There aren’t many personalities who would be a great fit for a mentor in NASCAR than Tony Stewart. The Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner had an illustrious career as a racecar driver and now, even though he is still driving in the NHRA or the SRX Series, being a team owner is what dominates his days in the motorsports world.
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Recently, as a team owner, Stewart gave his driver Chase Briscoe a lesson in what is arguably the most important ingredient of success for a racecar driver and his team, trust.
Smoke explained to a curious Briscoe the importance of trusting one’s crew chief, and how it can be done in a short period of time.
Tony Stewart teaches an important lesson to Chase Briscoe
During a recent episode of SHR’s Mentor & Mentee series, Briscoe asked his boss how he used to build trust with his different crew chiefs in a short amount of time. “Well, you just assume anything,” Stewart replied.
“It’s gotta be off of action and reaction. It takes time. And like you said, there’s a lot of times you don’t have a lot of time to build that trust so you kind of have to give them the benefit of the doubt until something happens and you go, ‘Maybe we should’ve done this a different way.'”
Stewart described that when one drives for someone, there’s a certain level of confidence going into it because the knowledge of “who we were going to drive for,” is clear. “It’s just a matter of communication and knowing that most of the times, those guys knew those cars better than we did. And we plopped down in them, did what we needed to do behind the steering wheel. But you have to trust that person and know that they want to win just as bad as you want to win,” he added.
“So everything they’re telling you is for the same reasons that you won.”
Trust, communication, and understanding.
These 3 things are the most important when the race is on the line.
— Stewart-Haas Racing (@StewartHaasRcng) September 7, 2023
Stewart told Briscoe how to deal with absurd questions from the media
In a previous edition of this series from SHR, Tony Stewart had explained to Chase Briscoe, how to handle rather inappropriate questions from the media in interviews. The pair were shown the infamous clip of Stewart calling out a reporter for his “no wreck” question alongside Dale Jr.
Not only did Smoke make the reporter realize the absurdity of the question, but he also did it in a fun way, a way in which he admitted he was trying to get Earnhardt Jr. to laugh. Stewart told Briscoe that the only way to answer such a question is with a “really great bad answer”.
And of course, he urged Briscoe to have “a little more fun” and do what he has to do, which is sometimes, to “set them straight.”
