TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET, participated in the Championship Contenders Press Conference in Miami, FL. Full transcript:
SHANNON SPAKE: Now the fun begins. Congratulations for being the two who made it to this point and supplying one of the best championship Chases yet.
Tony, you won the title twice. Only eight drivers have won it three or more times. What would it mean to be in elite company? I would imagine this year would be special knowing you’re the one writing the checks.
TONY STEWART: It’s definitely an awesome opportunity for us. Still very appreciative that Gene Haas for even giving us this opportunity to not only drive for him but be a co-owner with him. At the same time it’s a pretty cool opportunity this weekend to be the other side of the bookend of Jimmie’s dynasty, to be the only guy that could win a NEXTEL Cup championship, a Sprint Cup championship, and a Winston Cup championship, being the first time since Allen Kulwicki as an owner/driver. That would be probably be the best part of it.
SHANNON SPAKE: You said at one point, We don’t deserve to be in the Chase. If you could have imagined being in this chair with one race to go, what would you have said?
TONY STEWART: I wouldn’t have thought that way 10 weeks ago. We had good racecars. We had the performance. We just weren’t getting the results at the end of the day. Some of them were self-inflicted; some of them were circumstances that got us there. We just didn’t have at that time the consistency that you need to run for a championship like this.
So we got off to a great start at Chicago and backed it up at Loudon, then we had our stumbling block, first one of the year in the Chase, with Dover obviously. But coming back and rebounding from the day we had at Martinsville to win that race, then to have the day we had at Texas leading the most laps and winning the race over Carl, those are the things that got us back in this position.
It’s an awesome position to be in. Three points really isn’t a deficit at this point. We go out and win the race, it doesn’t matter what they do on their side, we still control our own destiny.
We have absolutely got nothing to lose and everything to gain. That makes us a dangerous combination for the weekend.
KRISTA VODA: We’ll now bring Kerry Tharp back up here to start the question and answer segment.
KERRY THARP: We’ll start with questions for Tony.
Q. Tony, you were the last driver to win the championship before Jimmie Johnson’s streak. You could be the next driver to win the championship after Jimmie Johnson. Talk about how unique it is you could bookend both of those.
TONY STEWART: You have to win the first one to win the second one to have that opportunity, I guess.
You wouldn’t think you’d take a lot of pride in being the bookends of a dynasty. But it is a pretty cool position to be in, to know that there’s two guys in the last six years that have won championships, and we’re one of them. It would be nice to be the guy that gets on the other side of that obviously.
I rode home with Jimmie on the plane last weekend. Obviously it’s a disappointment to be eliminated from the Chase. It’s like I told him, I think that for him going to Vegas, to the banquet, they have to really hold their heads up high and be very, very proud.
It’s been an honor to watch him do what he’s done, but they need to be proud of what they’ve done the last five years. It’s probably something that will never happen again in the history of our sport. It’s very difficult to win a championship, let alone back-to-back and five in a row like that.
The competition keeps getting tougher and tougher every year. With this Chase format, you can’t make mistakes and have it pay off. To do what they’ve done has been extremely impressive.
Q. Your battle here has been trademark, you guys haven’t really clashed at all, been respectful towards each other. If it came down to the last lap and the only way around the other guy was to do a bump-n-run, would you dare do that, would you race each other clean?
TONY STEWART: I’d wreck my mom to win a championship. I’ll wreck your mom to win a championship (smiling).
I respect him as a driver, but this isn’t about friendships this weekend. This is a war. This is a battle. This is for a national championship. It’s no holds barred this weekend. I didn’t come this far to be one step away from it and let it slip away, so we’re going to go for it. They say there’s talkers and doers. I’ve done this twice.
Q. Tony, in 2002 and 2005, you had big leads going into the finale. How different a feeling is it and are you possibly more relaxed knowing you’re just three points behind and can just go out and race?
TONY STEWART: It’s been odd. The only part this week that’s concerned me and that I’ve been worried about is the fact that I haven’t been nervous about it. In 2002, 2005, we had big leads, but still you were nervous about it because you knew it could get away. I guess the fact we didn’t think we would even be in the Chase to begin with, it’s taken a lot of that pressure off.
We’re not trying to overcome a big deficit. We’re right there right behind him. For us, like I said, we can finish 43rd this weekend and not be any worse off than we are right now so we don’t have anything to lose. We can throw everything we got at it. If we make a mistake doing it, it doesn’t cost anything. There’s no penalty for us screwing up.
With that does, it takes every ounce of pressure away. We have everything to gain, nothing to lose. Like I said, it’s a dangerous combination to put us in that kind of mode because we’ve been hot lately, we’ve been running good, we’re feeling good, the team is feeling good about everything. You couldn’t ask for a better scenario.
We’ve been in that situation, and when that pressure comes on race day, it’s a little different feeling. Your race always goes a little bit different than what you planned. For us not having that pressure, I think it leads us to have a day like we’ve been having every week the last three or four weeks.
Q. NASCAR’s new points system has truly generated some big-time excitement here at Homestead. You guys are working the championship a little differently, Carl with consistency, Tony with wins.
TONY STEWART: The thing that I’ve been asked a lot about this week and even last week is, they’re like, How can their points system be good if the guy that’s won four races is behind a guy that hasn’t won any races?
