Tony Stewart Scores 30th Career Nextel Cup Win And 15th Victory Of The Season for Chevy

Stewart's Win Makes it Fourth-Consecutive Chevy Victory at Chicagoland; Team Chevy Drivers Take Six of Top-10 Finishing Positions in USG Sheetrock 400

JOLIET, Ill. - Tony Stewart, No. 20 Home Depot Monte Carlo SS, captured his first win of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series (NNCS) in the USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. It was the former two-time NASCAR Cup champion's 30th Cup career victory and second win at the 1.5-mile venue.

"All these Home Depot guys won the race," said Stewart. "They got us the track position we needed, especially with late cautions like that. Being out front, being in clean air was everything. So every one of those guys with the Monte Carlo SS were the ones who got us in victory lane today, for sure."

Five Team Chevy drivers followed Stewart to the checkered flag, giving Team Chevy six cars in the top-10 finishing order.

Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Monte Carlo finished fourth, Casey Mears, No. 25 National Guard/GMAC Monte Carlo SS finished fifth, Jeff Burton, No. 31 AT&T Monte Carlo SS finished seventh, Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont/Nicorette Monte Carlo SS finished ninth and Clint Bowyer, No. 07 Jack Daniel's Monte Carlo SS finished 10th.

With his ninth-place finish, Gordon continued to hold his points lead with a 303-point advantage over second-place Denny Hamlin, No. 11 FedEx Express Monte Carlo SS, who finished 17th. Gordon and nine other Team Chevy drivers sit among the top-12 in the driver points standings.

Gordon's Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's Impala SS, was sidelined in an accident due to a cut right rear tire and fell to seventh in the standings.

Chevrolet maintains the lead in the Nextel Cup manufacturer points standings with 15 wins in 19 of 36 races completed.

Following a weekend off, the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season resumes on July 29th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT MONTE CARLO SS - Race winner:

HOW WAS YOUR CAR TODAY? "It was good. It was really good all day. The thing about here is you've got to have it so free on the front of a run to be good in the center and the end and we luckily, even with all those restarts, we never got a chance to get enough laps on the tires to really let us get tight enough. We were still just a little bit free there at the end... It was good enough in clean air even though it was free to stay out front. We just kept wanting a long run. We didn't want to see those cautions there at the end. Matt (Kenseth) was really good on restarts, I mean really, really good on restarts. I couldn't make a mistake. If I made one mistake I was going to have a hard time explaining to these guys how I lost the race.

"What won us the race is (crew chief Greg) Zippy (Zipadelli) and these guys - the pit crew - did an awesome job today. They kept us the track position at the end and that's what we needed. Track position was so important to let us run our pace and run the line that we wanted to run without having to worry about getting in dirty air. Thanks to these guys around me, that's what got us in Victory Lane again."

ON THE FENCE CLIMB: "Matt Yokum was telling me I looked like I was struggling a little bit but I told him to get his fat butt up there and see what he can do. That's not as easy as it looks. It's leaning out over the track."

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE'S MONTE CARLO SS - SIDELINED WITH A CUT TIRE:

ARE YOU OKAY? "Yeah, I'm okay. That certainly knocked the wind out of me and I hit my elbow on the seat. But I'm just disappointed. We had such a great race car and I was trying to have something there for the No. 20 (Tony Stewart). It's amazing when that tire blew how violent it was. I thought the drive shaft came out of the car it was so violent, but it was just the right rear tire."

WHAT HAPPENED? "We just blew the right rear (tire). I got a little bit looser on that run and evidently there is something up with that tire. Just going down the back straightaway that sucker exploded. I thought the drive shaft came out of it, it was so violent."

IT REALLY KNOCKED YOU HARD "Yeah, it knocked the wind out of me for a second. I hit my elbow on the seat. But to be honest with you, when it first turned around, I knew how fast I was going and I expected the impact to be a lot worse. It says a lot for the car and a lot for the soft walls and to get a bump on my elbow is all, that's pretty good."

ON RACING WITH TONY STEWART "Man, we were so even at the end. The run before, we were kind of even with one another. That run there we were just mirroring each other on times so I think it would have come down to traffic or if we would have had another pit stop and who got in the front then would have probably won the race. But we were definitely going to try hard. We had a good shot at it."

ON CHICAGOLAND "It's always been a great track. I've always had great finishes. I can't say enough for how hard the team has worked in giving me a great race car and how steady and consistent the car was all day. We're doing our part. We can't control flat tires. This is like the fourth flat tire we've had this year. It's taking us out of the points.

