a lot less time explaining things."

Stewart says changes or not, he's really looking forward to this weekend and defending his race win from a year ago -- especially after qualifying eighth for Sunday's Pocono 500 -- his third top-10 qualifying effort in a row.

"If we do qualify well, we race extremely well," Stewart said. "Even though we weren't on the front row, eighth was very exciting for me.

"I'm excited to be back here," he said. "This is where we got our our first win last year. We're fourth in points. It's a good feeling to come back to a track we've had some success at."