Stewart back at the Brickyard

all-star race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Tony Stewart was back in a race car Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Stewart is one of the team owners at Tri-Star Motorsports, which has Jeret Schroeder and Dr. Jack Miller as its two drivers. Last week, Stewart ran 11 laps in Schroeder's car and got it to run as fast as 218 miles per hour.

With Miller struggling to make the field, the team had planned on putting Stewart in the car to qualify it and then turn it over to Miller, who would start at the rear of the 33-car field in next Sunday's race. But Indy Racing League director of race operations Brian Barnhart said that would not be allowed because it was not within the spirit of the rules.

"I informed (team owner) Larry Curry of that and he understands," Barnhart said. "This isn't the American League - we don't' have designated qualifiers over here."

Barnhart allowed Stewart to drive the car in practice and help get it set up for Miller to make a qualification attempt.

"Tony wanted to see how it is running," Miller said. "He wanted to get it dialed in. You know, having Tony as a team owner is great. He is a veteran and ex-champ in the series. Plus, he communicates so well with co-owner Larry Curry that we're just trying to speed things up since we are so far behind."

Stewart spent a portion of Sunday afternoon in Miller's race car taking laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"That's as fast as it is going to run right now, but we don't have enough time to go back and change gears," Stewart said. "If we could do that, we would be able to run 220 or 221. I wanted to get it comfortable for him, but trust me, I would rather him put it in the show than me put it in the show for him.

"I think it is plenty comfortable for him right now."

When Stewart was a driver in the IRL, he usually qualified in the front two rows for the Indianapolis 500. So Bump Day was a new experience for the NASCAR Winston Cup driver.

"We were always on the outside looking in, so this is a lot different,"
Stewart said. "I can get it up to speed quicker than any of these other guys."

Miller qualified with a four-lap average of 216.154 miles per hour, but was bumped from the field by the final driver to the lineup, Billy Boat.

Stewart was also coming off a rough night in The Winston, when he was involved in a crash late in the race that also took out Jeff Gordon.

"After I crashed Mark Martin earlier in the race, my heart wasn't in it any more," Stewart said. "I could tell the fans were real upset with it and it was a pure accident. I didn't expect him to pull it out. I had a real good run on him through turns 1 and 2 and went down the backstretch and was underneath him and hit him in the back.

"They weren't very happy with what happened and I don't like crashing anybody. We weren't quick enough to win the thing and couldn't run with everybody else."

Stewart is under scrutiny with NASCAR Winston Cup fans after he was quoted in several stories complaining about the huge throng of race fans that are in the garage area every week at Winston Cup events.

"The fan reaction was half cheers and half boos," Stewart said. "That article that appeared pretty much crushed us. When you get journalists that don't write stories accurately, it can really hurt you with the fans.

"I hope I can win the fans back. I didn't plan on losing them. I used to be the last guy at Indianapolis Raceway Park to leave every night because I was signing autographs. It's not that I don't like doing it and I love the fans. Hopefully, the fans will understand."

Stewart had already left Lowe's Motor Speedway before the pedestrian bridge collapsed injuring over 100 people. His crew was stuck in the infield while safety workers tended to the injured until dawn.

"Taking care of the injured people was the most important thing on Saturday night, so they didn't mind staying in the infield," Stewart said.