The points system is good. It’s easy to look at that and say that it’s not good because of that fact. But what you got to understand is that, unlike other sports where it’s two teams against each other, it’s 43 teams, it’s a 10-race Chase. You accumulate points for 10 races.
The fact we’ve won four races doesn’t mean we should be ahead of Carl. We did not do our job in some of the other races. That got us behind. Because of the new system, having the bonus points for winning, we were able to catch up and gain those points back.
I think it’s proven to be a pretty good system so far. You have two guys within three points of each other going into the last race. I don’t know how you can say it’s bad.
Q. You guys have put on a pretty remarkable show, particularly over the last couple races. What have you learned about each other through this process and how much respect have you gained for each other throughout the process of competing in this Chase?
TONY STEWART: I don’t think the Chase has changed my level of respect for him. I’ve always respected him as a driver and a person. So the fact that you’re racing around him doesn’t change that because that’s what you do every week.
I don’t know that we’ve really learned anything about each other than the fact that we both know we have to be on our game. We’ve forced each other to take what would be a good day and you have to make it great to succeed.
We had Texas where we ran 1-2, the last week where we ran second and third. We’re keeping each other honest, in my opinion. It’s fun to have a championship race like that. You’re not worried about saying, Well, is this guy going to be able to recover? We’re forcing each other to both have good days.
Q. Tony, a week earlier you had said that you had Carl on the ropes. Do you still feel that way? How evenly matched are these teams and two of you as drivers?
TONY STEWART: Yeah, I feel that way. Like I said, whether Ron Jeremy down here believes us or not, we don’t have anything to lose. I mean, we literally don’t. There’s nothing that we can lose this weekend no matter what happens on the racetrack. We just don’t have anything to lose.
So I think when you got a guy that has something to lose, has a little to lose, then you got to worry about that a little bit. But when you’re a guy that has nowhere to go but up, you’re in that same situation and you race the way you always do. I think that makes you potent.
Q. Tony, everybody says there are no team orders out there. We all expect heavily there are. You have a lot of Ford drivers that are out there. You have Ryan, the Hendrick drivers. Any discussions the last week or so to let you guys have positions, let you have a win, anything like that? Do you want it to come down to that?
TONY STEWART: I don’t want it to come down to that. I feel like we can beat him heads up. We’ve raced for this position heads up and I think that’s the way it should end. It shouldn’t be about team orders.
We saw a hint of it last week. The 16 car picked a pit right in front of us. We never had an issue with it. But you know that that can happen.
Like we say, we’re racing for a national championship, so we are prepared that if something develops along that line, we have a countermeasure for the same thing.
But, no, nobody’s planning that way. You want to win this thing straight up. You want to win it because you did a better job than he did, not because somebody else got involved in the equation. That will take away from it.
.
Q. NASCAR hasn’t had a champion win its finale in 13 years. In both cases, if you win Sunday you win the title. With all the talk about winning lately, what would it mean to you personally and to NASCAR if that happens?
TONY STEWART: Yeah, I agree. It takes all the question of adding points, worrying about tiebreakers, this and that out of the equation when the fans can watch the guy that wins the race win the championship at the same time.
This is probably the best chance of having a championship decided with a win that you’ve ever had.
Q. Tony, have you talked to Foyt in the last couple weeks? If so, what did he say? Did he have any observations about the smack talk going on, whether it works or not? Also have you talked to Darrell Waltrip, the all-time master of smack talk, on whether he thinks it will work for you or not?
TONY STEWART: Foyt has how many championships and wins? How many has Waltrip got? I think they work.
No, I’ve not talked to Foyt. He’ll call me after we win on Sunday. We did speak to Darrell earlier. We both had a pretty good interview with him. It was fun.
It’s like Carl says, it’s like Kid Rock said: It’s not cocky if you back it up. I think we’ve been backing it up the last three weeks. It’s what our intention is.
KERRY THARP: That concludes the formal Q&A with our two championship contenders in the Sprint Cup Series.
Let’s bring back Shannon Spake and Krista Voda.
SHANNON SPAKE: After 10,000 laps and 13,000 plus miles it all ends in Victory Lane Sunday night. We thank you for your attendance.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports
About Chevrolet
Founded in Detroit in 1911, Chevrolet celebrates its centennial as a global automotive brand with annual sales of about 4.25 million vehicles in more than 120 countries. Chevrolet provides consumers with fuel-efficient, safe and reliable vehicles that deliver high quality, expressive design, spirited performance and value. The Chevrolet portfolio includes iconic performance cars such as Corvette and Camaro; dependable, long-lasting pickups and SUVs such as Silverado and Suburban; and award-winning passenger cars and crossovers such as Spark, Cruze, Malibu, Equinox and Traverse. Chevrolet also offers “gas-friendly to gas-free” solutions including Cruze Eco and Volt. Cruze Eco offers 42 mpg highway while Volt offers 35 miles of electric, gasoline-free driving and an additional 344 miles of extended range. Most new Chevrolet models offer OnStar safety, security and convenience technologies including OnStar Hands-Free Calling, Automatic Crash Response and Stolen Vehicle Slowdown. More information regarding Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com .
