Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Stewart finds patience off the racetrack

Friday, April 25, 2003 | 9:57 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

FONTANA, Calif. -- There were times last season when Joe Gibbs must have felt more like a babysitter than a NASCAR Winston Cup team owner.

En route to winning the Winston Cup championship, Gibbs' driver, Tony Stewart, was fined and placed on probation both by NASCAR and his sponsor for punching a photographer, was investigated by police for allegedly shoving a fan after a race and ultimately sought anger management counseling.

After Stewart lost his cool several times during a two-day test session in January at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, observers began to wonder how long it would take Stewart to land in NASCAR's doghouse because of his temper. The early line was the season-opener at Daytona.

A quarter of the way into the 36-race Winston Cup season, Stewart seemingly has mellowed -- and Gibbs has noticed the difference. Actually, Gibbs said, he saw a change in his driver during the series' postseason awards banquet in New York.

"We were all concerned about going to New York because New York is a full six days with a lot going on," Gibbs said of the constant media attention and public appearances. "If you picked something that Tony might not be good at, that might be it. I think he enjoyed the week and just rolled through the thing. We all saw a maturing process.

"I thought he showed great patience. Tony normally just wants to race a car (but) he's taken to heart that he's the champion and he wants to represent the sport the right way."

Stewart heads into Sunday's Auto Club 500 at California Speedway with five top-10 finishes and four finishes of 20th or worse. He is seventh in the Winston Cup standings after a sixth-place finish in the most recent race, at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.

"We've had a lot of things happen to the car this year and he doesn't seem to get nearly as uptight and rattled by it," Gibbs said. "He's much more relaxed. I think (crew chief and close friend Greg Zipadelli) helps with that a lot."

Stewart said that he feels he is not under as much pressure since he won the championship.

"I guess the biggest reason is that we're not sitting there answering the question 'Can you win a championship?' That's a pretty big question in our series," he said. "It just seemed like once we won the championship last year, it was like a weight was lifted off our shoulders; like I dumped a 3,000-pound weight off my back.

"Between the guys on the crew and myself, we've really enjoyed our racing this year. That's something we had started to lose in the past. As much as we all loved the sport, we were losing the passion behind why we love it so much. We needed to get that back and luckily winning the championship did that for us."

Powell issued a press release Thursday touting the merits of the city and his track, which has hosted one Winston Cup race a year since 1998.

"We continue to see other speedways going public with their efforts to land a second yearly NASCAR Winston Cup event," Powell said. "But there clearly is only one speedway that can offer everything -- a destination city, more than 125,000 hotel rooms, great weather, excellent atmosphere and great racing."

Powell said that track owner Bruton Smith would not move a race from one of his other Winston Cup tracks in order to give LVMS a second race.

"Bruton has been firm on that issue and we fully support his stance," Powell said. "But it wasn't long ago that NASCAR said it had capped the schedule at 32 races. Today there are 36. In the case of a unique destination such as Las Vegas, which offers a record of past success, there is a calling for one more."

NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. and president Mike Helton have both said that they would like to go to newer and/or bigger markets rather than award a second Winston Cup race to Las Vegas.

Texas Motor Speedway, which also is owned by Smith, California Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway are among the tracks actively lobbying for a second Winston Cup race.

Vasser, who drove for Rahal in CART last season, will attempt to qualify the second Rahal/Letterman entry on May 18, the final day of qualifying for the 87th running of the Indy 500. Vasser is driving for American Spirit Team Johansson in the CART Champ Car World Series this season and will be in racing in Germany on the opening weekend of Indy qualifying.

"To run Indy is always special and to do it with Team Rahal and coupled with Honda -- both of whom I have a lot of respect for and with whom I have a lot of fond memories of my time with -- makes it even more special," Vasser said.

"Certainly, we will have our work cut out for us with one day in which to qualify the car. Our qualifying chances would be better if we were there for the full duration but that isn't possible because of the race in Germany."

Vasser will team with Kenny Brack, Rahal's driver in the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series.

CART had dropped the race from its 2003 schedule and filed suit against Road America after it claimed the track had failed to make payments for last year's race and this year's event.

The 63-year-old Andretti, who last drove an Indy car in 1994, crashed Wednesday while he was testing for injured driver Tony Kanaan. Andretti's son, Michael, is a co-owner of the Andretti Green Racing team.

Other than a scratch on his chin and a bump on his heel, the elder Andretti was not hurt, and within 20 minutes of the crash was back in the garage area saying he still intended to practice and if necessary qualify Kanaan's car for the race May 25.

But after arriving home in Nazareth, Pa., Andretti said Thursday that he had changed his mind.

"I've given it some thought," he said. "If I had an ongoing career, I would have no problem getting back in the car. All of a sudden, I have to start using at least an ounce of wisdom."

Round 3 of the six-race 2003 SCORE Desert Series will be May 30-June 1 while the season finale will be held Nov. 13-16.