Burdens of ownership are already settling on Stewart

Tony Stewart is serious about Sprint Cup team ownership -- serious enough that he's able to resist the allure of one great race that he's never won, but still calls to him year after year. As his own boss, there'd be nothing to stop him from turning his NASCAR vehicle over to someone else for one weekend next May, and resuming the chase for that Indianapolis 500 victory that's teased and eluded him over the course of his otherwise illustrious career.

But he's not going to do it. There's too much to do at soon-to-be re-christened Stewart-Haas Racing for the new team owner to allow his thoughts to drift to open wheels and bottles of milk.

"With this new venture, I feel like I need to focus that much more energy toward the Cup program. When I was just strictly going to be a driver, it's a lot easier to try to do things outside the box, but I feel like now I've got more responsibility on me, and I'm responsible for a lot more people," Stewart said Tuesday, on a conference call with reporters.

"Even if the logistics worked out, I don't see myself trying to go back and run the 500 anymore. It's just something that the amount of work and dedication that it's going to take to be a part of this organization and try to help it be successful [is] going to take a lot of time and effort, and the month of May, it's a long, long event. It's not just a three-day event like it is on a Cup weekend. So dedicating and splitting my time up between the two events is just going to dilute my effort with what we are doing on the Cup side so, I'm just going to focus on that."

Stewart has indeed come a long way from the argumentative, hotheaded driver he was earlier in his career, when he appeared terribly uncomfortable in the NASCAR spotlight and had routine run-ins with officials or reporters. He's not that same person today, as evidenced by his willingness to take on a Sprint Cup ownership role at which he had previously expressed no interest. This is a big burden, bigger than his transition from IndyCars, bigger than anything else he's taken on. Stewart seems to grasp that. The fact that he's willing to forego the Indianapolis 500, the one event he was born and bred to win, speaks volumes.

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Of course, the fact that he has two trophies from the prestigious NASCAR event at the big speedway surely doesn't hurt. If Stewart were to retire from competition tomorrow, his legacy at Indianapolis and elsewhere would be secure. But looming over everything, even the stretch run this season as Stewart and crew chief Greg Zipadelli try to make the Chase one last time with their No. 20 car, is the unenviable task of turning around a program with two vehicles outside the top 35 in owner points. If it happens, it will be Stewart's name, reputation, ability and will that do it. If Stewart succeeds in transforming the now barely competitive band called Haas CNC Racing into winners, it will be an accomplishment at least on a par with any championship he's ever won.

That burden is just beginning to settle on his shoulders, just as another -- the pressure of leaving Joe Gibbs Racing -- is beginning to ease. Although the organization's name hasn't changed yet, he's already playing the owner's role. Last Monday, Stewart had his first team meeting at the Haas shop, addressing employees who soon enough will be working for him. Now the search is under way to identify why an outfit with a sizeable shop and plenty of in-house technical acumen, a Chevrolet team that receives bodies, engines, and engineering support from seven-time champion Hendrick Motorsports, simply hasn't clicked.

"I'm not sure that I fully understand exactly what is holding them back right now, but I do know that they have got good resources and it's just a matter of figuring out where the break is in the system there. There's obviously something that's not exactly the way, obviously, that we want it to be or they want it to be right now. It's just going to take some more time, and I think being able to be at the shop a lot the rest of the year will help with that," Stewart said.

"As far as how long it's going to take, I don't know. I honestly don't know the answer to that. I wish I could say that everything would be perfect by the time that we go to Daytona, but I think it's going to be a work in progress right now. You look at the caliber of the teams and the quality of car owners that are out there, it's going to be a lot of work to get caught up to where they are at, but that's something that I'm excited about is having that challenge and taking whatever time that it takes to get it where we want it to be, and to be a team like a Joe Gibbs Racing or a Hendrick or a Roush or Childress."

That work is well under way. Friday morning at Indianapolis, Stewart will formally unveil his car number and primary sponsor, widely believed to be No. 14 and Old Spice. He needs to hire a new chew chief, someone who will fill the sizeable void left behind by Zipadelli, the friend and confidante who has helped guide Stewart through some troublesome times. He needs another car sponsor and another driver, the latter "not narrowed down to just one," he said, despite the focus on Ryan Newman, who will break from Penske Racing at the end of the year. There are new people to hire and old employees to retain, processes to review and a multitude of puzzle pieces to be fit into place.

And none of those tasks can wait, not with 2008 preseason testing less than six months away and the clock ticking. From the outside, it appears a terribly tall order -- challenge for a Chase berth in his No. 20 car, while laying the groundwork for turning around a team that's recorded just one top-five finish in its seven-year history. But as Stewart's racing results will suggest, he's never one to shy away from a challenge or back off when under pressure. This is a driver who has won championships while facing tremendous personal duress, whose interests in other series have taught him how to prioritize and delegate, who's been wearing so many hats for so long now that one more shouldn't matter.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. In this economic climate, where sponsors are scarce and at least one manufacturer -- General Motors, Chevy's parent company -- is pulling back, unseen pitfalls surely exist. For now, at least, give the new team owner some credit for doing the one thing drivers aren't supposed to do: look beyond this week's race. Give him some credit for thinking about more than just himself when he could have used ownership as a platform to chase the Indy 500, and everybody would have understood. Give him some credit for realizing the challenges and being prepared, even though he has another championship to chase and a final season with Joe Gibbs Racing to finish.

"If I wasn't excited about doing this, I think that would probably bother me a lot," he said, referring to the pressures inherent in ownership. "But, I mean, I'm excited about it and I'm excited about all the pressure that we have going into next year now. It's something that we've been looking forward to."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.