Thursday, April 24, 2008
GM Makes Big Pitch to Get Tony Stewart Back from Toyota—with a Rick Hendrick-powered Chevy
So ‘Smoke’ may be looking at leaving Joe Gibbs after 10 years?
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images for NASCAR)
By Mike Mulhern
TALLADEGA, Ala.
Yes, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is still winless. And so is Jeff Gordon.
But this week part of the focus may be moving toward Tony Stewart, who is also winless this season, coming to a track where he has finished second so many times but has never won.
However, suddenly the Stewart issue is not about victory lane but rather about his next NASCAR contract.
Well, NASCAR executives and promoters have been under the gun this week to regain sports marketing points following Danica Patrick’s historic first Indy-car win. What better than to put feisty, sometimes fiery Tony Stewart in the center ring?
Tony Stewart...winning in a Chevy
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Will Stewart have much to say here at Talladega Speedway about all this? Probably not.
First, no matter what might happen in 2009, he’s still got seven months of championship running to do in 2008. Second, his current contract with car owners Joe and J. D. Gibbs runs through the end of 2009….though – consider Kurt Busch and Jack Roush, and others – it’s not out-of-the-question for a driver to negotiate an early departure.
And third, Cary Agajanian, Stewart’s business agent, one of the sharpest in the sport, is savvy enough to know that a bidding war is the best way to get the best dollar. Agajanian, though he tries to keep a very low profile, has been involved in a number of high-profile driver negotiations over his career, going back to the Jeff Gordon-Ford-Bill Davis-Rick Hendrick debate more than 15 years ago, and including Kasey Kahne’s dealings and the Kurt Busch-Jamie McMurray job swap.
In fact, those who recall the Chip Ganassi gambit a few years ago, the last time Stewart’s contract renewal came up for debate, might be inclined to dismiss the current debate about Stewart’s future, which has been raging off-and-on since late last summer when the Gibbs defected from Chevrolet to Toyota. Stewart and Agajanian fanned those flames until the Gibbs finally came up with a nice, big number.
Car owner Chip Ganassi (center) once had a shot at signing Tony Stewart (left)
(Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
Bob Nardelli (center, hugging Tony Stewart) bankrolled Stewart while head of Home Depot; Nadelli, now head of Chrysler, would like to get Stewart in a Dodge....but Nardelli may have to stand in line to make a pitch
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
However Stewart’s deal this time appears to have more legs. Certainly there’s a lot more money at stake.
In fact it may be all about the money. Imagine that.
So, have GM exec Brent Dewar (left) and Chevy racing kingpin Rick Hendrick been working on a Tony Stewart deal?
(Bob LeSieur/GM Racing Photo)
This is the deal:
—Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s new money deal at Rick Hendrick’s has set a new benchmark, a package of sponsorships and other financial deals worth well over $28 million a year for Earnhardt.
—And here’s Tony Stewart – a two-time champion, while Earnhardt still has yet to win his first, and Stewart has 32 tour victories since joining full-time in 1999, while Earnhardt has only 17 tour wins since going full-time in 2000 – making about $9 million a year, under the contract he and Agajanian did with the Gibbs in 2003.
—And now here’s Carl Edwards, one of the hottest drivers on the tour today (still only 10 wins since going full-time in 2004) looking at a potential UPS-sponsorship package that could be worth $22 million to $24 million, according to sources.
So if you’re Stewart, what would you be thinking? More money, obviously, which he is clearly worth.
But for the Gibbs the kicker appears to be that the Home Depot sponsorship of their No. 20 car, is locked in a particular price point, and the Gibbs can’t bargain with other additional sponsors for added funds.
So the Gibbs will have to sit down with Home Depot and find a way to have that company realize how valuable its 10-year investment in Stewart is and to have Home Depot figure out a way to put more money in the pot – probably by leveraging several of the company’s large vendors – or risk losing Stewart entirely. And if Home Depot execs say no, then Stewart can just buy out of his current contract.
Greg Zipadelli (center), Tony Stewart’s long-time crew chief, also has a Joe Gibbs contract with years to run.
If Stewart were to move on, would Zipadelli follow?
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
Or at least that’s the scenario several key figures in the NASCAR garage here are laying out.
Stewart himself Thursday afternoon said he wanted to get through Nationwide practice before sitting down with the media.
GM officials aren’t saying anything, nor are Toyota execs; in fact both camps indicated they weren’t convinced there was really any story here yet.
If it comes down to a new Chevy deal for Tony Stewart, GM’s Ed Peper—the brand’s new racing boss—will have to sign the check
(General Motors/Steve Fecht)
Toyota officials last year had been pushing to get Stewart and the Gibbs to renewal with a long-term deal. However sources close to Stewart have said that he himself has not necessarily been all that enthusiastic about the Toyota situation. On top of that, new teammate Kyle Busch has been stealing Stewart’s thunder this spring, with wins in every NASCAR division.
