Stewart sure to give credit where it's due after win (cont'd)

"There are guys on this team that haven't been to Victory Lane before," Stewart said. "That was something I was really looking forward to -- getting there and congratulating Gene on his first win, and these guys that have been with the organization and have not been in Victory Lane. To see those guys get their first win and be part of it with them was what I was really looking for.

"That means more than a million dollars does to me."

“

There are guys on this team that haven't been to Victory Lane before. That was something I was really looking forward to -- getting there and congratulating [co-owner] Gene [Haas] on his first win, and these guys that have been with the organization and have not been in Victory Lane.

”

-- TONY STEWART

Behind the scenes

For good reason, at least in large part because he had no choice in the matter, Haas has remained in the background as Stewart has transformed his operation. Stewart admitted that he was nervous when he discovered his mostly silent partner was going to attend Saturday's race.

"I wanted him to be proud when he got here -- proud of what we've done and proud of what he's been such a huge part of putting together," Stewart said. "Everybody has given us all the credit for this. But you really have got to give him the credit for taking the gamble and taking the risk to have us come and be a part of this organization, for trusting us to make some pretty big decisions and personnel changes.

"That's not something that a lot of people in that position are willing to do -- to give up that kind of control to let a totally different group of guys come in and all of a sudden start changing things around. But Gene was willing to do that."

Among the most obvious personnel changes were bringing Stewart and Ryan Newman on board as the two new drivers for the organization. There were many others, including the hiring of Darian Grubb away from Hendrick Motorsports to be Stewart's crew chief.

For a while late Saturday night, it looked as if it would be Newman -- and not Stewart -- who was going to wheel the first Stewart-Haas car into Victory Lane. But Newman's No. 39 Chevy got touched up in a little three-wide sandwich that also included the No. 18 Toyota of Kyle Busch and the No. 24 Chevy of Jeff Gordon as they battled for the lead with eight laps to go. Newman subsequently faded at the end because of the collateral damage it suffered.

Meanwhile, Grubb kept making the right adjustments at the best of times to Stewart's car -- and the No. 14 kept coming.

"Honestly, there wasn't a corner of the car we didn't touch," Grubb said. "We took Tony's feedback and made adjustments all around -- a little bit of tire strategy, track bar, wedge, air pressure ... about everything we could do."

Welcome back

The race teams Haas returned to Saturday night were far different from the ones he left behind when he went to prison in January of 2008 -- or for that matter, far different from any he had been able to field since entering the Cup fray as an owner in 2002.

Stewart and Newman were very competitive through the season's first 11 points races, but admittedly were hungering to get to Victory Lane. Doing it in front of Haas made it mean a little more for Stewart.

"He's been following us every week and knows what the teams have been doing. He knows what happens every day at the race track," Stewart said. "We just wanted to have a good night for him."

A good night? How about a great one?

When it came to an end, there was Haas, joining in with Stewart and the rest of the organization in what must have seemed like an other-worldly celebration. Stewart made sure to include him in the time-honored tradition of getting doused by champagne.

"He's drenched," Stewart said. "We absolutely soaked him with the giant champagne bottle. But he'll get over it."

He'll do better than that, Stewart was quick to add of Haas -- and by extension himself as a new car owner after 10 years of winning races (not to mention two championships) for Joe Gibbs Racing.

"He'll get used to it," Stewart said of Haas. "Gibbs did for 10 straight years. So he'll get over it, too."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

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Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.