Tony Stewart: "Our organization has grown and grown stronger. You know, I feel I'm just a piece of the puzzle. I feel we all compliment each other well." Credit: Autostock

Stewart pays homage to teamwork after Cup title

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- When it came right down to it for Tony Stewart and his Joe Gibbs Racing team, it wasn't the 267 laps of Sunday's Ford 400, or the last 11 laps that were run following the final caution, that counted most.

Something had to be the difference at the fourth annual season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where Stewart failed to lead a lap and was content, at the very end, to simply roll to a 15th-place finish.

STEWART WINS CUP Tony Stewart cruised to his second NASCAR championship in four years Sunday, capping an uncharacteristically calm season for the former Bad Boy.  •   Complete story, click here Inside the Chase Final point standings Rank Driver Pts. Behind 1. T. Stewart 6,533 -- 2. G. Biffle 6,498 -35 3. C. Edwards 6,498 -35 4. M. Martin 6,428 -105 5. J. Johnson 6,406 -127 6. R. Newman 6,359 -174 7. M. Kenseth 6,352 -181 8. R. Wallace 6,140 -393 9. J. Mayfield 6,073 -460 10. Ku. Busch 5,974 -559 • Race results, click here • Cup standings, click here Tony takes CupTony Stewart celebrates his 2005 Nextel Cup title Final lapsGreg Biffle and Mark Martin battle to the checkered flag Ford 400Highlights from the season-ending race via TrackPass Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Teamwork -- through the first 26 races of the "regular season" that continued through the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup -- was what enabled Stewart to win his second Cup championship in the last four years.

That very team's work on Stewart's fleet of No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolets facilitated Stewart compiling the highest number of top-five, 17, and top-10 finishes, 25, throughout the season.

But most importantly, for the second time in four years, it was the team -- and its leader, crew chief Greg Zipadelli -- that cemented a championship for Stewart despite the fact that he neither won a race in the Chase nor had the best average finish.

In fact, using a subjective tallying system that graded each finish throughout the Chase as "excellent (1st-7th)," "good (8th-14th)," "mediocre (15th-27th)" or "bad (28th-43rd)" -- Stewart wasn't best in any category.

While he won five times in the regular season to position himself at the head of the field beginning the Chase, in the last 10 races: Stewart failed to win, didn't have the best average finish (Carl Edwards, 8.4), didn't have the most "excellent" finishes (Mark Martin, seven) and didn't have the most top-fives (Martin, six).

He did, however, have the most top-10s, seven, and no "bad" races. And when it mattered most, he had the best team.

And there was no downplaying maybe the biggest part of that team -- Stewart himself. An off-season gut-wrenching, soul-searching, no-tales-untold meeting resulted in a calmer, more effective Stewart and a fabulously more effective team.

"The impact of [the meeting] was pretty big," Stewart said. "And we don't have to go into the details of what it was about. Sometimes bad things have to happen for good things to come out of it."

The first championship, in 2002, was good -- but with all Stewart's off-track antics and personal struggles the price -- which has been well documented -- was enormous for everyone.

The get together changed the team's direction, but most important, it created a new path for Stewart, who made his hometown of Columbus, Ind., his primary home.

"[The meeting] was something that was definitely an eye-opening experience for me," Stewart said. "It was a meeting that Zippy wasn't in -- he had always been the in-between guy.

"When the guys would complain about something I did, they'd complain to Zippy. And if I was going to complain about something the guys did, I'd complain to Zippy about it. He was the go-to guy in all that.

"That's why 2002 was such a year of turmoil for all of us. That's why this year means so much more to win it for him without all that turmoil where we can enjoy the year instead of just being glad the year is over because of all the garbage that went on.

"All the guys and me sat down and we talked and everybody got to air everything out. It was probably the most stressful meeting I've ever gone into in my life.

"I didn't know what the outcome of the meeting was going to be. I didn't even know if I was going to have a job.

"The best thing about it was I knew where everybody stood. That was something that hadn't happened with our race team the entire time [six previous years] I'd been there.

"So after the amount of years we were all together, you would have never thought it would get to that. The fact that it did, and through Zippy [Zipadelli] and J.D.'s [Gibbs, owner Joe Gibbs' son] leadership, we talked about it and then made a decision, shows the leadership we have in our organization and the people we have on this race team.

