Q&A with Tony Stewart

Tony Stewart

Tony Stewart, met with members of the media at Media Day at Daytona International Speedway. Full Transcript:

Q. How many legitimate shots do you think you have to win the Daytona 500?

TONY STEWART: I think two of them for sure, the year that Newman won and the year that I crashed and took Kurt out with me in that deal. Kurt and I were the two best cars in that race all day, and that's definitely one where I got a speeding penalty and had to go to the back and then had to free the car up to get through traffic, and then when I got to the front I was too loose. That was probably our best shot. And then there was one when I think it was the first one that Dale Jr. won, and there were three of us there were two of us that had broken away from everybody at the end because of a pit stop, and Kurt was the lap car, and I just didn't have any way to get momentum to go by.

Q. I remember how you seemed so devastated when you came in the year that Newman won. Is that the year that hurts the most?

TONY STEWART: Yeah, because I had the option. I could have done something, but if I did that, I took a risk of wrecking the entire field to win the race. I chose to not wreck everybody, and I don't remember where we ended up, second or third or sixth or something like that, but we were leading until we got to the middle of the backstretch on the last lap.

Q. Do you fear this is a race you'll never win?

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]TONY STEWART: No, not until the day that I don't run here anymore. Everybody has got a shot here, so it's just a matter of we've been in that position. We've been in that position before, so it's not like we've never been in that position. At least that gives you confidence that you've got a shot.

Q. We ended last season with an investigation just starting to occur, and here we are starting a new season and it's still unresolved. I was just wondering as a team owner, do you have some contingency plan?

TONY STEWART: Yeah, we do, but we're kind of waiting to see. I'm very hopeful that we won't have to worry about it. I mean, I feel bad he's in that situation right now and that they're both in that situation. But we have to be smart and we have to have a plan in place if it doesn't work out for whatever reason.

Q. But I'm sure you like the rest of us didn't expect this to be going on?

TONY STEWART: No, not at all. It's definitely been a surprise for us.

Q. How did you feel at the end of last season?

TONY STEWART: I mean, not 100 percent leg wise, but in the car I'm fine. I felt fine last year. Everybody wanted to blame it on the injury last year, and that didn't have anything to do with it when it came time to drive the car. We are in better shape than we were last year.

Q. How would you describe just your ambition, your momentum, to drive this year compared to other years coming into the season?

TONY STEWART: I'm pretty excited about it. I'm coming off of a bad year and a half, so definitely excited to get it all behind us and move forward.

Q. With no testing, would you consider yourself that you're really raring to go?

TONY STEWART: Yeah, because it's given us just being out of the car that much longer, it does kind of give you that sense of just wanting to be back in the car. I mean, I don't normally get too excited about restrictor plate practices, but I'm kind of excited to get in the car tomorrow, at least for the first practice.

Q. A year ago you came here with all the questions about how you were going to be able to handle the car, especially handling a track like this. Physically speaking to you feel much better than you were a year ago?

TONY STEWART: Honestly I feel like we're wasting our time talking about how I feel because I didn't feel bad last year. I did outside the car, but inside the car I felt good all year. Physically driving the car it's not an issue at all. It's not 1/100th of a percent.

Q. But therapeutically was it something you needed to get back behind the wheel?

TONY STEWART: I think we talked about that last year. We're talking about 2015 now. You're talking about something that we talked about in 2014 that we already covered. I mean, it's not an issue. It's not something I'm thinking about. It's just kind of in the past. I'm ready to go.

Q. What kind of momentum does the organization have, given Harvick's championship, two championships in such a short period of time? What does that do for an organization?

TONY STEWART: It's huge. You know, and it's a really there's times when you win a championship and people kind of lose that momentum after that because they've accomplished the goal and it's easy to lose the momentum. This winter what I've seen at the shop, it's created more momentum, so that's a good thing. It shows the depth of our people and the character that we have in the organization. I think they're as excited to do everything we can to repeat that as anybody I've ever worked with. I feel really good about what our guys have done to get ready and get prepared.

Q. Along those lines, what does Danica need to do to take the next step?

TONY STEWART: She's just got to build on what she did last year. She kept making gains last year. Didn't show up at the end of the day, but during the course of the races she definitely gained momentum. She had better finishes, and there were a lot of races that she had better days going and didn't get the results she was looking for. But just kind of keep building on the momentum. The hardest thing is getting her to focus on the positives that she had happen last year versus the negatives. She's so competitive, she's so driven that she looks at that end result at the end of the day and doesn't always look at what the result was that got her there, but to me it's taking the positives out of it and building on that, and if she can keep that in mind, then I think she'll do well.

Q. How important is merchandising as opposed to winning in NASCAR? Danica sells a lot of merchandise even when she's not winning. How important is that when you're factoring in how attractive a driver is?

TONY STEWART: I don't know, and I really don't care. All I care about is going out and winning races. The merchandising is not why I became a NASCAR driver. It's something kind of totally different. That's for the teams to worry about and the marketing side of it. We as drivers don't think about that or worry about that. We worry about what we can do to get in the car and win races every week.

Q. How about as an owner?

TONY STEWART: That's not my department of the ownership. Call our marketing department back at SHR and he'll tell you everything you want to know about it.

Q. From an emotional sense (inaudible)?

TONY STEWART: It was nice to have the off season we had. I was able to go home and do some things at home I wanted to do, and then I'm about to go watch our race cars run already this year and see a bunch of people that I haven't seen for a long time. I think we had a pretty good mix of being busy but having time off at the same time.

Q. Would you winning this year in any sense be more gratifying than it has been in the past because of what you had to come off of?

TONY STEWART: You want to win no matter what. I've been racing 37 years, and every year hasn't always been smooth. There's always you've had seasons that there's been bumps in the road, and you just look forward to winning your next race and trying to win your next championship.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]Q. You've won championships, but how gratifying would winning the Daytona 500 be?

TONY STEWART: If anybody looks at my career and says because I haven't won a Daytona 500 that I didn't have a good career, I'd want to say they really don't know what they're talking about.

Q. When do you think the owners (inaudible)?

TONY STEWART: Last week.

Q. What do you do mentally do get ready?

TONY STEWART: Something I've done for 37 years. I've been a driver for 37 years. I've only been an owner since 2001, and seven years ago with a Cup car, so this is something I don't really have to think about doing after 37 years of year in and year out doing it.