Stewart's mother sees lessons learned in her child (cont'd)

"I think a lot of people appreciate his honesty. Sometimes it is just the way he says things. This is a man who has a heart for people, loves animals. He loves his racing. That is his heart. It is his passion. He has to do something that he loves. And if he wasn't so successful at it, what he says wouldn't be that important."

Pam Boas will be one of several moms on hand at Darlington on Saturday night to give the command to start engines. Imagine, even today, these mothers still telling their sons what to do.

"I think it's great what the people at Darlington are doing," Pam said. "I think it is very nice that they honor the mothers that brought these children into the world and supported these guys in all their racing endeavors from the time they were just little boys.

"This is the third year I'll be going down there and I always enjoy the time with the other mothers. It's really not a lot of time because everyone is so busy these days, and this year Tony is running both races. We share some stories. It's just nice to visit with someone who has a child in the same position as mine. And I think they probably feel the same way. This way they know they are not sitting out here alone knowing it is so dangerous sometimes. We all know this isn't a factory job."

Today Pam tries to help other mothers that work with their sons, whether it's the fan club, a foundation, whatever the role might be. Stewart's popularity in NASCAR really took off early in 1999.

"After he had a good run in the Daytona 500 in February, it was like the floodgates opened and in came all these people that wanted something and the requests to do things and the desires to purchase things, it was almost overwhelming. We started hiring extra people, the marketing people worked with us. It was a huge learning curve."

When people ask her, she is happy to try and help.

"Especially some of the younger mothers -- Pam Kahne, Marylou Hamlin, J.J. Yeley's mother-in-law. We can let them know what they are facing. We went into it blind with no one to mentor us, no one to lead us. You want to try to do the best you can to accommodate everyone. It's impossible. People ask 'How do you do this? How do you accommodate all the requests? Are we going to make someone mad?'

"I wish I had someone [to help when we started]. I've always told these gals I'm here. I can tell you what we've done and maybe help them not hit all those bumps."

And where will Pam watch the race from on Saturday night? Well, it is Mother's Day weekend isn't it? She should be able to watch her son work from wherever she likes.

"Always from pit road at Darlington. I think it's a great place to watch from the pits. I get to see the crew guys, visit with people."

But she will not be listening to the two-way chatter on the team radio.

"I don't listen to his radio show and I don't listen on the headsets at the track. There are some things this mother just doesn't want to know," she said with a laugh.

She didn't always know her son would be a racer, but she always knew how competitive he was.

"Even when we were in go-karts I just figured we would race go-karts and that would be it," she said. "The day would come when Tony would get a real job and go on to have a normal life. I never could have dreamed it would all work out like this."

She says Tony shared his racing dreams with his father more than he did with her. But their time together was no less competitive. (Continued)