Stewart sees both sides of issues as an owner, driver

Tony Stewart has never been one to mince words.

If you ask a question of the man they call Smoke, you'd better be prepared to get the bare-knuckled, unvarnished, wide-open truth.

Stewart made an announcement on Thursday at Lowe's Motor Speedway concerning his World of Outlaws sprint car team, and when Stewart, his new driver Donny Schatz and representatives from Armor All were finished with the scripted portion of the press conference, Stewart stepped up for a conversation.

As you might imagine, the topics were mostly NASCAR-related, but Stewart spent plenty of time talking about team ownership, the joys of being the gofer on race night at the dirt track and giving a little back to those on their way up now.

Q: When you go to the racetrack with your World of Outlaws teams, how hands-on are you as a car owner?

Stewart: When I get a chance to go to the track ... like at Talladega, when the Outlaws used to run Talladega Short Track at night during race weekend, we'd be over there every night so I could be down there with the guys working. I'm kind of the grunt. I get to do all the odd jobs, the stuff they don't want to do. With only three crew guys on a [World of Outlaws] team, when you can help one guy out and lighten his load from the 90-some races they run every year. If I can help them by doing something they don't have to do, it makes that night a lot easier for them. It's fun. It's fun to hang out with the guys, fun to hang out with the drivers. I'm not saying, 'This is what you've got to change.' That's the crew chief's job. I look at it as playing the Joe Gibbs role, except we don't trust Joe to work on anything in the pits.

I do the stuff I know I can do and try to be as much of a benefit as I can when I'm at the track. When we're home and I can get up to the shop, it seems like just being around gets the guys pumped up. I enjoy it. I'm passionate about the sport, I've always been passionate about dirt racing, and it just seems like the World of Outlaws and USAC are the two series I'm enjoying the most right now.

Q: With the guys coming in like Dario Franchitti and Juan Montoya, does it seem like there's less chance of a dirt-track racer or short-track guy getting a shot at Cup now? Is the feeder system messed up?

Stewart: I don't think so. You're getting it from two different directions now. Brian Clauson at Ganassi is a perfect example. You've got Franchitti and Juan from Indy cars and Formula One, and then you have Brian Clauson from the USAC ranks, so I think there's room here for all of them.

Q: You have sprint cars sponsored by Bass Pro Shops, Chevrolet and now Armor All. What is that going to do for the series?

Stewart: Hopefully, it shows some of these major corporations that there are other professional racing series they can be a part of and not have to spend $20 million a year doing it. The TV packages are getting better and better for the World of Outlaws late models and sprint cars, and USAC is trying to get another TV package done too. It's showing that if you don't have the budget to be a Cup sponsor or a Busch sponsor or a Truck sponsor, there is a series where you can be a primary sponsor and still get a lot of press for it.

It helps out racetracks as well. The more corporate sponsors we can get involved with these series, sponsoring cars, when they come to your track, they're asking, 'You've got billboards? Well, we want a billboard.' They go hand in hand; when you have good cars, good tracks and good sanctioning bodies, then you can attract good sponsors. (Continued)