Owner role fitting Stewart perfectly as season nears (cont'd)

What's also worked well for Stewart, if learning on a daily basis is a good thing, is he's been all eyes and ears.

"Probably the biggest thing that I've seen is that I actually can get up at 6 o'clock in the morning," Stewart said with a chuckle. "I did that Wednesday when we had to fly down to New Smyrna [Speedway in New Smyrna Beach, Fla.] to test. I didn't realize that there was actually a 6 a.m. until this year -- that was a shock.

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I feel like everything is exactly where it needs to be right now. Not having to worry about an engine program and having Hendrick chassis, all we have to do is hang our bodies right now. We're kind of in a good situation of not having to worry about those two variables and just focusing on building the cars.

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-- TONY STEWART

"The rest of it, I have to be honest, I'm not sure that anything has been a big shock or surprise. I think I had the mindset that I had a lot to learn and that I didn't know and don't know everything that I need to know about being a car owner yet but that if we were able to hire the right people that I would learn as we went, and that's what we've been able to do so far."

Stewart said hiring Hutchens, an engineer, former Modified driver and longtime Richard Childress Racing employee during the Dale Earnhardt championship years was perhaps his most important move.

"Bobby Hutchens is a great mentor to me right now, and being able to learn from him -- just so many little details that are very easy to overlook -- and those are things that he has brought to the program already that's given me a lot of piece of mind," Stewart said. "It's letting me get more sleep now, again and allowing me to focus on being a driver and an owner instead of just worrying about being an owner.

"I feel like everything is exactly where it needs to be right now. I mean, we're a little bit behind on getting cars built, but I feel like having that luxury of not having to worry about an engine program right now is helping us get caught up, and having Hendrick chassis, all we have to do is hang our bodies right now. We're kind of in a good situation of not having to worry about those two variables and just focusing on building the cars."

Stewart said in the case of his team, the depressed economy had offered a couple different perspectives, but he did say the timing of his decision to take co-ownership of the former Haas CNC Racing was priceless.

"I don't know that we really had a choice on [the economy]," Stewart said. "This was an opportunity that picked us -- we didn't go out and pick it. But I think it shows that timing is everything [because] we were able to secure our sponsorships with Office Depot and Old Spice and then getting Ryan [Newman] signed and having the U.S. Army come on board makes me really proud as an owner that we were able to get all that done before the bottom fell out of the economy."

Stewart said that, if he wasn't able to join with an established team he wouldn't have considered it in the current economic environment.

"From scratch, no -- definitely not," Stewart said. "You would have to own a company that's doing well to probably do that right now, and I was in a very fortunate position to be offered an opportunity with Haas CNC Racing to join their operation and help hopefully build it. I don't think if it were not for an opportunity like this, we would have had this opportunity altogether, let alone with the economy the way it is now."

The bright side, for Stewart, has been building his employee roster. The new owner said he's been surprised at the number and caliber of unemployed people in the Charlotte, N.C., area.

"I never thought that we would see the fallout of employees that we have being released from teams, not only from the Charlotte area, but in Indianapolis, whether it's drag race teams, IndyCar teams -- I mean, the economy has really hurt all of motorsports.

"But I guess that's probably been the one thing that's been positive for us is when it came to look at hiring more people and better people, it kind of gave us a buffet atmosphere -- almost being able to look for people because there were so many of them available -- that we could sort through and pick the people that we thought were right for the program."

As far as his general state of mind, Stewart gave good insight into that when he answered a question about his favorite Daytona 500 memory, and if he won this year's race, since he was now driving for Carl Edwards' former sponsor, Office Depot, would he celebrate with Edwards' signature back flip?

"You can put all your money on no back flips -- not going to happen," Stewart said. "Not unless I want to go to the hospital and be in traction for two or three months. You know, I'm trying to remember what the first part of the question was -- obviously I don't have a memory; I can't remember what the question was."