#14-Tony Stewart met with members of the media at Daytona International Speedway and discussed his health, the preparedness of Stewart-Haas Racing for 2014 and many other topics, the transcript in part:
THE MODERATOR: Talk a little bit about what it feels like to be back and be here at Daytona.
TONY STEWART: It would be nice if it was dry right now. But it’s Daytona and it’s February, and you get this when we come down sometimes. But it’s nice to be back at the track, would definitely like to be in a car this week, but we’re still on schedule to be clear the day before the Shootout, so we’ll be down here for two days hanging out and watching our teams run.
Q. How is your health compared to how you feel? What are the doctors saying?
STEWART: Not bad. The weather ‘ I’m a pretty good barometer right now. Seems like if the rain comes or snow or cold comes, I know it right before it changes. But I feel pretty good. I still have a little ways to go, but we’ve got four weeks to get ready the rest of the way. Even when we get here in February, it’s not going to be 100 percent. Physically I’m not going to feel 100 percent, but I’ll be able to do my job 100 percent, so that’s the main thing. I don’t mind it taking a little longer for the physical side to heal, as long as I can drive a race car when I need to when I get back.
Q. Can you talk about how challenging it’s been for you both from a mental and a physical standpoint in getting back?
STEWART: Yeah, I guess the hardest part is just not knowing where I’m supposed to be. I mean, I’ve never had an injury like this so I don’t have anything to compare it to. I kind of base everything on a week-to-week deal, and on Sunday I kind of evaluate where I was the Sunday before and go from there. It’s been kind of a challenge, I guess, from that standpoint. The physical side of it is an obvious deal. It’s getting everything healed back up and going through rehab and doing everything we’re supposed to do. But just not knowing exactly what I’m supposed to feel like, if something hurts why is it hurting. I’ve not had those experiences before. The therapist gets his phone ‘ I think he sets it on his nightstand at night because I call him at night and ask him a lot of questions. But having those guys around, it kind of takes the psychological side and kind of puts a lot of that at ease.
Q. When you mentioned that you’ll be cleared the day before the Sprint Unlimited and that you might not feel 100 percent but will be able to give 100 percent, can you kind of ‘ do you have any idea how much your most recent surgery, kind of, if not for that do you think you would be closer to feeling as good as well as being able to perform at the start of the season?
STEWART: Honestly, that second ‘ or the third surgery wasn’t really much of a setback in all reality. We were actually ahead of schedule with the therapy when we had that surgery, so it basically just pushed it back to where we were right back on schedule again, and now it just feels like we’re back ahead of schedule again. Twice we’ve been able to kind of push ahead of schedule it seems like, so pretty confident from that standpoint that that wasn’t a setback at all. It’s still a question mark of what’s it actually going to feel like when we get in the race car and try to drive wide open for lap after lap.
Q. Is this pretty much the schedule that you hoped for when this all happened?
STEWART: Yeah, we’re actually just a tick ahead of schedule still. It’s the second time since the injury happened that the therapist has said we’re ahead.(Team Chevy)(1-10-2014)