"This year versus 2002 -- we've had fun all year. Even when we weren't running good, we were having fun. We got back to why we started racing in the first place and that's because we love being a part of race teams and we love racing and we love competing.

"That attitude carried us through the slow times and when the good times happened, it just made it that much better for us. That's what created a string of 18 out of 20 top-10 runs [coming into Homestead].

TONY STEWART •   Driver Page •   2005 Championship gear COKE TRACK ACCESS Interactive race highlights and instant win game

"Once that happened, it's not a big shock to me to know that we're here and to realize why we're here.

"We were a stronger team this year than the entire time I've been with Joe Gibbs Racing."

"To me, it's meaningful because we did it as a group," Zipadelli said of the second championship. "We improved on all the things we needed to improve on from years past -- from finishing laps and leading laps and winning races all in the same year.

"And we did it with a whole lot more fun. And I think that's a lot to Tony's maturity in him showing up and relaxing and wanting to be part of this team and actually taking some ownership of it this year.

"It obviously makes my job and everybody else's a little easier and a little bit more fun."

But still, it took a supreme team-wide refocusing to turn around a season on the brink, after eight races when Stewart fell to a season's low point in the standings, 14th -- 347 points out of the lead -- after a season's worst 33rd place finish at Phoenix.

Stewart had to turn the wheel, but he said it all boiled down to the team -- and that all turned back to the beginning of the season.

"Nobody is ever going to accuse me of being smarter [than in 2002]," Stewart said. "And I'm not going to say I'm a better driver. I think that we're just a better team.

"Our organization has grown and grown stronger. You know, I feel I'm just a piece of the puzzle. I feel we all compliment each other well.

Inside the Numbers Tony Stewart in 2005 Track Start Finish Daytona 4 7 Fontana 29 17 Las Vegas 23 10 Atlanta 9 17 Bristol 11 3 Martinsville 7 26 Texas 10 31 Phoenix 6 33 Talladega 11 2 Darlington 15 10 Richmond 3 2 Charlotte 9 24 Dover 6 15 Pocono 26 29 Michigan 3 2 Sonoma 7 1 Daytona 1 1 Chicago 13 5 Loudon 13 1 Pocono 6 7 Indianapolis 22 1 Watkins Glen 1 1 Michigan 36 5 Bristol 17 8 Fontana 14 5 Richmond 25 7 Loudon 1 2 Dover 31 18 Talladega 4 2 Kansas 9 4 Charlotte 4 25 Martinsville 1 2 Atlanta 10 9 Texas 16 6 Phoenix 9 4 Homestead 20 15 Averages 12.0 9.9

"The greatest strength of Joe Gibbs has been assembling the right people to do the right jobs. And the great thing with that is that when we were behind early in the season, we didn't know which area was going to get us caught up.

"So, the motor department dug in, the fab shop dug in. Zippy and the guys on the pit stops dug in. I dug in.

"We all tried to get that extra half percent or percent that we all thought we needed to be where the Roush and Hendrick teams were, so it just makes me so proud of this whole organization and how much it's all grown to get us here."

Stewart's season ending streak started at Michigan in June, when he was second to championship runner-up and Homestead winner Greg Biffle.

The next weekend, Stewart began a stunning streak of four victories in a seven-race stretch, culminating in him taking the lead for the first time after the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

Stewart won for the fifth and final time the next weekend, at Michigan in August. It put him an inexorable path to become the 14th driver to win multiple championships in NASCAR's history.

"I'll be honest, the streak started really at Michigan, the week before Sonoma," Stewart said. "Our l.5-mile and two-mile stuff wasn't really exactly where it needed to be (because) we just had not caught on to what the Roush and Hendrick organizations had figured out at that point.

"To be able to run as good as we did that day really got us started. It's a different mindset from what we were doing on the 1.5-mile and two-mile tracks. That was a good jump-start there."

When Stewart and the team finished it at Homestead, he became only the second in the current era, along with four-time champion Jeff Gordon, to become a multiple titlist. But he wasn't the reason, Stewart finally said.

"I'm just a piece of the puzzle," Stewart said. "I'm not the guy that won us this championship -- this race team won us this championship.

"I wasn't driving the car any different the first three or four months of the year than we did the last remaining part of the season, so obviously the equation part of the championship was the whole team."