NASCAR's Tony Stewart Shifts Gears With New Team
Tony Stewart by Bennett Raglin/WireImage.com
Tony Stewart answered some important questions when he made what will be the 2008 NASCAR
season's biggest announcement on Thursday. He will own 50 percent of Stewart/Haas Racing next year, after finishing out the current season driving the No. 20 car for Joe Gibbs Racing. But it will be months before we get the answer to whether this is a good move or a bad one for Stewart. Let's tentatively call this a "be careful what you wish for" move.
Stewart, a two-time Sprint Cup champion, has been agonizing over this decision since the end of last season, when Joe Custer, General Manager of Haas CNC Racing, first made the offer; and the Gibbs team opted to start running Toyotas instead of Stewart's beloved Chevys. Along with his driving duties, Stewart currently owns four non-NASCAR race teams and three tracks. But racing every weekend and also co-owning an organization that will field two race teams means Stewart will be spreading himself mighty thin.
Granted, that may be short-run view. Stewart prefers to think way down the road, and is aiming to follow in the driver-turned-owner footsteps of Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr.
"I think as I've gotten a little bit older, you start realizing the importance of history," the 37-year-old Stewart said Thursday. "The opportunity to [own a team] in this sport was very important to me If we didn't think we were capable, we wouldn't have taken on this project." Then, showing his trademark sense of humor, he added, "who knows, we might buy an eight-year-old Little League baseball team next."
- Robert Edelstein
