Bob Pockrass: A year ago today, Smoke began to build the fire
Stewart-Haas Racing's Tony Stewart leads the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings after 18 races this season. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
COMMENTARY
It’s been a year since Tony Stewart announced that he would become a co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, and to see him one year later leading the Sprint Cup points standings is amazing.
Let’s face it. Haas CNC Racing wasn’t exactly an organization contending for victories a year ago. In fact, the reasonable question that faced Stewart when he announced the partnership wasn’t whether he could attract enough good people to win but rather could he handle running 10th to 15th every week in the transition.
To see Stewart virtually have no transition from old team to new team is incredible. No matter how many good people he could bring in, there was no way to predict the kind of success he’s had. The best he could have hoped for was to be competitive enough to make the Chase For The Sprint Cup, and then by the 27th race of the season be good enough to challenge for victories and challenge for the title.
Maybe some of us underestimated the number of people who would migrate to the team with Stewart. Maybe we underestimated the impact of an increased technological alliance with Hendrick Motorsports. Maybe we didn’t know how good some pieces of Haas CNC Racing were.
Stewart obviously got a little help with the economy, which resulted in plenty of good people looking for work and others looking for a place with maybe a more stable outlook. He also had the benefit of his other racing enterprises (his other race teams and race tracks) that he could offer to potential sponsors to sweeten deals.
But maybe the thing we’ve missed the most is that Stewart is driving really well right now. He hasn’t made many mistakes. When he’s had to go to backup cars, he hasn’t missed a beat. At his most recent win at Daytona, he drove just about a perfect race and did what he had to do to win (sorry, Kyle Busch).
While Stewart’s leap into ownership wasn’t like some other drivers who had to pour at least part of their life savings into the starting of a team (Stewart was pretty much given half of the Haas organization), Stewart still put his reputation on the line. Everyone knew he was a great race car driver, but few knew he would be able to be the leader he has been. It’s his name on the door and from all appearances, he has been involved and doing everything he is supposed to do in his duel role.
As they say, it’s always easier to get to the top than stay there. But stay there or not, this has been a successful season for Stewart. He has established that he could build a successful organization and that will go a long way in securing future sponsors, future drivers and future crewmen.
So on the 1-year anniversary, Stewart should be proud of what he’s done. It couldn’t have been as easy as it looked.
