TONY STEWART IN A HOT ROD? MAYBE . . .

Tony Stewart took an uneasy gulp when he walked through the staging lanes with longtime buddy Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army Dragster team Monday at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup, IRL, USAC Triple Crown, and IROC champion is a Hoosier from nearby Columbus and Rushville, therefore by birthright a fan of all forms of motorsports. And he already had an appreciation for the National Hot Rod Association and the fabled racetrack the locals still call "IRP."

But there Stewart was at O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis for the Labor Day classic. He has tested and raced on the oval track adjacent to the top end of the dragstrip. And making that right-hand turn around the corner toward the starting line Monday triggered that instinctive "get ready to run" mode.

His only job was to stand there and enjoy the moment as a guest of Don Schumacher Racing. Just the same, the driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala felt the same gut-churning he felt the night before, when he went out at Atlanta Motor Speedway and won the Emory Healthcare 500 to end a 31-race victory drought.

Tony Stewart took an uneasy gulp when he walked through the staging lanes with longtime buddy Tony Schumacher and the U.S. Army Dragster team Monday at tony_stewart

the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.

And he was startled -- by Tony Schumacher.

"He's telling me jokes and showing me You Tube videos of a crash he had somewhere else," Stewart said. And I'm like, 'Uh, shouldn’t you be thinking about what you have to do?' That's probably what he does to get ready. I'm a nervous wreck, and I don't have to do any thing but stand there."

It was a lesson in appreciation for the variety of motorsports in America and for the extreme nature of drag racing. After all, the output from just one -- just one -- of eight cylinders in a Top Fuel motor produces 750 horsepower, the total output of an entire stock-car engine. So Stewart certainly respected the fury of an 8,000-horsepower, nitromethane-burning, rear-engine dragster.

He had sat in Gary Scelzi's Funny Car several years ago and when the crew placed the body on it, Stewart said, "I swore it turned 100 degrees in that shop. I said, 'You've got to get me out of this.' I can't imagine sitting there and doing what they have to do."

And driving in a straight line? Are you kidding? "I haven't seen a car go straight down the lane yet," Stewart said. "They're steering harder than we have to in a Cup car, it looks like."

He has some knowledge, too, from Funny car friends Ron Capps of DSR and Cruz Pedregon, the two-time champion. They happily -- eagerly -- participate each June in his annual Prelude To The Dream circle-track charity race at Eldora Speedway, the legendary half-mile, high-banked dirt oval track he owns in Rossburg, Ohio. Capps and Pedregon represent drag racing among the NASCAR stars raising money for children's hospitals and other charities. His Tony Stewart Racing World of Outlaws team sits at the end of the street in Brownsburg, Ind., that houses the shops for such drag racers as Morgan Lucas, Cruz and Tony Pedregon, Brandon Bernstein, and John Force Racing.

But would he race one of these beasts? Well ... maybe. He has taken at least one spin in 22 different types of racing vehicles. Why not?

"I've been too chicken up to this point," Stewart said.

Don Schumacher has been hounding him to give it a try.

"He's trying to get me in his car at a test session once," he said. "It was something I really wanted to do about five years ago, but I don't know. He's talking about doing something in January. That's what he's been riding me all day about, when I'm going to drive that thing. I would say most likely he'll win out on this one and win this battle and I'll end up going and doing this testing."

However, he said he had a feeling what would happen when he straps into the car.

"I'm pretty sure that most likely the top of my knee will slam into my chin before the 60-foot mark, so I don't know," Stewart said. "But I would love to do it sometime, especially to do it with the Army guys."

Stewart drove a Cup car for 10 years for Joe Gibbs, who also used to field an NHRA team in both Top Fuel and Funny Car. And he had a bit of fun with Gibbs when he first met him.

"Nobody's ever really known me to be a practical joker in my life," Stewart said, "but I pulled kind of a prank when I signed my first contract with Joe Gibbs. I told him I wanted to drive a Top Fuel car in the U.S. Nationals. I said that was the last thing I wanted in my contract. He didn't know me well enough to recognize that I was messing with him, and he got pretty upset over that deal for a minute."

Reminded that fellow NASCAR driver Kurt Busch competed this March at the Tire Kingdom Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., in the Super Gas class, Stewart said without hesitation, "I'll beat him. I'll beat him in a straight line."

NASCAR fans were shocked when Stewart parted with Joe Gibbs Racing. They were shocked he wanted to drive a GM car in the middle of the automaker's crisis. They were puzzled why Stewart would want to start his own team in tough economic times. But Tony Stewart does what makes sense for him, and he has tremendous instincts. If independent thinking alone counts for anything, Stewart would be an excellent fit in NHRA drag racing.

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