Stewart's final season with JGR difficult on many levels

When the 2008 season started under sunny skies in Daytona Beach, Fla., Tony Stewart didn't realize it would be his final season at Joe Gibbs Racing -- the only Cup team he has known in his 10-year NASCAR career.

But in July, Stewart made it official, announcing he would buy 50 percent of Haas CNC Racing to form Stewart-Haas Racing, a two-car Cup operation beginning in 2009. And with that, Stewart's '08 season became increasingly more emotional and more hectic.

The season started out well for Stewart. He was leading laps and posted five top-seven finishes in the first seven races, including a third in the Daytona 500 and a second at Atlanta. The one thing he was lacking was a victory.

Tony Stewart announced he would become a team owner during the '08 season.

Despite a zero in the win column, Stewart was fifth in points and looking like a championship contender following the spring Texas race. But in the next 13 races, Stewart finished in the top 10 just four times with two DNFs and a disappointing 23rd-place finish at Indianapolis -- a track he expects to run well at.

The second half of the season, following his announcement he would be leaving JGR, Stewart had a new purpose behind the wheel. He wanted to leave Joe Gibbs Racing on a positive note and the way to do that was to win as much as possible.

He came close, with back-to-back second-place finishes at Pocono and Watkins Glen, and then a month later he was runner-up again in the fall Richmond race. Stewart entered the Chase in 10th position -- 80 points behind leader Kyle Busch.

Stewart was good in the first few Chase races, but not good enough to become a title threat. Stewart finally broke his winless streak with an impressive run in the fall Talladega race, but he found the top 10 just once more in the season's final six races and ended the season ninth in the standings -- his second-lowest point ranking in his Cup career.

The book on Stewart's Joe Gibbs Racing career comes to a close and a new one is being written beginning in 2009 -- Tony Stewart, team owner. Stewart's new venture won't be easy, but if he has shown anything in his career it's that he will work through the adversity and become successful.

Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway -- Stewart only found Victory Lane once in 2008, and it came in controversial fashion. The weekend didn't start out great for the No. 20 team. Stewart was no better than 10th in practice and qualifying was abysmal as Stewart found himself 34th on the starting grid. But Stewart stayed out of trouble -- there were 10 cautions -- and worked his way up to the front. Stewart took the lead on Lap 80 and led four more times for a race-high 24 laps. When the race ended under a green-white-checkered finish, Stewart actually crossed the start/finish line second, behind Regan Smith. But NASCAR ruled Smith's pass was out of bounds and Stewart -- a six-time runner-up finisher at Talladega -- finally won his first Cup race at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

Best Buy 400 at Dover International Speedway -- After a strong first seven races in '08, Stewart's luck was changing. In the five races leading up to Dover, he had just one top-five (a fourth at Richmond) and his season was starting to make a turn for the worse. Just 16 laps in, Stewart saw any hopes of a Dover turnaround wiped out as he T-boned Elliott Sadler after Sadler got together with David Gilliland. Stewart sarcastically took responsibility for the crash, saying he was "within a half-lap of Sadler, he expects it to happen." The No. 20 team got his Toyota back on the track, but Stewart ultimately finished 40th and fell three positions in the standings to 11th -- 499 points behind leader Kyle Busch.

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