Stewart is a solid seventh in the Sprint Cup standings, running well enough most weeks to win, and came within a hair of taking the Daytona 500. However teammates Busch and Denny Hamlin are ahead of him right now in the standings.
Car owner Joe Gibbs (right) is winning big with 22-year-old Kyle Busch
(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images for NASCAR)
How Stewart handles the media this week may be telling about it all.
Stewart himself got so upset late last season over the contract debate – even though his current deal with the Gibbs still officially has another year to run – that he, after several curt responses to the issue, announced he was putting the whole thing on hold for a while.
A long while, apparently.
Now, however, the Stewart contract is centerstage again: though it’s unclear whether it’s Stewart raising the issues, or Toyota execs pushing the ball….or General Motors men trying to get the man who won two NASCAR championships for them back in the Chevy fold.
The clear sense, however, is that it’s GM making the moves.
Stewart turns 37 in a few weeks, and while drivers can play the NASCAR game into their 50s, once a driver reaches 40 his production generally tends to tail off. So this could be Stewart’s last great chance to sign a huge contract.
Will it be with Chevrolet or Toyota?
Does Chevrolet need Stewart more than Toyota needs Stewart?
Does Stewart need Chevrolet more than he needs Toyota?
Kyle Busch, who is seen by many as the best driver on the stock car tour today, turns 23 next week. Hamlin is 27.
And the three Gibbs drivers have shown clearly that Toyota has the power and engineering to play this game to win: Toyota’s trio are in the top-seven in the Cup standings, Chevy teams hold the other four spots.
What was going on behind the scenes last year was a game plan by General Motors officials to find a way to get Stewart back in their camp….first, by persuading him not to sign any new deals with Gibbs or Toyota until they could make their own pitch.
And the big GM pitch to get Stewart back, first reported by the Journal during Daytona Speedweeks in February, was for a Stewart deal with Chevy kingpin Rick Hendrick.
Just such a package has been simmering on the backburner, and now it appears that the Hendrick deal would be for Stewart to ‘own’ his own team. Of course ‘team ownership’ in NASCAR is a rather vague term, with car owners using various names as ostensible team owners. For example, Jeff Gordon has part-ownership of the Hendrick-Jimmie Johnson team.
Hendrick, with Gordon, Johnson, Earnhardt, and Stewart, would be a powerhouse operation to be sure. And it’s not clear how NASCAR executives might take to it, even if Hendrick were to list Stewart somehow as a ‘satellite’ operation, albeit with Hendrick horsepower and engineering.
It is probably not that curious that the Stewart debate is coming up again just as GM’s Brent Dewar is taking another step up the corporate ladder. Dewar, remember, is the man who has made it very clear, on several occasions, that he wants Stewart back in a Chevrolet. And his current posting to Europe is considered just another move to broaden his experience before another step up back in Detroit.
The Stewart-Hendrick angle also breaks just as GM has appointed Ed Peper as Chevy’s new ‘lead executive’ in racing. Peper has been Chevrolet’s general manager the past three years and has been a very visible presence at NASCAR events.
And make no mistake about General Motors’ commitment to NASCAR racing – the company has been playing the France family’s game (albeit at times deep under the table) since the 1950s.
It is also probably not that curious that this issue is coming up just as Toyota racing boss Jim Aust is within weeks of leaving that post. Presumably Aust would like to get Stewart signed to a long-term Toyota package before he leaves.
Then again Agajanian might be pushing the agenda while Aust is still in the game to make a call.
Of course with Aust, well, Toyota’s internal politics aren’t that visible, to say the least. But only six weeks ago nearly a dozen top Toyota executives were announced to be leaving their posts too; in some circles that would be called a shakeup. And where Aust might land – he’s much too young for retirement – is unclear.
If Stewart, who has been with Gibbs for 10 years now, all with crew chief Greg Zipadelli, his sponsorship relationship with Home Depot could be an issue, obviously, since Johnson and Hendrick are backed by rival Lowe’s.
Chrysler’s new CEO Bob Nardelli has been in the market for Tony Stewart since taking the Dodge helm last year.....
Is Nardelli still in the picture?
(Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Stewart was remarkably calm about the media deluge: “There’s nothing wrong at Joe Gibbs Racing. There’s nothing broke; there’s nothing that needs fixing, there are no problems.
“It’s the same thing that happened two or three years ago when we got a year within the end of my contract (referring to his negotiations with car owner Chip Ganassi).
“People have started talking to our people about the possibility of us doing other things.
“It’s the same scenario that we had a couple years ago…just this year the variables are a little different.
“There’s a couple groups that have thrown some ownership in the mix.
“Like I said—there’s nothing broke…and we didn’t go out and say that we were looking to leave Joe Gibbs Racing.
“We haven’t made a 100 percent decision yet on what we’re going to do, but we’re going to look at all the options.
“The options are exciting. It’s pretty exciting as a driver to be in this position—when you see the offers that have been presented to us.
“I think for me it’s been a huge honor to get these offers, because it gives me a perspective of where I fit in this series and what the car owners think of me.
