ENNIS, Texas – You can now add champion between NHRA and Tony Stewart.
After one NTT IndyCar Series championship, one IROC title and three NASCAR Cup Series championships, Stewart continued his legacy with a regional championship in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series North Central Division.
But for the household name, it’s just another racing discipline he has come to master in his second season.
“This is redemption from last year at this same event,” said Stewart after hoisting the championship trophy in St. Louis. “When we were here a year ago, all we had to do was get through the first round and we would have clinched the division championship. To be able to come here and win the race and have low ET (Elapsed Time) of the event in the finals and win the division championship is just really cool.”
It’s no 4 second joy ride, that’s for certain. Stewart isn’t looking for history or records or a ‘hall of fame’ career. He simply wants to win.
But so does the crew that backs him.
“It’s not a hobby. This is a passion. It’s just our lives. It’s what we do.”
Meet Rich “Pops” McPhillips Sr. and Richie McPhillips Jr., co-owners of McPhillips Racing and lead mechanics for the McPhillips Racing Top Alcohol Dragster. Hailing from Pennsylvania, the family-operated team of 55 years found an unthinkable pairing with Stewart.
“Richie and him [Stewart] bust each other’s nuts all the time,” Rich McPhillips Sr. chuckled. “He’s a big part of the team. He motivates the guys he keeps everything loose. He’s just fun to be around and that’s not just when things are going great. He does exactly what you ask. He has a feel for everything as far as the burnout, as far as backing up, the speed of backing up, the staging. Everything was just smooth and perfect as could be.”
For Richie McPhillips Jr., he was impressed at the focus Stewart had all season long.
“What makes him so special is how focused he is on everything,” said Richie McPhillips Jr.. “He’s the same way. He’s there to win. There’s nothing else that matters. Everything is just about winning. And he’s willing to do whatever he has to do, and he expects the same out of us also.”
And it seems like the father-son duo appreciate that challenge. In fact, they want challenges like this to thrive under the pressure to perform.
“It’s a pressure to want to win because that’s every race we go to,” Richie McPhillips Jr. continued. “It’s not a, ‘We’ll get them next week,’ or whatever. You’re not going to win every race, but that should be your plan. That should go into every race track thinking you’re going to win that race and in reality we show up and we want both cars in the final racing each other. That’s our goal.”
But with such a decorated resume, Stewart still held a learning mentality, all while showing anything but rookie composure. He would be in the pits working on the car, pulling spark plugs and valve covers, reviewing data with the team to suggest setups and changes, and adjusting himself when approaching the line for his runs.
It gave the veteran team all they needed to become NHRA champions.
“We’ve been in town, Brownsburg [Indiana], where the hub of NHRA is, and all the all the pro teams, so we built a lot of decent relationships with some of the people in the town,” Richie McPhillips Jr. explained, reflecting back on when Stewart began with their team. “They got to know us, they know how serious dad and I are about this, that this is all we do.”
“It was a bit of a surprise when we were offered the opportunity to sit him in a car,” Rich McPhillips Sr. elaborated. “There were other teams that were trying to recruit him because you can’t ask for any higher exposure. He initially said that we just want to go racing and keep it as low key. We didn’t have to throw anything on the side of the trucks or trailers, not a ton of promotion in the beginning until people heard.”
The benefit was clear for all involved. It’s not often you hear of a rookie athlete in his 50’s, but it was no rookie effort for the rookie contender.
“He may have felt like he’s a rookie,” Rich McPhillips Sr. laughed about Stewart when he first climbed into the Mobil 1 Dodge//SRT Top Fuel Dragster. “It might have at that time said he was a rookie, but he was not making any rookie moves. There were no rookie mistakes. I didn’t see any rookie anywhere. He would tell us about where his heart rate was. I’m 70 years old. I don’t even know where my heart’s located, let alone the heart rate, and he knew– I say it to everybody – this guy could win in a dump truck or a tank. He’s as focused a guy could be. He put 145 runs on for us last year, and his average reaction was 0.041 [seconds], when there’s drivers out here that haven’t hit 0.041 [seconds] and they’ve been doing it 10 years, so it is really a special trait to be able to do that.
“We’ve given him good cars and it was on. We’ve given them bad cars and he’s still on. He is as focused a cat as I’ve ever seen.”
But ultimately, Stewart and McPhillips Racing don’t work hard for statistics or history.
Because when the sun goes down, the McPhillips family just wants to take home the hardware.
“All our fun is winning.”