Tony Stewart quotes:

To be a driver that can cross off one of those marquee events as a winner, that cements your legacy in motorsports, to be able to win the Daytona 500 is the ultimate dream of a race car driver.

I am a racer. I'm not a race car driver. I am a racer. I race. That's what I do. I don't go on vacations. I don't take my family on vacations because I don't have a family. My family is the racing family.

I guess if you're not going to win the championship, you're better off taking the opportunity to win a Brickyard or a Daytona 500 than you are to make the Chase and then fizzle out.

I respect everything the District Attorney and Sheriff's Office did to thoroughly investigate this tragic accident. While the process was long and emotionally difficult, it allowed for all the facts of the accident to be identified and known.

We all get so caught up in the moment of what we're doing every day, it's hard to hit that reset button and get pulled away from all that and see life from a different perspective.

There are guys you give the benefit of the doubt if they hold you up a little bit longer than normal, and you have that list of guys you kind of know are going to be a problem when you get there. The window of being patient with them is a lot shorter.

Race cars, no matter what size or shape they are, they do the same things. It is not complicated.

For most part, the rule of thumb is pretty much you're going to race guys hard the last quarter of the race and for sure the last run of the day. You're still going to give and take until that last pit stop.

It's very easy to get caught up in everything that's going on and just daily stuff being a distraction. When you have all that taken away from you, your daily activity becomes a lot more subtle, and you appreciate it all a lot more.

All my life I've been that way - ever since I was a kid. It doesn't matter whether we played video games or even before that when we had board games when you played with your sister and mom and dad - I didn't like losing then and didn't want to do anything but win when we played.

When I go home, its an easy way to be grounded. You learn to realize what truly matters.

I'm not going to just stop doing it because I got hurt once. People get hurt in car wrecks every day, and they don't stop driving the car the rest of their life to work. It's my passion. It's what I want to do with my life. It's a part of what I do.

If a guy does us wrong the week before, and he does something the next week where he makes an effort to make it right, then I pretty much will let that go. You don't forget about it, but just seeing that the guy makes an effort the next week means a lot.

I'm going to take full advantage of whatever time I've got on this earth. I'm going to get my money's worth. You can bet your butt on that.

Get in the race car do what I do then go home. We don't have freedom to do anything anymore.

I broke my leg is all I did. I didnt break my brain.

I don't care how good you are, you have to have that feeling in your gut that you want to win every week when you go out there.

It's no different than anything else in anybody else's life. Doesn't matter how simple or complex. There are days you hate it and days you love it.

I've risen from the dead. Though sometimes, when I wake up in the morning, I feel like I've died. I swear I'm aging in dog years. But no, I'm not dead. It's funny how stuff like that gets started.

If I have a love-hate relationship with Martinsville, then we're missing the love part of the equation.

It's like, what if you get a set of tires that aren't balanced right or a driveshaft that's vibrating. That could create a problem. You try to think of every possible scenario of what can make you uncomfortable and try to come up with a solution for it.

I go into it with the attitude that I'm not going to look at my leg, and as soon as they get the wrapping off of it, I'm like, 'I've got to look.' It's like yelling at a dog going, 'Squirrel!' I cannot not look. And then I spend the rest of the time sitting there with a wet washcloth on my forehead trying to regain consciousness.

You get around people who see us away from the track, and it's a pretty big contrast. You're still competitive, and you still want to win everything, but I think in the car, we're focused and passionate all the time. We get outside the car, and we're a lot more relaxed and easygoing, enjoying things away from racing.

I'm scared of saying something that may get taken the wrong way.

I've got more stuff asked of me every week. But I drive a race car for a living. My car owner lets me race as many sprint car races as I want to run.

I guess I take a lot of pride in that no matter what type of car we drive, we're always competitive in it. That's something I've taken a lot of pride in my whole life.

It's hard to not make a mistake at Darlington.

Daytona is a restrictor-plate race and, unlike Daytona, guys can't get in a line at Phoenix and go to the front. Daytona and Talladega (Ala.) have always just been two different forms of racing. With the draft being so important at those two tracks, it's more of a team deal than an individual deal. What happens at Phoenix and the races after that has to be done on your own. You can't help each other at Phoenix. You just have to go race.

DEI without Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a museum.

For the drivers, a weekend off would be nice, but for the fans, it would not be a very good deal.

I think when you look at our team, you have to say that the weak point is probably still the driver.

If I died right now, my life would be complete.

I'm going to live my life. It's nobody else's decision, but mine. I think there are a lot worse things I could be doing with my life than what I choose to do...

I've had times where I walked up to the line, where I know the play, but don't know what to do.

One way or the other, we?ve always got to chase our tails....

To be honest, I still don't feel like I'm a representative or an ambassador for the sport.

Tony Stewart -- Broke out a new chassis at Pocono Raceway last June and raced to the checkered flag for his first victory of 2003; has finished among the top 10 in all but two of his 10 career starts here; Turn one is probably the easiest of the three, but you've got the challenge of having to downshift in the middle of the corner, .. You go down the backstretch and into the tunnel turn and it's basically one lane.