"Some years it goes in your direction and some years it doesn't as far as just good luck with tires and things like that.

"You don't want dnf's. We've got some tough tracks coming up before we get into the Chase and my mind is on that 12th spot. And to lose as many points as we did today doesn't help that cause. But even though there are some tough tracks coming up, we have some great race cars and they are good tracks for me."

DID YOU HAVE ANY WARNING ON THE TIRE? "No, it just instantly exploded."

I'M SURE CHAD KNAUS PROBABLY FELL OFF THE COUCH WATCHING THIS FROM HOME "He's probably kicked the TV off the stand by now, knowing him (laughs)."

JEFF GREEN- NO. 66 COMCAST / BEST BUY MONTE CARLO SS:

"The car was pretty good, but we got tight early on. Harold (Holly, crew chief) loosened me up on that first stop, but it was just a little too loose. We were waiting on the tire pressures to come up so the setup would come to me, but I slid up and got into Michael (Waltrip) and spun out. The positive is, this chassis is better than what we've had at other mile-and-a-half tracks this year, so hopefully we can get it dialed in at some of these other races."

MARK MARTIN, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14TH:

"This was just an awesome comeback by the U.S. Army Team," said Martin. "I let them down yesterday and we really had to fight back for this finish. I'm so proud to drive this car for (crew chief) Ryan Pemberton and this No. 01 Ginn Racing team.

"We had one of the best cars that I've ever had on Friday and I lost it yesterday in practice," added Martin. "But these guys really dug down and came back with all they had. To lose a car like that and be able to pull the backup out and be competitive really says a great deal about this team."

WARD BURTON, NO. 4 STATE WATER HEATERS MONTE CARLO SS - Accident on lap 201:

"The No. 22 (Dave Blaney) either had a tire come off or the wheel come off, I'm not sure what. I just drove in the corner on the high side pretty deep. That's really the only place on track I could have gone, but I couldn't get out of the way quick enough. Wrong place, wrong time. "We'd really made a lot of progress. Right then we were about three-tenths off the leader instead of closer to a second like we were earlier. That was the best we have been. It's a shame for everybody."

MARTIN TRUEX, JR., NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS MONTE CARLO SS - Engine:

"Something broke in the motor. I'm not sure what.

"The car was real good. We lost some track position earlier. We were running second there for a while. A bunch of guys got two new tires and we got hung back in traffic but we were getting our car better and we were getting spots one by one and we were up to eighth right there. We were getting the car better; it was looking good for us. It's frustrating."

J.J. YELEY, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES MONTE CARLO SS - Hit the wall:

"We just kind of lost balance halfway through the race. We had a really good car at the start and just kept working back and forth on trying to keep the car turning and keeping the balance good on it. We did a couple things and lost the balance and got really tight center and a little bit free on entry. It was just rolling off into. we went on the bottom and I'd been getting beat up - too slow down there. So I moved up, ran the top one lap and all was fine.

"Ran in there again and got free, got the wall lightly, thought everything was okay. Made two more laps and then cut down the right front tire and augured it in the fence really hard. A tough way to end the day. Definitely damaged the front clip - it killed it when I hit. I hate it for the guys. We haven't had a self-inflicted DNF by the driver yet but chalk one up to me today."

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 8 BUDWEISER MONTE CARLO SS:

WHAT KIND OF WORKOUT DID YOU GET THERE AT THE END OF THE RACE? "Well, about all I wanted. We had a really good car and the Bud team had a real good pit stop there that put us in third place there near the end of the race. We had a power steering pump lock up and I can't drive and keep up like that. We did the best we could. But Tony Jr. said to just make the best you can out of it and we did.

"I'm real proud of my Bud team. All day long the car was good. We were a top 10, top five car at times most of the day, so that was good."

WHAT WILL YOU DO DURING THE TIME OFF NEXT WEEK? "I'm going to sit on the porch and drink cold beer; and make it as cold as I can make it."

AT THE SAME TIME YOU WERE HAVING YOUR POWER STEERING PROBLEM, MARTIN TRUEX JR. WAS PULLING DOWN PIT ROAD. IT WAS ODD. YOU GUYS HAD TWO REALLY STRONG CARS TODAY AND PROBLEMS AT THE SAME TIME. "Yeah, he had a good run. He lost a lot of track position. His car was good and his car was good. I'm real proud of my team. We run good every week. We just have bad luck.

