FORT WORTH, Texas -- An hour after helping his driver Kevin Harvick celebrate a dramatic and crucial win at Texas Motor Speedway, three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart happily showed up to speak to the media as proud team owner. He was energized and hopeful, offering a healthy dose of that playoff personality fans applauded and competitors learned to dread from his days behind the wheel.
This time Stewart's postseason game face comes as a team owner, but he still delivered the playoff juju. Stewart promised 2014 Cup champ Harvick will be a "player" when he arrives at Miami in two weeks, officially the newest member of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Championship Four. It will be Harvick’s third championship opportunity in the last four years.
"What I saw tonight is something that I'm really encouraged about," Stewart said. "It wasn't just the fact of winning this race, but it's just how it was won, how Kevin drove those last 20, 25 laps. I know Kevin and I can tell watching his driving style; there's something that field and those other three guys who make it to Homestead in a couple weeks, they've got something to be worried about.
"I've seen this man when he gets locked in like this and he's strong right now."
RELATED: Full race results | Playoffs updateWhile there may have been a certain sense of competitive psychology behind Stewart's remarks, there was no doubt he believed Harvick would be up for the championship opportunity.
The two have competitive personalities that are actually more alike than not. They are both straight-shooters, not too willing to suffer fools or foolhardy situations inside or outside their race cars.
They are extremely driven men who proudly made it into NASCAR's big leagues the old-fashioned way. Strictly talent, not the blessing of family fortunes to launch and sustain their careers.
As with Stewart, Harvick arrived on NASCAR's biggest stage because of his exceptional skill in a race car and, also like Stewart, he was able to seize any and all opportunities earned along the way.
To some extent all the hard-knocks and hard work explains a little of the intensity both drivers exhibit. When Stewart -- a certain future NASCAR Hall of Famer -- was still racing, he and Harvick would occasionally bang fenders and exchange bad words.
As teammates at the Stewart-Haas Racing organization now, that zeal and passion couldn't be more appreciated. Stewart knows Harvick will give a million percent as driver and Harvick knows Stewart will give a million percent as owner.
MORE: Tony Stewart through the yearsAnd in a year of massive technical change for the organization after switching from Chevrolet to Ford in 2017, the extra attention to detail and the intangibles Harvick displays -- along with crew chief Rodney Childers -- have obviously made a difference.
So in a postseason thus far dominated by Toyota, Harvick's victory Sunday in a Ford was game-changing not just for fans, but also for this team and for the manufacturer.
The organization won the pole position with driver Kurt Busch on Friday night -- setting the fastest 1.5-mile lap in stock car history at the Texas high banks, ironically bettering the three-year-old former record held by none other than Stewart himself. And after scoring the second non-Toyota victory in the playoffs, this team is proud, enthused, reinvigorated and ... ready.
"The hell with everybody else,’" crew chief Rodney Childers said, wearing the Texas winner's black cowboy hat and offering a slight smile. "We need to worry about ourselves. If we give him (Harvick) ]the right tools on the race track, he's going to win races with it.
"I'm just proud of having that backing whether it's 'Smoke' or Zippy (SHR competion director Greg Zipadelli] or everybody at the shop. Everybody has worked their butts off the last two months to try to make things better and they have."
Asked what, in particular, the team has discovered, Childers offered a big smile again and apologized to reporters saying he was not going to reveal his secrets.
"Don't be sorry," Stewart said, adding as the room erupted in laughter, "if you tell him, I'm going to kick your ass."
It was vintage Stewart after a vintage Harvick performance and it all makes this year's championship finale all the more compelling.