Stewart, Newman Talk NASCAR

Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman spoke to the media Wednesday from Penske Racing Headquarters in Mooresville, North Carolina. Stewart is driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet and Ryan Newman is the driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet car.

Here are highlights from the Tony Stewart / Ryan Newman NASCAR CAM Video Teleconference.

Q. You seemed genuinely pretty upset with the way the race ended the other night. I just wonder if you had a chance to talk to Kyle Busch yet.

TONY STEWART: I did. I got a chance before I went to Sharon Speedway last night I got a chance to catch up with Kyle. I checked first of all just to make sure he was all right.

But when something like that happens, you want to make sure that both guys are on the same page with what happened, and we definitely were. I mean, there was no question on either one of our parts of what happened. I mean, we were instantly on the same page with it. It's just part of racing.

But it was something that happened before that phone call even happened, and I've mentioned it to Kyle and even kind of laughed about it was the fact that everybody has made such a big deal about this all of a sudden happening. A good friend of mine reminded me of the very first TV race, the very first 500 that they showed on national TV, and it was Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough, same type of incident on the backstretch for the win.

What happened this weekend, what happened at Talladega, none of this is new, and I think it's our responsibility to educate everybody that, hey, this isn't something that this is the first time this has happened. This is something that's been going on for a long time. There's little differences here and there about how the accident happened, but David Pearson and Richard Petty coming off of Turn 4 and both of their cars crashed and who could get it started and get it limped across the start/finish line to win.

There's just so many instances and cases where that's happened in the past, too, it's really no different than what we've got going on other than the fact that instead of two cars being involved, now we have 32 cars in the pack. That's the only variable that's changed. It's a product of superspeedway racing.

Kyle knew that my job was to get to his quarter panel, he was trying to move up to defend his spot, and nobody in his position would have just stayed there and let somebody drive back by him. You've got to do something, and he wasn't trying to wreck us, he was just trying to make me make a move to slow me down.

It was good to have that conversation with him yesterday. I was glad he wasn't hurt. And I got a chance to see Kasey last night and make sure he wasn't hurt, as well. It was good to touch base and make sure we were all on the same page, which we were.

Q. Do you share the confidence level that we've heard so many drivers voice about going up to Indy and the tire situations from last year being resolved?

TONY STEWART: Am I concerned about the tires? Not at all. I came up here for two days. Ryan has been up here quite a bit with Goodyear, and I can promise you they have put a full court press on making sure we don't have the issues that we had last year. I've gained a lot of respect for Goodyear over just the process of working on the tire for Indianapolis and the dedication that they've shown to making sure that that doesn't happen again.

We were able to run almost 30 laps and still not even be down to the cords and the tires, so I'm very confident that with a full field here that there shouldn't be any issues at all. You obviously can't guarantee that, but I can tell you that from the test session, and normally the test is a lot worse on tire wear than it is during a race weekend that we were able to run 30 laps and feel very comfortable, but they've got a tire that will be just fine when we come back here that not only is it going to be durable but also I think the way that the tire that the laps fell off time wise I think is going to make for a great race, too, with the way that the tire performance falls off. It doesn't wear out fall off, but it just falls off because of heat.

I think they've come back with a combination that not only is durable but also made where it should be better racing at that time, too.

Q. I believe you went up to Akron earlier this year and kind of went through the process with the Goodyear folks. Can you tell me what you kind of took out of that whole process?

TONY STEWART: Well, it's nice to go up there to Akron and see how it's done. It's a process that makes you shake your head because you just don't realize what goes into making a tire. And the good thing is it's not done by a machine, it's done by a physical person that actually puts that tire together. There's a lot of machines that assist in that process, but some of the key components are still done by a Goodyear engineer that sits there and makes sure it's as perfect as it can be.

That put my mind at ease a lot, being able to

see firsthand how the production of those tires is made.

Q. Kind of switching gears to Ryan, your friendship with Tony has been pretty well documented, at least this year. How important is that relationship right now to the success of this team and you two guys, especially in this kind of unique situation?

RYAN NEWMAN: No different than anybody else on the team, whether it's Tony Gibbs or Tony Stewart or the guy that's sweeping the floor at the shop, we all have to do our part. Like Tony was talking, it's a people business. People make the big difference in everything that we do. They build the race cars, they work together to do pit stops and everything else.

Our friendship is definitely important. As I stated, our friendship off the racetrack to me weighs sometimes more than our friendship on the racetrack.

We have to compete against each other, which we try to do our best at to make sure we don't penalize each other for the way we race each other, but the bottom line is just getting along off the racetrack, it's huge for me, just gives us something else to talk about besides a right front swing or a sway bar.

Q. And lastly for you, Ryan, what's impressed you most about Tony Stewart the owner?

RYAN NEWMAN: I'd say overall just his ability to manage the people and get the right people, which is not an easy thing to do. But his level headedness, his calmness when it comes to the different situations, just how he's adapted himself from a driver to a driver/car owner is pretty amazing.

I think that's the same thing that a lot of people have asked, just like was asked earlier, what's it like to be a driver/owner in your situation and be successful. It takes a big person to do that.

I didn't mean that size wise, I meant that mentally. (Laughter.)

Q. Tony, Ryan, as drivers, what is your feeling now that you've had a double file restart on a superspeedway? How do you like that? Second question for Tony, as an owner, what are your feelings with the limited test schedule that you have now, and also the fact that racetracks like Kentucky Speedway have been taken out of the equation because they have another NASCAR event?

RYAN NEWMAN: On the double file restarts, I think it's been great in more ways than one. I think from a driver's standpoint, I like it because you have the opportunity to move up, and when you pass one, you might be passing two if you go three wide, and I think that's made the racing more exciting. We're racing the guys we should be racing, and I mean that in essence of you're not racing the guys that are a lap down who have their own separate race to try to get a lucky dog.

Before when you had the lap down cars on the inside and the lead lap cars on the outside, if you started 6th you were starting 12th and you had to pass those other guys who were working just as hard and made their cars better, and you had less opportunity to move yourself forward throughout the day. To me some of the racetracks are more conducive for the double file restarts, but in general it's been across the board a good thing.

TONY STEWART: Yeah, and something that going along with what Ryan is saying, a lot of those times we know that green flag run can last 80 laps. We take off and budget our tires to make that 80 lap run and be fast for the whole run, not necessarily fast for one or two laps. A lot of times the lucky dog guys don't have that luxury and they were having to run 100 percent. A lot of times it created a lot of havoc for you if you were a lead car because they don't know when the caution is going to come out. It may come out one lap after the restart or it may come 61 laps after. But they don't know; they have to run every lap as hard as they can, and a lot of times that created an extra variable in the equation that we don't see now.

But I think that's a variable that was confusing to the fans, it's confusing to the drivers at times because sometimes you didn't know when you got to one of those cars, you didn't know if he was somebody that just stayed out and got track position or if he was truly a lap down.

I think it's been one of the greatest things and decisions that NASCAR has made in a long time. Like Ryan mentioned, the biggest thing is if you're a 5th place car, instead of lining up 10th, now you're lining up 5th, and everybody around you you're racing for position. It really hasn't been I think Loudon was probably one of the examples of you wanted to be on the outside most of the time, but there's even during those races and even with tracks that are going to be predominantly one particular group is going to be better than the other for a restart during the course of the race, it's going to work for you and it's going to work against you.

But all in all, I think you guys see it from the stands better than we do, but from what I've seen and being in the cars, it seems like it makes the racing a lot better for us.

As far as the second part of the question, I'm all for it, to be honest. I've got