Andrew Coppley/CIA Stock Photo
Armor All wanted Stewart because he seemed like, "an everyday guy."
Stewart is two people, depending on his surroundings. At the track, he isn't afraid to be surly, downright mean, even. He's not there to be your friend. Conversely, at home, he's jovial, a prankster. He's there to be your friend."People see the things on TV that the media likes, the controversial [stuff] that makes news," says Stewart, relaxing in a black director's chair placed strategically in front of a howling box fan. He is positioned on the front stoop of a massive lakefront estate owned by a Charlotte commercial real estate mogul.
There's a yacht docked out back, and a state-of-the-art, cherry-red helicopter is perched three stories above the shoreline. (Stewart explained that the blades rotate the opposite direction from the belts, and apparently that's a big deal. The family uses it to shuttle between three U.S. offices.) Armor All has rented the property for this brief portion of the shoot. Gorgeous cars pack the driveway. The Corvette. A red 1971 El Camino. A black '52 Buick with purple flames on the hood. It's all part of the decor. These are six very expensive seconds.Stewart continues."It's easy for people to form their opinions about you off of what they see," he says. "It's easy to make a judgment that way. But when you get me away from the racetrack, when I'm not thinking about what I have to do to win a race, what I have to do to maintain my sanity during that period, and you'll see a different side of me."
-- Tony Stewart
But what of the outbursts, the attitude that rubs so many people the wrong way? Stewart admits to wishing he handled things differently at times, but there is one thing he never regrets: genuineness."It's me. It's real. You know exactly where I stand," Stewart says. "You know if I'm upset about something. You know if I'm happy with something. I don't sugarcoat it. I don't lie to the media and tell them what they want to hear to make it politically correct. And at the end of the day, I can go to bed knowing I was true to myself."And his parents? What's his mama think when she sees him lose his temper?"I don't think there's ever a time in life when you don't have to explain yourself to your parents anymore," he says with a grin. "My parents have known me long enough to know [what I'm about]. They don't always agree with the things I do or say. Hell, I don't always agree with the things I do or say. "But it's done in the heat of the moment. It's done out of passion. It's done out of emotion. And yeah, there's times they wish I'd do or say something different, but they know why I do what I do. It's because it's me, and I'm passionate about what I'm doing. "If I didn't care about what I was doing, you wouldn't have that emotion. All in all, they've always been supportive. I am who I am. I'm not somebody fake."Stewart figures that 40 or 50 people truly know him -- and that roughly 70 million, "or however many people watch NASCAR," think they do. The criticism used to trouble him. But with time, he realized he wasn't in NASCAR for the popularity contest. He labels himself "bacteria" in today's sanitized NASCAR, but he understands well that is in fact why many Stewart fans are Stewart fans. They can identify with a guy who says what he thinks and gets angry when things don't go his way.There's an affinity for that in a PC world. And he ain't changin'. "That's part of why I get such a bad rap, because I won't let [the sport] change me," he says. "Whether it's popular or unpopular, I don't care -- this is me. And if you don't like what I have to say, don't ask me a question. If you don't like me, don't hang around me. Get out of the way so somebody that does like me can come hang around me. "Our fans don't like the cookie-cutter, polished, corporate guy. And there's nothing wrong with those guys, too, but that's why there's somebody in our series for everybody. There's somebody that every race fan can pull for and identify with. I've got a big fan base because people can identify with who I am."
Mass Communications 101
Stewart isn't much into changing, but he learned a valuable lesson earlier this year. Choose your verbal battles. That microphone will bite you. Just because a man has a platform doesn't mean verbal diarrhea is pertinent.
Mike Ehrmann/WireImage.com
Tony Stewart managed to get himself in a little trouble on his radio show.
Stewart is uncertain about how long he wants to stay in NASCAR. He says it really depends on the sport's evolution. This year has been the most demanding to date on his personal time. He is tired, says he has no life outside of the sport. Some of that is self-induced, of course, given his ownership of two sprint car race teams and two World of Outlaws teams, as well as having a hand in the ownership of three racetracks. He also owns a trucking company and a public relations firm and a remote control car business.And then there's the real job. Racing. The frustration has driven him to the brink of quitting "three or four times in the past four years." Eddie Jarvis, his business manager, has talked him off the ledge each time. "It just gets frustrating, being fed up with something that's going on," Stewart says. "It's nothing I wouldn't say 50 percent of the United States doesn't say after a bad day at work."In describing these encounters, the cut-up comes out."[Jarvis] only did that because he's still got a house payment," Stewart says, laughing. "He needs me. He needs me to still be working so he doesn't have to jump off the ledge! It's the truth! I'm going to have to take up a second gig being the [commercial "grip"] who's holding the hose and watering the driveway for 25 bucks a day."Stewart willl make the switch to Toyota in 2008, along with Denny Hamlin and new Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch. How that will change his image, he doesn't know, and he says he hasn't thought much about it. He understands the sensitivities among the fan base, but his loyalties center on Gibbs. He signed on at JGR because he believed in their leadership capabilities, and this switch doesn't change that.
Tom Copeland/CIA Stock Photo
A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do when working to make his sponsors happy.
And Busch most certainly will get every last ounce out of that racecar each week. "You've got three guys that are going to drive the heck out of the racecar," Stewart says. "We're all pretty similar. It doesn't mean we have to go out and have dinner together every night, but when it comes to working with each other, as a combination working relationship-wise, it's going to be very potent, because of our personalities."Family Plan
Stewart is a NASCAR champion twice over, an IndyCar champion and a USAC triple crown-winner. He's done it all on the racetrack. But his love life never has materialized as he'd like. When a man is gone, out of state, six days a week, it's difficult to gauge authenticity. "It's about the only thing in my life that I haven't been successful at that I want to be successful at," Stewart says. "It's hard to go meet somebody that isn't along for the money ride, that's more than willing to just jump on the road with you and go. "It's hard to find somebody that is intelligent and respectful and has integrity that you can even spend enough time with to know that, that you know is genuine."And genuine is what Tony Stewart is all about. In a NASCAR sanitized by corporate America, he tries hard to stay real. He is a walking Catch-22."To the average person, yes, it's too sanitized," he says of NASCAR. "To corporate America, no. You're asking corporations to spend millions and millions of dollars for having drivers as spokesmen for their companies. "If they're not sanitized to a certain degree, you're going to scare them off. I say that, but at the same time I don't think we're sanitized too much. We still have some bacteria around, and we seem to keep getting more gigs, so it seems to still be working."The latest gig beckons. The Armor All production crew has readied the cameras for an alternate angle of the crucial opening shot. Here comes Chris. Blot… Powder…Action!
Marty Smith is a contributor to ESPN's NASCAR coverage. He can be reached at ESPNsider@aol.com.
Source: ESPN.com
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