BOTH YOU AND MARTIN TRUEX HAVE BEEN RUNNING GOOD THIS PAST MONTH AFTER YOU ANNOUNCED YOU WILL LEAVE DEI IN '08 "Yeah, competition-wise, the race teams are doing great. My team is great. I ain't got no complaints."

YOU'RE STILL IN THE TOP 12 IN POINTS, WHAT'S YOUR MINDSET GOING INTO THESE LAST SEVEN RACES? "I don't want to think about it for a week (laughs). I want to go home and chill out and charge my batteries a little bit and come back and go after it, you know. We've got good cars. We'll be fine. We had that problem."

WITHOUT THAT PROBLEM, COULD YOU HAVE WON? "No. A top three would have been our best effort. We were a fifth, or sixth place car."

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT / NICORETTE MONTE CARLO SS:

HOW WAS YOUR DAY? "Frustrating. I thought we were going to be a lot better than that, I'll admit. When we dropped the green I was hoping we were going to be kind of like we were last year and march our way to the front. But we never did. And we just really struggled getting the balance on the car and getting the grip that we needed and we were pretty much a ninth or 10th place car other than that time we got track position. If we could have played that pit strategy perfect, we probably could have had a top five just based on track position, but we needed to work on the car a little bit and that got us a little bit behind.

"I was happy there at the end because we gained spots, you know, and we were going forward. We made a good call there the last stop by putting four tires on. But our car got tight there at the end and we had been loose all day. So yeah, I'm frustrated."

WHAT DO YOU ANTICIPATE OUT OF TONY STEWART NOW THAT HE'S GOTTEN HIS FIRST WIN OF THE SEASON? "He's been strong all year. They just haven't gotten the wins. And now he's got the wins. I never doubted him a bit. I feel like no matter what, that guy is a threat for the championship whether they've won races or not. And those last 10 (races) you know that team is going to step it up and by getting them a win, that's just going to give them some momentum. Right now, we're leading the points but we've got to be better, for sure."

CLINT BOWYER, NO. 07 JACK DANIELS MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 10th

"Another top-10 finish. We just have got to keep doing that. We've just got to keep doing it for the next seven races now. It was a good points day for us, unfortunately some of those cars we were around had some trouble. Nonetheless we were able to capitalize on it.

"The car was pretty good. I obviously made a mistake coming on pit road and got a speeding penalty. It put us behind the eight-ball. We fought the rest of the day trying to get that back. Once we got up there we were forced into putting two tires on and doing some different things that we wouldn't have had to have done otherwise."

DENNY HAMLIN, NO. 11 FEDEX EXPRESS MONTE CARLO SS - Finished 17th

ON YOUR RACE: "We had a tough day. We decided we were going to experiment with our setups at this point of the season. Spend the next five to six weeks just kind of messing around, I guess you could say. It was a mediocre day for us. I think we ended up 15th or 16th, something like that. We were a 10th- to 15th-place car all day. Just could not get a handle on this car. It's never been run before and the setup was kind of out of the box. So we'll get back to basics there at Indy and try to win that one."

HOW DO YOU SEE THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEASON FOR YOU AND WHAT WILL YOU TRY TO DO? "We're spending the second half just experimenting. We're going to go to Kentucky tomorrow and play with some things. We feel like our program as a whole is good enough to win the championship the way it was with some fine-tuning. We're trying to get that fine-tuning now. In order to do that, you have to invest time and spend some of these races doing things you wouldn't normally do. Yeah, it's not going to show up with great results on race day but it will show up at the end of the year."

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO SEE YOUR TEAMMATE WIN AFTER WHAT YOU TWO HAVE BEEN THROUGH OVER THE PAST WEEK? "I'm really happy for them. I know they were kind of stressed-out like we were to finally get a win, in the dominating fashion he did, was really good for that team. It seems like they always bounce back. Whenever there's adversity they always seem to pull together and come back and get a win. It's good for them. We got ours a couple weeks ago and they get theirs this week."

KEVIN HARVICK, NO. 29 SHELL-PENNZOIL MONTE CARLO SS - Finished fourth

ON YOUR RACE: "This whole Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet team dud a great job today. You'd have thought I was running 30th as bad as I was complaining about the car. The first half of the race the car was really loose. We tightened the thing up and all of a sudden it was just really tight. We had to start unwinding things out of the car there at the end to loosen it back up. A good, solid run for us. That's what we needed. We just need a little bit of momentum. The performance is there. We just need things to go our way."

