Stewart: Team can recover from crash

Both Stewart and Ryan Newman have had to switch cars and drop to the tail of the Daytona 500 field after Newman's tyre blew while he was running in front of Stewart in final practice yesterday, taking the teammates into the wall.

Stewart was able to get his back-up car ready in time for a few laps at the end of practice, while Newman has yet to try his latest spare, having already been in a back-up car following his Gatorade Duel crash.

"I'm really proud of our guys," said Stewart. "They never got down. I mean, as soon as it happened, they were working hard to get the back-up car out, get everything switched over to get it exactly where the primary car was at the end of practice yesterday.

"To get back on the racetrack in a timely manner like we were, I was really proud of (crew chief) Darian (Grubb) and our guys. I know it was a little different situation for Ryan. They didn't have the luxury of just bringing the back-up car down as quick as we did.

"But I think we found something (on Saturday) morning with both cars. I was struggling getting my car to suck up in the draft. We finally found something that helped that. Ryan's car yesterday wasn't handling quite as nice as he wanted, but it would suck up real good. We kind of found a common balance between the two.

"I feel comfortable because of our package that we have that we're going to be able to duplicate that in both cars for (the 500), too."

Stewart said he was touched by the offers of support from elsewhere in the NASCAR paddock following the crash.

"Almost the positive to the negative is I was so proud that we had guys from Hendrick Motorsports come down, Richard Childress came down and personally told me that if we needed a car, if we were in a bind on chassis, we could use one of theirs," he said.

"The amount of guys that came over and said, 'hey, we don't know what we can do, but if we can help, let us know.' That made me extremely proud of how many guys in the garage were willing to come up and lend a hand and their support.

"If they don't like you they won't offer that hand. It made me feel real fortunate that we have a bunch of friends in this garage area that wanted to help out."

He added that his subsequent triumph in the Nationwide Series race for Hendrick Motorsports had helped him get over the practice calamity.

"I'm going to go back to the bus and I'm going to see the trophy sitting in my motor coach," said Stewart. "I'm going to know even though we had a disappointing morning, we finished the day strong. That momentum will carry over, even though we're going to be at a big deficit to start with.

"I guarantee all of our guys that worked hard all day working on the car were paying attention to the race. They're excited we won, too. That carries the team with some momentum that we definitely need right now."

Stewart was furious with Goodyear in the aftermath of the crash, but said he saw no point in discussing the incident with the tyre supplier.

"There's nothing we can do about it. Nothing will change. It hasn't since I've been a part of this sport when it comes to that topic," he said.

"I've met with them before. It doesn't do any good. I would rather spend my time productively hanging out with this group and going out and winning races."