Race 2 Win: NEXTEL Cup Series Race Notes

Nextel Cup Series

NEXTEL All-Star Challenge - Tony Stewart Notes

TONY STEWART
All-Star Test Session

ATLANTA (May 14, 2007) – When Major League Baseball plays its All-Star game July 10 at the home of the San Francisco Giants, players won’t be there to test out the field or develop a new bat that always hits home runs. They’ll be there to put on a show, plain and simple.

But the NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge – NASCAR’s version of an All-Star game – does all that and more. Fans will certainly be treated to a show at the 1.5-mile Charlotte oval, as top NASCAR drivers compete for a $1 million payout in a race with no point ramifications.

But overshadowed by the glitz of the event is a high-profile test session. Drivers and teams can use the track time garnered from participating in Saturday night’s All-Star Challenge and put it toward next weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 – a point-paying race that is also at Charlotte.

For Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing, the All-Star Challenge represents the perfect test session. Unlike most test sessions that are lonely and monotonous, there’s actual competition in the All-Star Challenge. And the incentive of a nice trophy augmented by an equally nice paycheck is not overlooked.

The winner of the All-Star race will take home $1 million. How does that sound?
“It sounds great. There are a lot of things I can do with a million dollars, and the fact that I own a race track (Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio), a lot of bills I could pay off too.”

This year’s All-Star Challenge format has been broken up into four 20-lap segments, with no inversions following any of the segments. Last year you had three segments at 40, 30 and 20 laps, respectively, with the field being inverted after the first two segments. Does the new format change your approach to the race?
“Not really. You still go out and try to win each segment. Obviously, the last one is the one that pays the big money. But if you can win any of those segments, it pays a little bit. If you can get up front in the first one, you’ve got a better shot at staying up front for the last three.”

Can the All-Star Challenge be used as a test session for the Coca-Cola 600?
“Absolutely. It always is. If your car is driving well, you’re running for a million dollars. But if your car isn’t driving well, you’re learning from that and applying it to the 600 instead. I’ve always looked at it as however your car is driving in the All-Star race is relatively true to how your car is going to drive in the 600. It’s a really good test because it’s really the only time we have to run at night in race conditions.”

Has the still relatively new pavement at Charlotte and the tire compound provided by Goodyear made the cars harder to drive? Is it difficult to find grip?
“Grip is still an issue and the tires are still too hard, but now we’re at least able to move around the race track. During testing, we were moving up to the high side on both ends of the track. It does have the potential to be better. It’s just a matter of being able to try to work with the tires and do what you can to get in clean air.

“These cars are always hard to drive. If they were easy to drive, you and everybody could do it. When you’re in the car, it still feels loose or tight. Sometimes you’re in a four-wheel drift and you have to make adjustments based on that. That aspect of driving these cars really hasn’t changed. It doesn’t seem to me to have been a huge transition.”

With other tracks wanting Nextel Cup races and NASCAR wanting to be in new markets, is the All-Star Challenge still needed?
“I don’t think we need to add another point race to replace the All-Star race. I think it’s nice to dedicate a weekend to the race fans. We put on a race for them where we’re not worried about points. We’re all hanging it out every lap, instead of three-quarters of the way through the season, where some guys are hanging it out while others are points racing. It’s good to have one evening where we all just get up on the wheel and put on a good show for the fans.”

Chassis No. 168:
This is a brand new race car, with its only track time having come during testing at Charlotte May 7-8.

Notes of Interest:

This is Stewart’s ninth year in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series and his ninth year in the All-Star Challenge at Charlotte.

Stewart won The Winston Open during his rookie year in 1999 to advance into The Winston, where he finished second for his career-best finish in The Winston. Stewart’s best finish since has been a pair of third-place efforts (2001 and 2004).

Stewart won the first segment of the NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge in 2004 and the second segment of The Winston in 2001.

Home Depot store No. 6217, located in Wallingford, Conn., will be represented on the lower rear quarterpanel of the No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolet during the NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge. Store No. 6217 was judged to be the outstanding store of the week, thereby earning its place on the orange and black Joe Gibbs Racing machine.

Home Depot Corporate Notes:

NASCAR drivers Tony Stewart and Brian Vickers are teaming up with volunteers from The Home Depot, Joe Gibbs Racing, Red Bull Racing, KaBOOM! and members of the Charlotte community to build a racing-themed playground in just one day on Thursday, May 17 at the Cabarrus Victims Assistance Network (CVAN), Cabarrus County’s shelter for battered women and their children in Concord, N.C. The playground is part of The Home Depot’s Racing to Play program that is aimed at making a lasting, positive impression in the lives of children who live in NASCAR race communities.

The playground’s design is based on drawings by children who are served by CVAN. The new playground will provide a safe and healthy play space for more than 250 children CVAN assists annually. The shelter’s playground equipment is more than 15 years old and needs upgrading after years of heavy use.

The Home Depot’s Racing to Play program will build 10 racing-themed KaBOOM! playgrounds in 2007 and is a partnership between The Home Depot, Joe Gibbs Racing, and KaBOOM!, a national non-profit organization whose vision is to create a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. In the program’s first two years, more than 4,400 volunteers donated approximately 33,300 hours of service to build 20 Racing to Play playgrounds that have impacted the lives of more than 11,000 children in race markets across the country.

Racing to Play is part of The Home Depot’s $25 million commitment to KaBOOM! to create and refurbish 1,000 playspaces in 1,000 days. As a founding partner of KaBOOM!, The Home Depot provides financial support, materials and numerous volunteers and is part of its ongoing commitment to give back to the communities its stores serve. By the end of 2007, The Home Depot will have built and funded more than 1,000 KaBOOM! play space projects.