CASEY MEARS, NO. 25 NATIONAL GUARD/GMAC MONTE CARLO SS - Finished fifth

ON YOUR RACE: "I feel real good. Just real proud of the National Guard/GMAC Chevrolet guys. We wanted more than that. We wanted to try to win today but we had a great start to the weekend with sitting on the pole. A good solid day. We started off the day really, really loose. The guys worked on the car all day long and got it to where it was working pretty good there at the end. It actually ended up a little too tight right there at the end. But I'm real proud of all the guys for this weekend. It was a good weekend all the way around."

IS THE PROGRESS YOU MADE TODAY ON THE CAR THE SIGN OF A GOOD RACE TEAM? "Well, the first thing you've got to do in these races is stick around all day long and obviously we were consistent and patient and the guys made the right calls there at the end. I think that we just keep growing as a team and it's just going to get better from here. We just keep learning together."

TONY STEWART, NO. 20 HOME DEPOT MONTE CARLO SS, GREG ZIPADELLI (ZIPPY), CREW CHIEF, and J.D. GIBBS, PRESIDENT, JOE GIBBS RACING

Winner's Post Race Transcript, Chicagoland Speedway

TONY STEWART:
TALK ABOUT YOUR WIN AND YOUR FEELINGS RIGHT NOW
"I'm actually more overjoyed than anything. I'm just finally glad that we've got the monkey off our backs at least for one week. This should have been the fourth or fifth time we've been sitting in this (media center) room with you guys after the race is over. But whether it's been fuel mileage or just bad luck, we just haven't been able to close one off. So today was a very textbook day in all reality for us. We started 19th and we worked our way into the top 10 and then we got a caution and Zippy and I had talked about what had happened in the Busch race yesterday and just really got on the same page today as far as some ideas that we wanted to do; not that we don't normally do that, but we both had seen the same things from yesterday's race. New tires weren't as important as having track position so we just needed that at the beginning of the race. We were a little too tight. Zippy made a change and the car really was good the rest of the day from there on. There were just little things that he did to fine-tune it. Once we got in the top three, I felt like in my head that we had a shot at winning the race. I knew that with Kevin (Harvick) in front of us and we started running him down. And Jimmie and some of the guys that had been leading the race and were in the top two or three, really weren't making time on us and we were on older tires than they were. So, it makes you feel good as a driver when you see the guys aren't running you down from behind and you're running the guy down in front of you. Today, the difference was pit stops. The guys had awesome pit stops and got us track position when we needed it; especially that last stop. Being able to stay ahead of everybody and have that clean air on restarts. Matt (Kenseth) was really good on restarts on cooler tires. It seemed like we were really a little bit too free for a short stint and a short run, but that's what we kept getting with the cautions coming out. But we just needed a long ru n. Our car was a lot better after about eight or 10 laps. The short runs there really hurt us and gave Matt the opportunity to close in and cool his tires off and make a run at us. But it seemed like once we would get about six or seven laps on the tires the car would start coming into it balance-wise and we could start driving away."

WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS FROM ON TOP OF THE BOX?
GREG ZIPADELLI: "Obviously for myself and my team, it came at the right time. We get a weekend off and we can enjoy it a little more than you normally do. It's leading up to a couple of good race tracks for us with Indy and Pocono and Watkins Glen coming, we'll take this momentum and head to the second half of the season. I'm proud of everybody back at the shop. This is a brand new car that we didn't even test. I've been wearing them out on building us new cars for the last half of the year and they've done a good job of answering to it. They've put two or three bodies on this thing and they haven't stopped. They've done a lot of work that people don't realize that goes on back home and the preparation and effort that goes on before we even get here. Our motor room with this new RO7 has done a great job and haven't missed a beat. Knock on wood, we haven't had any issues. So I'm proud of everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing for today. It was a team effort. Our pit stops were awesome. Tony did a phenomenal job getting off pit road through traffic and these are the days that you like to have. You just go out and work on the car and have fun. It kind of was a little bit, I don't want to say relaxing, but it wasn't the first 18 races we've had with something going wrong. Everything worked for us today and everybody kept their heads high most of the season and that's what I think finally broke the ice for us."

