This weekend is always special for Tony Stewart, who is back home again in Indiana for Sunday’s Allstate 400 At The Brickyard. He grew up in Columbus, Ind., just an hour away from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and long nurtured the dream of winning there.
“Once we won it in 2005, it took a lot of pressure off and then winning last year took even more pressure off. I think in all reality, after each time that you’ve won there, I think it makes it easier when you go there. I think the emotional side of it, not the desire.
“I don’t want you guys to confuse the desire of winning versus the pressure of winning. I think the pressure goes away, but the desire is still there. And I think if anything, it makes it easier to focus on what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to accomplish because you don’t sit there and wonder all weekend, ‘What would it be like to win?’
“You know what the feeling is like.”
But this season, his first in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, he is a little more than a bit player, a struggling rookie who has yet to manage even a Top 10 finish.
“We knew it was going to be very difficult. … We knew it was going to be tough,” he said before returning to the scene of his greatest racing glory. “That’s why I wanted to do it.
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