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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: Where There’s Smoke
In years past, “Smoke” could refer to Stewart’s occasionally volcanic temper, on and off the track...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted June 08, 2009   Charlotte, NC
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)

In the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage these days, you see a lot more Smoke than you do fire.

“Smoke,” of course, is Tony Stewart’s nickname and it has several different meanings to those who follow the sport. “Smoke” could refer to the fact that Stewart left the field behind in a cloud of smoke, something like he did Sunday at Pocono Raceway, where he won the Pocono 500, his first victory with his new Stewart-Haas Racing team.

Or, in years past, “Smoke” could refer to Stewart’s occasionally volcanic temper, on and off the track.

But these days, the fire that burns inside of Stewart is something that he’s learned to channel and focus, and the result has been by far the biggest story of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season — how Stewart has managed to lead what was once one of the worst full-time teams in the sport into proven race winners who very well could win the 2009 championship.

Last summer, Stewart agreed to accept a 50 percent ownership stake in Haas CNC Racing, which last year had its two cars finish 30th and 43rd in Sprint Cup owner points after finishing 31st and 33rd in 2007.

According to Stewart’s own estimates, about 70 percent of the Haas CNC employees are now part of SHR, yet with mostly the same rank-and-file cast, Stewart is leading the Sprint Cup points and teammate Ryan Newman is fourth.

The real difference between the woebegone team of old and the title contenders of today is that Stewart brought in some key people in leadership positions — competition director Bobby Hutchins from Richard Childress Racing, crew chiefs Darian Grubb for Stewart and Tony Gibson for Newman — and these guys have made success seem remarkably easy.

Stewart said once he was able to get the right folks on board, the job wasn’t that difficult.

“The hardest part for me was last fall,” said Stewart. “That was the most stressful part of it for me. You know, and that was getting these key people in place. That part was not easy. … Last year was a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of headaches going to bed. It's hard to get it all together but once you get it together and you get a good group like this and you've got a group that's as hungry as this group is, they feed off of each other. And you know, it makes it to where all I have to do is walk in there and pat those guys on the back, because they are all a lot smarter people than I am.”

Well, it isn’t quite as simple as that, but Stewart and his team have made a remarkable transformation in a very, very short time.

Grubb, who moved over to SHR from the powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports organization, said he feels like the real strength of the team is that its top managers came from a number of the sport’s best teams.

“I came from Hendrick, Tony came from (Joe Gibbs Racing), Tony Gibson came from Dale Earnhardt Inc., Bobby came from RCR and DEI, Matt Borland from Penske,” said Grubb. “We have been able to pull from every one of those experiences to say, ‘What do we need to do to make the best decision?’ … I just feel like we couldn't be any stronger with the position we are in and the people we have behind it.”

“When you have that many different sets of examples of how to do things, it's easy to get in a pattern and think what you are doing is right and think that it's the only way that you can do it,” said Stewart. “And you realize there's four different — four other guys that came from four other different places that are seeing from a different angle, and they did it another way and he thought their way was the best way.

“It's kind of a nice perspective to be able to sit there and say, ‘Well, there's no dead set way of doing any one thing.’ You realize that you could sit there and analyze five different approaches and say, ‘Okay, this is going to be the right application for us.’”

So far, the results speak for themselves.

And the SHR brain trust has allowed Stewart to flourish and do what he does best — get in a car and go fast, and give his team lots of motivation.

“My hard part was like I said in the fall, and it does make this year seem a lot easier, because these guys are the guys doing the work every day,” said Stewart. “You know, I've just got to spend the time being the cheerleader during the week and I've got great race cars and a great team behind me on the weekends.”

That leaves Stewart free to Smoke the competition, something he might keep doing all the way to a third championship.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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