WERE YOU REALLY FEELING AS CALM ABOUT NOT WINNING YET THIS YEAR AS YOU SHOWED?
STEWART: "From my side, I really felt that way. It's like I tried to explain to you guys, and you guys make more out of it and make us more stressed out than we do about ourselves. We take it one week at a time. You guys are the ones with the stats. From my standpoint, when I've got a car every week that I know at least I'll have the capability of running up front with, you know that you can't have bad luck forever. And there have been times when we've had strings when we couldn't do anything wrong and had all the luck go our way. It just goes in cycles. If it was a situation where we couldn't run up front and there were two or three teams that had stuff figured out and we couldn't compete with them and we were running 20th or 30th every week and couldn't figure out what to do to get in the top five again, then you would be worried about not winning races. But when you lead 250 of 280 laps at Bristol and you gain 15 seconds on the leaders at Sonoma, and you're the fastest car on the race track at the end of the race at Charlotte but you don't win because of fuel mileage; it's those things that carry you to the next week. You say hey, we're not doing a bad job. We just need a little luck to go our way. So from my standpoint, I firmly believe what I've told you guys. I haven't been freaking out about it. I've been happy that we've been in the position that whether it was the car of tomorrow or there was the car we had this weekend but everywhere we've been, we seem to be competitive. We have been better at some of the tracks we struggled at this year than we have in the past. Plus, the tracks have been good at, we've maintained our competitiveness. So I've really felt good about the season even though the win column doesn't show it."

COULD YOU SEE THAT TONY WAS HURTING MORE THAN HE WAS LETTING ON?
ZIPPY: "I have to agree with Tony. When you hear it every week, how come you haven't won? We haven't done a lot of things differently than we have in the past. Today was our day and it took 19 races for us to get there. But I think everybody is doing a good job. Our pit crew has improved. Fuel mileage has hurt us in a few places and we're working hard on that. The problem is, when you run as fast as we have at some of these places, your fuel mileage hurts. And you've got to be careful what you wish for.

"But we've had good race cars and he's driving the hang out of them. That's put us in some predicaments that we could have won. So to me, it's really not that big a deal. We always seem to win; we're winning at the right time right now as far as here and carrying it to the second part, the monkey's off our back so it's just another day really."

DOES THE CHASE FORMAT NOW MAKE IT LESS IMPORTANT IF YOU HAVE A FEW BAD RACES AT THE START OF THE YEAR SO LONG AS YOU WIN AT THE RIGHT TIME?
STEWART: "Yeah, you guys (media) are really good on stats and figures. The first 26 (races) are really relevant except for how many wins you've got. That's the only thing that those first 26 weeks count for and that's getting you the bonus points. Other than that, as long as you're in the top 12, it doesn't matter whether you're first or 12th. As long as you're in there, that's what it takes to get you in the show. And then you need to be good from there. But it's not a life or death situation if you have a bad day as long as after 26 races you're in that top 12 group. If you have one bad race and it puts you 15 points out like it did us last year, then it is bad. It just depends on each individual team's scenario. But we're not sending the space shuttle to outer space with this format. It's pretty easy to figure out. Twelve guys get in and they have the same amount of points and the guy that won the most races gets 10 extra bonus points for every race you win. It's easy to d o the math. It's easy for everybody to follow."

THIS PUTS YOU ON A NICE ROAD GOING TO INDY. ARE YOU GLAD TO HAVE A WEEK OFF?
STEWART: "You have no idea how glad I am to have a week off. I'm taking this momentum on vacation. And I've got a case of Schlitz that I fully intend on getting to the bottom of the cardboard box tonight, even if I have to do it by myself. I don't care. It's going to happen. That's if I don't pass out first (laughter). You guys laugh at me like nobody drinks Schlitz anymore. The good thing is they stock it close to home and it's only about eight bucks a case, cold. And if you've got a couple of roommates and you've got seven in the fridge when you leave, you've got seven in the fridge. You're not supporting everybody else's drinking habits. Mike Arning, my publicist, taught me how to drink responsibly. Thank you, Mike."

COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THE SIDE-BY-SIDE DUEL WITH MATT KENSETH; AND WITH CLEAN AIR, COULD HE HAVE DONE THE SAME THING TO YOU THAT YOU DID TO HIM AT THE END?
STEWART: "Yeah, he could have. Very easily. The thing that I noticed watching Matt was the two times that Jimmie (Johnson) and I were first and second, Matt was able to stay with us for six or eight laps and then it seemed like his car would fall off a little bit and I'm sure a lot of that was air.

