Tony Stewart - Texas Motor Speedway Post-Practice Quotes

Tony Stewart
No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolet

RE: THE SPRING RACE HERE, WHAT YOU REMEMBER ABOUT IT
I have no idea, honestly. And the thing I remember about the spring race was leaving with burns on my leg. I don't really remember much about it.

IS SUNDAY THE LAST "IF" RACE FOR YOU REMAINING THIS SEASON?
No, I don't think so. I'm excited about this weekend. I think our mile-and-a-half program has come a long way since we came here in the spring. You know, the thing that caught us up in qualifying was just an early draw. That's what kept us out of the top five-we were fifth in practice. So, I feel confident that our car is going to be a good race car. You know, just the circumstances caught us in qualifying as far as having an early number. It was definitely a disadvantage.

SO YOU FEEL AS GOOD ABOUT THIS RACE TRACK AS YOU DO THE OTHER TWO?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

YOU WERE ON YOUR WAY TO A GOOD DAY IN APRIL BEFORE THE PROBLEMS YOU HAD
Yeah, I don't even remember where we were running. Somebody said we were having kind of a decent day but I don't remember what position we were running in. I've never been on fire before, so that race in the Spring-that was one memory of the race that sticks out in the mind.

WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?
I don't even know. In 26 years of racing, I've never been burnt there like that because of fire. I've been burnt before in a race car because of hot parts, not because of fire. But, there was definitely something. My father has second- and third-degree burns on his body from a car accident right before I was born, actually. I've been able to grow up around a man that had to go through third-degree burns, but I've never been a part of it.

DID YOUR BURNS AFFECT YOU IN THE NEXT FEW RACES AFTER THAT?
It was uncomfortable, but still, when you're out there running, you do what you've got to do. So, that's basically what we did.

ARE YOU COMFORTABEL WITH THE TIRES AND HOW THEY ARE REGULATED, RULES, ETC?
It's the same for everybody. It's just about figuring out how you have to adjust your chassis to go with them. If that's what it takes to make it safer for us, then it's a good thing.

DID THAT MAKE IT HARDER FOR YOU AT ATLANTA?
Not necessarily. Instead of just going down on the right front, you go up on the right rear, instead, maybe. You work on another corner of the car. I guess to a certain degree, but we all set parameters of knowing how low we would want to set for ourselves anyway. They worked around it in other areas to compensate for it.

RE: IS THIS YOUR YEAR? ARE YOU GETTING THE FEELING THAT THINGS ARE GOING YOUR WAY AND THINGS ARE FALLING INTO PLACE?
Not necessarily-we're just out there doing our job. The good thing, in my opinion, for these next three weeks, is that we're just going out and doing what we've done all year. We go out and try to win the race. And if we can't go win the race, we're not going to take any chances to win it. We'll just take what we can get and do it safely. We didn't back into anything last week, we were a top-10 car all day and we finished ninth. From our standpoint, we did what we have to do and had a solid, consistent day. The other guys were, at times, in front of us or behind us. We just stayed the most consistent all day.

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