At SHR, one subject is sure to get the boss's attention (cont'd)

"It just hasn't worked out yet," Stewart said. "It's still the sheer fact of one in 43 is going to win it every year. We've been close. I know drivers who have been a part of this series who haven't even been close to winning a Daytona 500. So having the opportunities that we've had, in my mind it's inevitable that it will happen one day. Everything just has to work out right."

Don't confuse this with Indianapolis, the track that teased and taunted Stewart for most of his adulthood until a 2005 breakthrough in the Brickyard 400 that was more a personal catharsis than an auto racing victory. He's easily one of the better plate racers of his generation, something he's shown again and again in his ability to move from the back to the front and push others into the lead. No question, he wants to win the Daytona 500. But he also wants to win at Las Vegas and at Darlington, two places where he never has. He wants to win another championship for his two-year-old team. The Daytona 500 is one of several boxes where Stewart has yet to place a check.

"He's just as mad that he hasn't led lap 222 at Charlotte," Newman said. "That's just the way it works with a race car driver who's that determined. You want to win, and you want to lead everything you absolutely possibly can. And when you haven't won the biggest race, yeah, that's the biggest bite."

From the outside, it seems clear -- Indianapolis was personal, Daytona is business. The deep, internal longing Stewart always had to win at Indianapolis was clearly there, as obvious as the number on the side of his race car. If he feels the same way about Daytona, then he's keeping it to himself.

"I don't think it really eats at him, but it definitely is a large goal," said Grubb, whom Stewart credits with having a calming presence on a driver who can be, to put it mildly, temperamental from time to time. "If you look back to the late Dale Earnhardt and the success he had but not winning the Daytona 500, I think you saw the relief in his face. I think you'll probably see the same thing out of Tony Stewart when he does win it."

Grubb isn't the only one to make the Earnhardt comparison. Hutchens, who worked with the Intimidator for years at RCR, knows Stewart has gone to Daytona several times as the driver to beat, only to come up short for one reason or another. Earnhardt did the same thing for two decades before his emotional victory in 1998.

"We lost it about every way you could lose it, and the one year that I really didn't think we had a chance to win it, we won it," Hutchens remembered. "It's funny how that kind of happens. We won another one, were fortunate enough to, with [Kevin] Harvick. We went every year to Daytona thinking we were the car to beat back in the day, and somehow we found a way to not win that thing. We won everything down there all week, but couldn't win the 500."

Stewart, ham that he is, isn't above poking fun at himself. Monday, Newman was in the midst of answering a question about drafting with teammates when he referenced his Daytona 500 victory. "Thanks for reminding me ... again," Stewart lamented, evoking just the laugh he was looking for. It's difficult to remember such flippant remarks about Indy, which before Stewart finally won it was a subject always drenched in angst, sweat, and tears. Daytona, though, is another matter. Daytona isn't a personal quest. Daytona is a race he can joke about not winning. Which is why, one day, he likely will.

If he doesn't? Life will go on. And Grubb will continue to ask if Stewart wants to borrow his jacket.

"I think even if my career ended today, we've had a pretty successful career," Stewart said. "I think still winning the Indy 500 is higher on the list, higher than the Daytona 500 is to me. But I don't think I'll ever even have an opportunity to win Indy again. It doesn't mean, because I haven't won those two races, that if my career ended I couldn't consider it a success or a failure. We've had a pretty good career over the last 29 years."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.