"But as long as I didn't give him the outside, I think I was in good shape. Jimmie got by us and ran us down on the top and then after he went by, I moved up. I didn't move up as far as he did but I moved up to the middle of the track and found a spot that I really liked and we got faster and got back by. As long as we had that line available to us, we were fine. I ran the bottom to more try to disturb the air on his car because I knew he could stay down so we could stay down too, but the longer we stayed in front of him, the harder it was going to make it for him to have clean air and keep a run on us. It very easily could have been a different outcome if he cleared us on that first restart."

ON YOUR RECORD AT CHICAGOLAND YOU HAVE RUN EVEN WITH JEFF GORDON IN JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT LAPS LED. HOW COMFORTABLE ARE YOU ON THIS TRACK AND HOW MUCH DID YOU DISCUSSION WITH J.D. GIBBS AFFECT YOUR WIN TODAY?
STEWART: "I think we've always been good here. You look at the past and we've had some weird events. On Friday's we've had two events where we've crashed in practice. The first time Hermie Sadler blew a motor and before the caution came out we crashed in his oil and went to the hospital and I think we missed a day that day. And then a couple of years ago we blew a tire in practice and JJ (Yeley) had to qualify for us. It's one of those places where as long as we get through Friday, we feel like we've got a shot at it. But I don't watch the stats very much. You just take it week to week. Technology in the sport changes so fast. What was good the last time you were here doesn't mean it's going to be good this time around. So you constantly have to work. It's like Greg said where you bring a brand new car that we haven't even ran here, and win with it, so it's just proof that you've got to keep pushing the envelope. It's a place I like. This place is really getting racy as far a s finally being able to move around and change lines and run anywhere from the bottom to the top so it makes it a fun track because of that."

WERE YOU SURPRISED THAT JOE GIBBS FELT IT NECESSARY TO COME OUT HERE YESTERDAY AND WHAT WAS THAT MEETING LIKE?
STEWART: "It was a good meeting. And the good part was that it was fairly short because Joe can get long-winded sometimes. Joe Gibbs' strength is that he knows how to motivate people and how to keep a team atmosphere and attitude. It was a great meeting. The good thing is Denny (Hamlin) and I talked and we had a great conversation. Even today, if you really watch the two of us when we were around each other at the beginning of the race (at Daytona) we were even pointing on the race track to each other trying to help each other find spots we think are going to help each other. When I went to the top and got by him I pointed over the roof like, come up here and try this because he's actually better at running the top than I am. He got back down to the bottom and pointed me back down there saying I think this is going to be better. So, we worked probably better today than we've ever worked as teammates. And Denny is a young guy. And as far as teammates, we're only a year and a h alf into our relationship and out of a half-hour meeting yesterday, it's probably going to make us stronger than ever and today was a good example of that. We worked really well together and will continue to do that."

DID YOU END UP GOING TO ELDORA LAST NIGHT?
STEWART: "Yes. Kasey Kahne and myself both did. We got back at about 12:30 a.m.

DO YOU GET A CHANCE TO CLEAR YOUR HEAD AFTER SOMETHING LIKE THAT?
STEWART: "No, it gives you a chance to work on your ulcer. When you've got a race team that you own there and you've got a big event like the King's Royal and you've got a corporate sponsor like Crown Royal there, you want to make sure that everything goes right. We probably had close to 18,000-20,000 fans there last night that want to see a good race. It's hard to keep a dirt track prepared nice and it's almost impossible to not have dust anymore. For winged Sprint Cars they want it dry and slick and anytime it gets dry you get dust. It's hard to keep the track prepared the way they want it and not let it get locked down with rubber and make it a one-groove race track. As a promoter last night, I'm worried to death because I want every one of those fans there to see a good race and you want Crown Royal to be happy and you want the competitors to be happy. I wouldn't say anything about last night was relaxing. It was stressful but I choose to do that because I love - ev en with the ulcers it gives you, it's well worth the time spent to know that you make that many people happy."

ON MACON SPEEDWAY:
STEWART: "If you guys don't know, I'll be at Macon Friday night so that's part of my vacation. I don't even know what I'm driving yet. Schrader says I'm running a late model. Kenny Wallace says I'm running a modified and I thought I was running a midget. So I don't know what I'm driving there yet but we'll figure it out when we get there, I guess."

