Padecky: Tony Stewart shows there’s still a bit of fire in Smoke

SONOMA - If you drive long enough in NASCAR, all your sins, real or imagined, will be forgiven. Or at least diminished. It happened to Jeff Gordon. It happened to Dale Earnhardt. And now it is happening to Tony Stewart, once irascible and confrontational, now charming and delightful. Failure coupled with frailty and advancing age has a way of softening hard opinions, making someone human. So Sunday we saw Mister Cuddle Bear.

For the first time in three years Stewart won a Cup race. That in itself is not noteworthy. NASCAR is chock-full of guys who have never won or will never win. But Stewart has so much baggage; it's a wonder he can still walk. Stewart became what so few of us ever thought possible: A sympathetic figure. Waiting to be amused.

“Normally by the time you leave here,” Stewart said, “you're so mad at everybody, I go back and sit in the transporter and take a shower for a half hour. I'm so mad at a dozen guys (but) I can't whip then all at once. I can take them one at a time. There are a couple of them I might be able to take at the same time. You can pick which ones they are.”

Once, such language would be interpreted as belligerence. Not Sunday. People laughed like Stewart was working stand-up comedy. He's 45. He has a gray beard. He has the metal in his body. He's vulnerable unlike any time in his life.

Two steel rods and three screws are in his lower back, courtesy of his dune buggy taking a 20-foot nose dive with him on board this January; he missed eight races this season because of that. Stewart missed 15 races in 2013 with a severe leg fracture in an accident. And then there was 2014: Stewart drove a dirt track car that struck and killed a 20-year-old driver.

Having announced 2016 would be his last Sprint Cup, Stewart needed to place in the top 30 finishers AND win a Cup race. He might as well have said he needed to dunk on LeBron James. Stewart hadn't won a Cup race in 84 starts, the longest drought of his career. Before Sunday's race Stewart told everyone who asked that victory was inconceivable. Smoke admitting defeat? What? Really? That's how flawed fans saw him. How vulnerable.

“There's a lot of crickets out there chirp, chirp, chirp on social media,” Stewart said. “I'm old. I'm washed up. I know I haven't run good for three years.”

When given a choice, most athletes would have a hard time to choosing either being lucky, or either being good. Sunday, however, Stewart didn't have to make the choice. He was lucky and he was good. A caution came out at 22 laps, three laps after he pitted for new tires. That gave him the lead and fresh rubber, going from 17th to first. That was the lucky part. The good: Denny Hamlin overdrove the corner on the final lap of the race, drifting to the outside of Stewart. Stewart had a choice. Turned out, there was none for him.

“I wasn't going to be cordial,” Stewart said. “I was going to drive it into the ground if I had to.”

So Stewart gave the lost-traction-Hamlin a shove with his race car and 100 feet later Stewart crossed the finish line first.

“If this was a fist fight,” Stewart said of the contact he made with Hamlin, “Denny would have got two black eyes. I used him up pretty hard.”

Stewart did it without apology. Apology is not a word that frequents his conversation. But he did it - dare I use this word - with compassion. It was as if Stewart was allowed no choice. Nothing personal. Flavored, of course, with Stewart's imagination.

“I didn't have time to think about wine, flowers or ponies,” Stewart said. No one was quite sure what “ponies” meant but he was just, well, Tony being Tony. That seems to be the mantra of the day with Stewart. Tony is just being Tony. Before, that meant tolerating his combative behavior. Now, in the twilight of his career, with metal imbedded in his body, Stewart is seen different. Tony being Tony means the end of an era, when drivers weren't afraid to voice opinions.

Stewart may have lost a little of his skills. … oh, but wait.

“I missed just three corners today out of 160,” Stewart said defiantly. He didn't elaborate. Didn't feel the need. Deal with it. Tony was just being Tony. After 18 years that sentence didn't feel as harsh.

“Ninety percent of the guys in the field I have a ton of respect for,” Stewart said. “There's five or six percent that I'd knock over the grandstands if that's what it took the win a race. I wouldn't have cared.”

Those 18 years have dulled the verbal blade Stewart uses, probably because he has used it so often. What once seemed shocking and offensive is now Tony being himself. It was the same with Gordon and Earnhardt, what once was objectionable was now admirable. For they stayed the course in whom they are, as Stewart has, their independence reflective of the sport's iconic nature.

“I got a lot of scores to settle with people (drivers) and I've got only six months to do it,” Stewart said. “I've just got to figure out if it's economically feasible to do it (NASCAR fines).”

That one got another laugh. And a wish as well. For old times, at least once more, Tony, could you get into one more dust-up. Doesn't need to be a full-thrown down to the garage floor. Some veins pulsing. A few words bleeped. A grab around the neck. Something to remind of us the good ol' days, when Tony Stewart was Smoke, not just a Wisp.

To contact Bob Padecky email him at bobpadecky@gmail.com.