Before moving to NASCAR, Tony Stewart raced in the Indy Racing League and won the championship there in 1997. He made his move to NASCAR in 1999 where he won the Rookie of the year. In 2002, he won his first championship and finished seventh and sixth the two years afterwards.

2005 was Tony's year to breakthrough even more. Tony won 5 races, including his dream win in the Brickyard 400 @ Indy, and stayed in the top 10 for a consecutive 34 weeks to come out and win the 2005 Nextel Cup Championship.

All of Tony's plate finishes are in the top 10 including 3 top 5s which are two seconds and a win. Tony has proven to be a good plate racer and basically nothing in this section needs to be changed.

Tony only had one bad short track finish which was at Martinsville in the spring with a 26th place finish and that was only due to a loose wheel in the later part of the race. So if Tony can avoid loose wheels, he'll be good for the short tracks.

Road Courses are where Tony shines with wins in both road course races. So basically there is nothing to work on here.

Tony is good at the flat tracks. He just needs to improve his finishes at Dover and he'll be outstanding.

Tony was not that good with cookies at the beginning yet was good at the end. So all he needs to do here is continue that end season cookie cutter momentum.

Overall Tony doesn't have lots of work which that's the way it should be considering he won the championship. All Tony has to do is avoid loose wheels, improve Dover and keep the momentum he had at the end of the season going.

(C)Ashley M, Dec. 20th 2005

(R)The NASCAR Palace, Dec. 20th 2005