HOW DO YOU THINK THE TRACK HERE HAS MATURED OVER THE YEARS?
STEWART: "Both here and Kansas City - I call them sister tracks because with the exception of the bow in the backstretch here, they're identical race tracks for the most part - both of them, it seems like the last couple years in particular, have come around. They've seasoned and it's got to where we finally got off the bottom and move around the race track more. That's what you want as a driver, that's what teams want. You don't want to be stuck following guys and not being able to move around and pass. Early in the Busch race yesterday it moved up and that made me happy knowing. and half the time the Cup cars are going to get up there. You look on lap four or five and I thought I saw Dale Jr. about six inches from the top of the wall and I thought 'the good thing is it's moved all the way up already because he's there'. So he's a pretty good benchmark of knowing when the track is ready to move up. It just makes you confident that at least you've got options when you go in the corner of where you can go when you can help yourself out as a driver, kind of like what we talk about at Michigan about being able to move around. It makes this place a lot more fun when you're able to move around like it is. So the first couple of times that we came here we all dreaded it because it was just single-file racing and all you heard us talk about was aero push. Now you can't really use the aero push excuse too much anymore because you have the ability to move around on the race track more."

DO YOU THINK THE NEW CAR WILL BE CONDUCIVE TO PASS AT ANY POINT IN THE RACE ON A TRACK LIKE THIS?
STEWART: "Well, it hasn't been that way so far, really. But it's a new car for everybody too. We've been working with this style of car for. the teams have been working with it before I even got here. It's evolved over time. With the new car, it's a new formula. Finding the right equation to what it wants and what makes the car happy is the hard thing for Greg and the rest of the guys at the shop. In time I'm sure it will get that way but I think we've all got to keep in mind how technology moves and what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with a brand-new car that's going to run half the season this year and I'm not sure right away we can all have the expectations that it's going to solve the world's problems as far as racing is concerned right off the bat. But it will get there, I believe."

ZIPPY: "It's definitely taken a lot of things to make that car work but I don't know that the outcome has been drastically different. It will be interesting when we start testing these things at the mile-and-a-half and two-mile places to see what it brings. I think that if it doesn't work, they'll probably make changes with it and try to make it better."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT GOING TO INDIANAPOLIS: ZIPPY: "It doesn't matter where we go as long as we get the weekend off. It's just another race track. It pays the same amount of points. We're going there to win like we do every week. We're not going to work any harder, we're not going to work any less. We're going to prepare like we do, bring our best stuff there and hopefully we'll win there for a second time."

WHAT DO YOU FEEL THE PERFECT CUP SCHEDULE WOULD BE?
STEWART: "I don't know. I think it's bigger and further than what I can grasp. As a promoter I can understand why we go to the places we go and the markets and the value of that to our sport but it depends on which angle you look at it from. If you look at it from a crew and team angle, if you look at it from a driver's angle, if you look at it from a sanctioning body's angle you're going to get three different answers there. And rightfully so. There's reasons that NASCAR has the schedule the way it is. There's reasons that drivers and teams want it cut back but NASCAR hasn't got here by making bad decisions and hasn't built the sport to where it is by making bad decisions."

J.D. GIBBS, PRESIDENT OF JOE GIBBS RACING

ON THE EVENTS OF THE WEEK: "Obviously it was a tough week. You had two great cars last week and getting a break and going through all the stuff we went through this week, and then dad (Joe Gibbs) made a guest appearance yesterday so I said 'hey, I told them before, I just work here. You own the thing so come back every Saturday if you want to, if that's what it takes.' He said that he's got his full-time job kicking off here in a couple of weeks so it was good wrap-up to a tough week."

TO GET A WIN, IS IT AS SIMPLE AS HAVING JOE GIBBS COME TO THE TRACK TO CALM THINGS DOWN? "Ask him, he'll tell you that (laughs). I think the reality. I looked up at the board halfway through and I think it said we led in 13 of 18 races so I look at that and think 'oh my gosh, last season it was 14 of 19'. So I think the reality of it is, we've had good cars week in and week out. If you do that long enough, you're bound to hit your stride. As always, we kind of hit our stride, for some reason, summertime on. So that's fine. If that's the case we'll take that and be strong at the end of the year."

