CONCORD, N.C. -- Less than an hour after Tony Stewart captured the recent Sprint All-Star Race, he and crew chief Darian Grubb were sitting at a table together in the Lowe's Motor Speedway media center, answering questions.

“

It didn't take long to realize that this was kind of like putting on an old pair of shoes. There were a lot of similarities between Darian and Zippy. There were some major differences, too -- but the major differences didn't scare you.

”

-- TONY STEWART

Grubb was mentioning that he had thrown everything he could at Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet during the 100-lap event, trying desperately to get it to drive better. Someone requested that Grubb clarify what adjustments were made to the car.

"What specific changes did you make?" a reporter asked.

Before Grubb could answer, Stewart chimed in.

"Tell them," said Stewart, "and I'll have to kill you."

Stewart was joking, of course. Wasn't he?

Well, it wasn't long ago that Grubb might not have been so sure. As it was, he didn't take any chances and talked more in generalities about what he did to make Stewart's car go fast enough to win the $1 million first-place All-Star prize.

Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at LMS will mark only the 12th points race Grubb and Stewart have worked together. Remarkably, they are clicking like they've been together for 12 years, not 12 races.

Stewart currently sits second in points behind Jeff Gordon. In his last six point races, he's finished second twice, third twice and fourth once.

Grubb said he and Stewart thought they would be competitive fairly quickly, but the crew chief readily admitted that their success has come faster and been greater than even he could have envisioned on his most optimistic day prior to the season. Coming on board with Stewart's newly formed Stewart-Haas Racing after six years working in various capacities at Hendrick Motorsports, Grubb liked the fact that his new employer already had a technical alliance with his old one.

Grubb figured that might speed up the learning curve at Stewart-Haas Racing.

"We thought with everything we had with Hendrick Motorsports chassis and engines, we had really good equipment. We're building our own bodies," Grubb said. "We knew with the wind tunnel program and everything we had that we had a really strong aero program in that sense. So we weren't lacking for anything. (Continued)