FORT WORTH, Texas -- Less than three weeks remain in a tenure that has been 10 years in the making.

But Tony Stewart said he doesn't have time to get sentimental about his pending departure from Joe Gibbs Racing and the No. 20 Toyota team he's leaving behind at the end of this Sprint Cup Series season. Not yet, anyway.

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I've said that from Day One, that it hasn't been a distraction. When I come here on the weekends, I take that hat off for the week and put that off to the side and I focus on what we're doing here with the Home Depot cars.

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TONY STEWART

"When we get to Homestead [for the final race of the season Nov. 16], I'm sure that's probably going to be weighing a lot heavier in that category than it is right now," he said Friday during a break in preparation for this Sunday's Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. "Right now we're still trying to focus on what we're doing each week. We're still trying to focus on winning the races right now."

Doing so this Sunday became more difficult for Stewart when the No. 20 blew a right-rear tire during the first of two practices Saturday at TMS, forcing him to a backup car and a starting position in the rear of the 43-car field. Earlier, he had qualified the car in eighth.

The tire shredded, ripping apart the car's right-rear quarterpanel and side window -- giving the No. 20 team no choice but to go to the backup car. The backup was prepared in time for Stewart to participate in most of the final practice, but Stewart obviously was playing catchup. His fastest lap of 177.264 mph was only 26th fastest -- nearly five mph slower than the fastest lap time posted by Carl Edwards, who was quickest in his No. 99 Ford.

Saturday's struggles notwithstanding, Stewart maintained earlier that he has not been overwhelmed by trying to juggle his dual roles as driver of the No. 20 car and as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, which was formed in July and will begin operation next season by fielding new cars for Stewart and fellow driver Ryan Newman.

"It's really not been difficult. During the week you're working on the stuff for next year, and on the weekends you stick to what you do here. You just change that focus," Stewart said. "You know, to me I don't find it as a hard task so far to do that. Obviously next year we'll have to get together after a couple of weeks to see where we're at as far as if that perspective changes a little bit. But right now it's not hard to do."

Stewart is owner of Eldora Speedway, a popular dirt track in Rossburg, Ohio, and also fields teams in the USAC and World of Outlaws series. So it is with that in mind that he adamantly insisted his current position is not all that unique to him.

That's why he scoffs at those who suggest perhaps forming his own team in the middle of this season for next year and beyond has served as a distraction for him and the No. 20 team he will drive for through the end of this season.

"I've said that from Day One, that it hasn't been a distraction," Stewart said. "When I come here on the weekends, I take that hat off for the week and put that off to the side and I focus on what we're doing here with the Home Depot cars. It hasn't been a distraction for me because when I get here, I'm only worried about one thing. You can only do one thing at a time.

"When we get back on Sunday, I take my Home Depot hat off and I start worrying about the Office Depot/Old Spice team and what we can be doing to get ready for next year. It's been easy from that standpoint."

It helped that Stewart broke a season-long winless streak by winning at Talladega on Oct. 5. Stewart has won at least two races every season since beginning his Cup driving career with JGR in 1999, and captured championships in 2002 and 2005 while driving the No. 20.

"You want to win every week and that's the goal of this team every week," Stewart said. "We feel like we should have had three or four of these easily by now [this season]. But we're just happy we finally got that first one, obviously. It would've been a big shock to have a shutout season, so at least Talladega kept us from that."

And there are still three races remaining, including this Sunday's event at Texas, next Sunday's race in Phoenix and the finale at Homestead the week after that. Then it will be time to focus completely on his new role as team owner at Stewart-Haas Racing.

Asked if he thought this offseason coming up would be the busiest of his career, Stewart laughed heartily.

"Oh, I can promise you that. There's no doubt," he added. "There's not really going to be an offseason. We're going to work from Monday after Homestead all the way through until we get to Daytona [next February] -- and then the work is not going to stop after we get to Daytona, either. We're going to stay real busy."

By then, he should be even more used to it than he is now.