TONY SEEMS TO BE HIS BEST WHEN THERE'S THE MOST CHAOS AROUND. DO YOU THINK THAT'S TRUE? "There's something to be said for that. When you kind of look back. of course, with Tony there's always a lot of chaos going on. So you can take your pick. I think for him, he's passionate about what he does. From day one he's always told you what he's thinking. At times, I think what he's learned - he has matured over the years - to pick certain battles to fight. Certain battles aren't worth fighting and certain ones are. For him, I think this one. you know, last week our issue was he said some stuff after the race. Those guys had a chance to get together yesterday. I think he does. Tony's used to, since he was a kid. he's had some big stuff going on all his life. So I think it's probably no different but the reality of it is even when that stuff wasn't happening, we had good race cars and should have won a bunch of races, we just didn't. That's part of life, really."

IF THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS DON'T GET OFF TO A GOOD START, DOES TONY HAVE TO GO GIVE THEM A PEP TALK? "I did tell my dad - we won five of 11 games last year - I said, 'if we win five of 11 this year you will be back full-time' (laughs). Tony made a few appearances up there and it's kind of neat to watch those guys interact. But I'm not sure if my dad's going to have him give any pep talks up there any time soon."

IS THIS A GOOD YEAR FOR TONY TO CATCH UP BEFORE THE CHASE? "Looking at the points, we felt pretty good last week. We didn't feel like we had a huge cushion in the top 12 so it's kind of nice to get this under your belt and really have a chance here to really tune and get prepared for those last 10 races. That's kind of the mode we're in right now. Let's get all the wins we can get and spend this time tuning for those last 10."

IS YOUR DAD PRETTY TOUGH WHEN HE TALKS TO THE DRIVERS AND DID HE ASK FOR YOUR PERMISSION TO DO SO? "I couldn't make it out yesterday and I think he realized. he was on his way out for a West Coast trip so for him to be able to stop and spend some time. he's obviously very passionate about it as well. What most people don't realize, when you get my dad in the NFL and football, he's almost always serious. Crazy intense. Over here, you kind of see him laid back, hanging out. But I think he was a little more intense yesterday than he normally is in the racing world. His personality, which I love about our team, if there's a problem he'll deal with it quickly and move on. We learned some hard lessons years ago and that's the best way to deal with it. Hopefully we can move on past that."

AFTER ALL THE HENDRICK DOMINANCE EARLY IN THE YEAR, DO YOU THINK THINGS ARE EVENING OUT NOW? "They were pretty good today. I do think, if you look back over the last 10 years is there's always a little cycle. There's kind of a wave and we've kind of been through it. We had a chance to win through the last seven championships. I think Rick (Hendrick) is going to win a couple, Jack (Roush) has won a couple. There's just kind of a wave that comes and goes but I think the guys are on top of their game more consistently throughout a year and be dominant. That's kind of our goal. We might not be winning everything but you know your cars are good, your guys are good and that gives you kind of peace there."

HOW FRUSTRATED DO YOU THINK TONY WAS AFTER LAST WEEKEND? "I don't really know if he was crazy frustrated. I think crazy frustrated would have been when you're running in mid-pack and you don't have a chance to win. That's when you get really frustrated. I think we've been through these issues before and I think he obviously wants to win. I think for him, the points thing is what it is but he wants to win. That's what he lives off of because that's what he grew up with. I think it did bother him some. I don't think that led to him saying some of the stuff he did last Saturday night."

HOW MUCH PEACE OF MIND CAN THIS GIVE TONY? "I don't know. I would hope that it makes him feel good about. we all know he's a phenomenal race car driver. Unless he's winning consistently, he's going to be frustrated. I think the same is with Zippy and Denny and Mike Ford, even with J.J. and Steve Addington. All those guys are used to winning. If they don't win they're going to be frustrated. I don't think there's any undercurrent or any kind of hidden message in all of this, I think it was just about time he won. He's run well long enough and you're going to have your shots."

WHY WAS THE SITUATION BETWEEN TONY AND DENNY HANDLED HERE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE AND NOT IN THE SHOP LAST WEEK? "We haven't been in this sport that long. We've been here 16 years and it used to be if there was a problem 10 or 12 years ago, everyone was right there. Everyone was in Charlotte. You grab them and you sit down and deal with it. The reality of it now is Tony is going places, Denny is going places, we're going places. So the reality of it was, to sit down face to face, which is what we felt like we needed to do, the first opportunity to do that was here. So we addressed it with Tony and Denny during the week and the understanding was that when you come here, we're going to sit down and have a conversation and move on."