“We’ve got multiple offers on the table right now, and there’s a couple in particular that have really caught our interest.
“Right now it’s just a matter of trying to figure out what we want to do and just being smart.
“We’ve had a great run at Joe Gibbs…and it doesn’t mean it’s over yet. We’re just going to look at everything that’s out there.
“It never costs a dime to listen…so right now we’re all ears. “
So would Stewart want to get out of his contract with Gibbs a year early?
“No, not necessarily,” Stewart says. “We’re going to look at all these options, and we’re going to evaluate what we want to do.
“We’ve not asked to be released. They know there are other offers on the table, and we have said “What if this is the case?’ and ‘What if this is presented to us?’
“Then we might see if there is a possibility if we can leave early. But we have not asked to be released from our contract at all.”
The sense is that Stewart wants to return to Chevrolet. “I’m still passionate about Chevrolet. I’ve had a great relationship with General Motors. When I started, I was with Pontiac, and we won a championship…and then we won a championship with Chevrolet in 2005.
“I still have a lot of connections there. But at the same time we’ve built a great relationship in a short time with Toyota.”
Greg Zipadelli, Stewart’s crew chief over the year?
“He knows we’ve had options, and I’ve told him we’ve had offers presented. But I haven’t gone any further than that.
“The main reason is we still have a job to do—and I fully intend on doing everything I can to win races and win a championship this year.
“When we get a little closer to narrowing down the decision making process, I’ll talk to him and get his input, because I feel he’s an older brother to me…so I’m going to rely on his input eventually.”
Is Stewart prepared for the media to keep after him on all this?
“I don’t mind—I’m excited about it,” Stewart says. “For a driver, it’s kind of an exciting situation to be in.
“I’ll be honest: when you look at the car owners that have made offers to us…it’s very humbling, and a huge honor to know that there’s that many teams that are represented that are interested in what my future’s going to be and the potential to have us as part of their organization.
“I’m not in a huge hurry. It’s a matter of taking the time to make the right decision.
“These multiple offers of ownership make it so appealing. There’s a lot of drivers that come in, and they race, and when they are done they leave the sport. This is an opportunity to stay in the sport and follow in the footsteps of a Richard Childress or Rick Hendrick.”
Money, Stewart insists, is not part of the equation: “I could retire right now and live the rest of my life the way I want to live it, if I chose to.
“What makes this such a much more difficult decision than in the past is because I have an opportunity to do something I’m passionate about, and it’s still being a part of racing after racing.”
THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK
Chevy teams have dominated at Daytona and Talladega, the past several years, and Chevrolet is going for its 10th straight spring 500 win at Talladega.
Chevy’s Jeff Burton, who leads the Sprint Cup tour standings, concedes what every driver here feels: “I’m always nervous to run at Talladega. You have to go into the race thinking there is going to be a multi-car incident and ‘How am I going to miss it?’
“To me it’s a stressful Sunday. Once the race gets going, I calm down. But as the laps start winding down, the intensity level just goes through the roof. It’s unbelievable how you can feel it more than at any other track.
“At every other track, if you’re racing for the lead, you might be racing two or three other guys. At Talladega you’re contending with 30.
“It changes the way you race.”
So, will Sunday’s 500 be another safe-but-boring follow-the-leader event, in these new winged cars, that have odd handling characteristics?
Remember last fall’s 500: Jeff Gordon hung near the back most of the afternoon, then charged to the front late to win. Passing doesn’t seem to be an issue; however the will to pass may be.
Gordon, who swept both events here last year, says “I don’t think a lot has changed since the last time we were at Talladega.
“We had an awesome, awesome day, awesome race. Certainly any time we go to a restrictor track—and Talladega being one of the best ones out there for us—I always look forward. I love racing with 10 to go and it’s wild and crazy.”
GM’s Pat Suhy, the company’s NASCAR group manager, says Chevy’s edge here is simple: “Our teams are the best in the business at restrictor track racing.”
But wasn’t Daytona a Toyota-Dodge deal down the stretch?
That may have been more about handling than horsepower. “With the new track surface grip (here at Talladega) and the high-banking, handling is at less of a premium than it is at Daytona, making horsepower even more important at Talladega,” Suhy says.
Ah, yes, but last fall here Toyota showed its considerably restrictor plate horsepower and probably should have won, if not for Gordon’s savvy.
“With the importance of horsepower at this track, all of our Chevy team’s engine groups have been busy working on every aspect of the engines to make more power in restricted form. The (new Chevrolet) R07 engine has only seen use in two other restrictor races, and we know that there’s more horsepower waiting to be found as development continues. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the efforts the Hendrick and Earnhardt-Childress Racing Technologies engine group’s efforts.
“There’s plenty of hard work going on in the wind tunnel as well. Careful use of all or our aerodynamic tools, from wind tunnels to computational fluid dynamics, continues to yield improvements that our teams will take to Talladega.”
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