Racing on Eldora's dirt path special for big-time drivers (cont'd)

Ask him about Eldora, and Stewart's eyes immediately light up. He's not always willing to talk incessantly and pleasantly with reporters about current events in the Cup world, but he'll talk all night about his beloved Eldora -- even though the relationship sometimes leaves him with a gnawing pain in his gut. Asked about this latest Prelude production, his third attempt at it and the most star-studded field of Cup regulars yet, Stewart sighed and said with a grin: "I'm going to have an ulcer over this event. I can't wait for it to happen."

Asked about what kind of track owner Stewart is, and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate J.J. Yeley quickly adds: "He's a pain in the butt. He's like any other track promoter -- he wants to sell more hot dogs and pay less money."

Stewart laughed when he heard that.

"I wish. That's the least of my worries," Stewart said. "You know what? The thing about being the track owner there is that I've been there in every aspect that you can be there. I've been there as a fan, I've been there as a crew member, I've been there as a driver, I've been there as a car owner. So I would like to think, you know, that the main things that I worry about are the important things most people worry about.

"I want the track to be good, I want everybody to have fun. I worry about the same thing every other promoter across the country does. I think the thing that helps me as sort of a rookie owner is that when someone comes to me with a concern -- whether it's you as a fan, or you as a car owner, or as a driver, I can relate to what they're talking about."

Now 36, Stewart was 15 years old when he first raced a sprint car at Eldora in the USAC 4-Crown Nationals. When he was younger, he used to sit in the grandstand and watch the action coming off Turn 4 with a level of intensity that escaped most of the other spectators, no matter how passionate they might be. He eventually raced a total of 17 USAC events at Eldora, including winning Sprint and Midget races there in 1995 when he became the first driver (Yeley later became the second and only other one) to capture the USAC Triple Crown in by winning the national Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown titles in a single season.

He couldn't have imagined owning Eldora Speedway back then. But once he made a pile of money racing first in Indy cars and then in NASCAR and the place became available, he couldn't imagine doing anything else.

"What kind of retirement program do we all have here? We don't have any," Stewart said. "You know, at some point, you sit there and think, 'What am I going to do when I quit driving a racecar?' That was just an easy thing, to sit here and say, 'Hey, I can own a racetrack and still be involved in racing without necessarily having to be behind the steering wheel of a racecar.'"

Yeley said that he is not surprised Stewart ended up owning Eldora. He said that it's obvious Stewart, and many Nextel Cup drivers like him with a background in dirt racing, are far more comfortable there on a race weekend than they are at a big-time Cup event. (Continued)