Tony Stewart Man of Many Faces

First off, I am a Nascar fanatic, plain and simple. I am also a Southern middle aged woman who knows about standing up for what's right and not afraid of a confrontation. Much like Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14, Office Depot and Old Spice Sprint Cup Car for Nascar. Tony Stewart, for those of you that don't follow Nascar, is no saint at least not on the speedway. He is confrontational at times when he is on the racetrack, he will never back down when he thinks he is right nor is he afraid to admit when he is wrong.  I love that he has a wicked sense of humor, my kind of man. But that is only the competitor side of Tony and not the guy underneath all of that testosterone and hair.  That Tony is extremely generous with his time and money.

National Association Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) started out prior to any sanctioning body as a group of bootleggers who would modify their vehicles to be able to outrun the lawmen who were so desperately trying to catch them.  For the bootleggers to be able to outrun the lawmen they had to beef up their cars to make them go faster and handle better than the car chasing them.  With men being men what would naturally follow was bootleggers bragging amongst themselves on who got away from which lawman and how fast their car was etc.  As far as bragging goes what logically comes next? A challenge.  "My car is faster than yours,  my car handles better, oh yeah, want to put some money where your mouth is, on and on it goes".   

Years down the road through the vision of Bill France, Sr..  Nascar was officially born on February 21, 1948. Nascar  has evolved into what it is today, a nationally organized spectator sport with large money purses and equally large trophy's.  Some trophy's being more coveted that others; such as  The Daytona 500 trophy, The Brickyard trophy and the  Martinsville Clock trophy.  Each track having its own special trophy.  The original trophy from Texas Motor Speedway was small in comparison to other tracks offerings so Texans being what they are, upped the size of the trophy to reflect everything is bigger in Texas attitude. 

Nascar has evolved into one of the largest spectator sports around.  Their drivers helping make the show ever so much more enjoyable to watch.  We cheer for our favorites and booo for the people we just can't stand to watch, regardless of their talent.  One of the current drivers for Nascar relishes in being boo'd.

Tony Stewart, a two time NASCAR champion, is one of the greatest drivers  in Nascar in my opinion.  All man, a little devilment inside for good measure, extremely generous, extremely talented driver of any sort of vehicle, speaks softly and just plain cute, although a little hairy. 

Speaking of being hairy and Tony Stewart's generosity, he actually told Kevin Harvick, another Nascar driver, that if Kevin and his fans could raise $100,000 then he would have his back waxed and would donate the money to The Victory Junction Gang Camp.  As it turned out, with Kevin donating the remaining amount needed, Smoke, Tony Stewart's  nickname, was good to his word and during the first part of last year live on his Sirius Satellite Show Tony's back was  waxed.  For any of you that have ever waxed any part of your body, you know it hurts, can you imagine having a large portion of your body waxed all at once?  And then as hairy as Tony is, how much it must have itched while it was growing back?  Especially wearing a drivers suit in the heat of a Sprint Cup Race Car at a track like Daytona Speedway on July 4th weekend.  The heat generated in racecars is really hot sometimes reaching temperatures of over 115 degrees.  With drivers sometimes losing as much as 10 pounds on a race weekend.  While that is not the best way to lose weight quickly, it does happen.  Drivers have to  hydrate as much as possible before races during the summer months.

Tony hair's growth has made part of the prerace show several times with comments such as Tony Stewart can get in a race car clean shaven, drive 600 miles like at the Daytona 500 and come out of the car with beard.  Some of his competitors worry that when Tony starts a race and hasn't shaved that it isn't a good sign for them.  It means he has an attitude and when he has an attitude, look out he becomes very aggressive on the track. 

This year Tony Stewart went into partnership with Gene Haas of Haas CNC Racing to form Stewart Hass Racing. He hired Ryan Newman as a driver for his second car even though they have had confrontations on the track in recent history. The teams seem to be doing well working together. So far this season they have both shown success being in the top 12 drivers as of June 28th, 2009 with Tony leading the points for the 3rd week in a row. The last 2 times Tony Stewart lead the points standing, he won the Championship for that year. Wouldn't it be something for Tony to win in his first year as an owner driver in the Nascar Sprint Cup Series. Not very many owner/drivers have ever won a championship only Alan Kulwicki who won the 1992 Cup championship as an owner/driver.

In my opinion now would be the time to grab some Tony Stewart die cast  cars, t-shirts, caps or any other Tony Stewart Racing souvenirs because if he wins the Series Championship this year, his Tony Stewart memorabilia may be in short supply.  I have been a fan of Tony Stewarts for a long time but I think it is time to buy at least a new T-shirt and probably send in a donation to his Tony Stewart Foundation, which helps many needy charities.