Associated Press
HAMPTON, Ga. ó So much for Tony Stewart’s learning curve.
Everyone figured Smoke would need a bit of time to adapt to his new role as a car owner-slash-driver, having left a highly successful gig at Joe Gibbs Racing to take control of a struggling team that needed rebuilding from the ground up. Even Stewart was realistic about his chances of immediate success.
“From a physical parts and pieces standpoint, we knew we had what we needed,” he said late Friday afternoon, having just climbed from his red No. 14 Chevrolet after a practice session at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “It was just a matter of how long it was going to take for the package to gel. I think we’re all pleasantly surprised at how quick that’s come.”
Heading into Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500, Stewart is a solid eighth in the standings through the first three races. He finished eighth at the season-opening Daytona 500 and held down the same spot at California before dropping to 26th in Las Vegas last weekend. Even then, he ran in the top five much off the day.
“I felt like we would be competitive, but I think it’s unrealistic to think we would go three weeks and be that competitive week in and week out,” Stewart said. “We’ve been solid every session.”
He’s not the only surprise, either.
After struggling through most of its history and enduring an uncertain offseason, Michael Waltrip Racing has both of its cars inside the top 12 ó the cutoff point that everyone looks at because it determines which drivers advance to the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.
David Reutimann is fifth and Waltrip, an owner-driver like Stewart, is holding down the 12th spot. Former Cup champion Bobby Labonte, who moved to a new team this season, is ninth in the points and getting ready to race at a track where he’s had a lot of success.
“I was always confident I could the job,” said Reutimann, who finished 22nd last year and dealt with sponsorship questions for the second straight winter. “It was just a matter of getting in the right situation.”
Stewart appeared to be in the right situation at Joe Gibbs Racing, but he couldn’t pass up the chance to take control of his own team. He was given 50 percent of Haas CNC Racing, a lowly team in the NASCAR pecking order, and transformed it into Stewart Haas Racing.
He had to line up sponsors. He had to hire an entirely new crew. He had to bring on a second driver, landing Ryan Newman to pilot the No. 39 car. All of those duties figured to leave Stewart with little time to develop a winning formula on the track.
But it’s all gone amazingly well, at least for the first three weeks.
“We could fall on our face this week,” he said. “but to go to a superspeedway (Daytona), a two-mile track (California) and a mile-and-a-half track (Las Vegas), and have good results and good performance each of those weeks, that’s something to be proud of.”
Stewart is even more encouraged by these first three races because he almost always got off to a slow start during his tenure at Joe Gibbs Racing, usually picking up steam as the temperature rose.