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 Double dipping Stewart in rarefied company in his try for a racing two-fer
Posted: Friday May 28, 1999 09:32 PM
Roy Jones Jr., probably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, once played 15 minutes in a minor league basketball game then, six hours later, fought a light-heavyweight bout. Knocked the guy out, too. Bo Jackson tried the dual sport thing for a while, football and baseball, until his hip gave out. Deion Sanders, at the height of his Prime Time, took jets from the baseball diamond to the football stadium. Michael Jordan gave up basketball for baseball, then gave up baseball for basketball before he gave up basketball for a retirement full of golf. Now there's Tony Stewart, a 28-year-old rookie Winston Cup driver from Indiana who will be trying to pull off a motor racing rarity this weekend -- two races in one day, in two different types of cars, at two really different tracks. It's not exactly two different sports. But, as they say in NASCAR, it ain't far off. "I'd say it's kinda like football and rugby," says Steve Grissom, a NASCAR guy who was the 1993 Busch Grand National champ. "It's the same principle, but there are two different ways of doing it. I mean, they're both physical, contact sports. But the rules are different." This isn't as different as breaking off left tackle and heading up a fastbreak. Or, in Jones' case, heading up a fastbreak and breaking somebody's nose. But the differences Stewart will face after he climbs out of his car at Sunday's Indianapolis 500, hops into a plane, then slides into a Winston Cup car at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, N.C., are very real. He'll be jumping out of a low-slung, wide-tire, open-wheeled Indy Racing League car going 200 mph through the corners into a 3,400-pound, up-off-the-ground, thinner-tire NASCAR machine. He'll be going from little hand movements and just a little leg movement to a more spacious cockpit with a lot more room to fiddle around -- and be bounced around. In essence, he'll be trading a Miata for a Mack. Still, there are similarities between the two styles of racing, too. "You hit the wall in either one," Grissom says, "you're going to get banged up." Stewart is not breaking new ground here. John Andretti pulled off this same double-dip five years ago, and that was when the starting times for the two races were much closer together. This year, the Indy starts at 11 a.m., the Coca-Cola not until 6:15 p.m.
When you examine it, though, Stewart's try is notable in sheer mathematical oddity alone. If he completes both races, Stewart will have gone more than 600 laps (that's 2,400 turns plus), been behind the wheel for more than nine hours, raced before more than 400,000 fans, averaged probably better than 150 mph (not counting what he does on the jet between races) and put his corporate sponsor's logo -- it's Home Depot, as if you wouldn't find out anyway -- in front of, like, 10 billion people. No, it's not stepping into the ring against a light heavyweight. But afterward, Stewart may feel like that. Stewart will tell you he's a NASCAR man first, a Winston Cup guy all the way, but growing up in Indiana, the 500 was always something he wanted to do. So he's giving it his best -- but not at the expense of the Coca-Cola, one of Winston Cup's biggest races. "If we were leading Indy with five laps to go and it was time to go on the airplane, I would have to leave," Stewart says. "We would stop the car and make sure I got to Charlotte on time." That's just what the embattled Indy 500 needs. A leader who quits with minutes to go so he won't miss a NASCAR race. The physical challenges are daunting enough in this double-dip, but then there is the whole mental thing. Nine hours of driving? In circles? With no air conditioning? And it's not like you can pull over at the nearest Stuckey's. There are those who are dismissing Stewart's bid at semi-immortality -- what if he wins both races? -- as a whim, as a public relations ploy, as the act of a racing madman. There are those who doubt that he can give 100 percent to either race when he's running them both. But people doubted Deion Sanders' motives, too. And they doubted Roy Jones Jr. and Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan. Some of them did their double duty better than others but, the point is, they all tried it, which in this era of sports specialization is tough enough. Can Stewart pull out a win? Can he pull out two? Will he pull out of the Indy 500 if it's running late? Will he pull out his hair if his plane to Charlotte is delayed? It's worth the watching. Win or lose. Win or lose. John Donovan is senior writer for CNNSI.com. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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