Hail to the Chief...and the Champ: Stewart meets the President

 The President jokes with the NASCAR champ. Wonder who got the better of the exchanges? Wonder if Obama asked about the price of NASCAR gasoline? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
 

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

 

  Stewart, already a two-time winner this season, is coming into Sunday's Kansas 400 (1 p.m. ET/noon CT) here off an off-Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. He's seventh in the standings, 39 points behind leader Greg Biffle.
   "We got a chance to go to the Capitol first for lunch, and we spent some time there before heading over to the White House," Stewart said, perfectly politically correct during the session.
    "It's always an honor when our sport as a whole gets invited…and to be a part of the group that makes the Chase and know that the White House is something you're probably going to get invited to is a huge honor."
   Stewart said President Obama had done his NASCAR homework: "He got a couple of good wisecracks in during his speech. That's the stuff that makes it fun to me; you can tell they do their homework."
   It's not the first time Stewart and the President have chatted. "We had the honor of speaking with him during champion's week in Las Vegas (last fall).
   "He actually called us from Air Force One and we spoke for a couple of minutes. That was a pretty neat surprise.
    "He's really passionate about our sport. It's nice having the leader of our country be as interested in what we're doing as we are."

    Now that's a big house. NASCAR Day at the White House for Tony Stewart and last season's 12 championship contenders. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   Roots' racin':
   The Rock's successful return to NASCAR action may lead to something more eventually, like a Nationwide race.
   Sunday's Truck race at North Carolina Speedway, NASCAR's first run at the one-mile tire-eating track since it was pulled from the Cup tour in 2004, pulled some good TV numbers: Nielsen reports Speed's coverage scored a .88 household rating (which peaked at a 1.09). 
    Over the Truck season so far, TV ratings up are up 15 percent in households viewing (averaging 1.20, to last season's 1.04) and up 24 percent in the Male 35-to-54 age group demographic (1.26, to last year's 1.02), and up a whopping 60 percent among men 18-to-49 (.72, to last year's .45). 
   Certainly the Indy-car series would love to have ratings like that.
   NBC says its coverage of the Indy-car race at Long Beach, Calif., Sunday was up 45 percent, in both national ratings and number of viewers: the specific numbers -- 468,000 viewers, with a .32 national rating.
 
  Matt Kenseth, like the rest of the 12 men from last season's playoffs, is having a busy week. All 12 got the White House tour Tuesday, fresh off Sunday's Texas 500 at Fort Worth.
   Kenseth then spent Thursday on a whirlwind media tour of Chicago, another left-over from his rain-shortened Daytona 500 victory tour.
  And now he's here in the heartland for Sunday's Kansas 400, along with teammate Greg Biffle, the Texas winner, and still comfortably atop the Sprint Cup standings.
   Biffle has two Kansas Speedway wins in his career, making him one of the weekend favorites. 
   If Biffle can deal with a possible, even probable, gas mileage finish.
  
  

  Kansas Speedway: hope it's this pretty on Sunday too (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

   Five of those not picked for the Washington tour -- Jamie McMurray, Kasey Kahne, Joey Logano, A.J. Allmendinger, and Aric Almirola – got to spend two days at Dover, Del., testing tires for the June 3rd race. Goodyear wants to find a tire that puts down rubber on concrete quicker than the current design.

  Denny Hamlin is one of the men who needs to improve his performance at this 1-1/2-mile track, considerably flatter than the Texas 1-1/2-mile.
  Because it's a playoff track, it's doubly important for Hamlin and title contenders. "A place where we need to improve," Hamlin frets.
   Sooooo "We're going to use this time around to hopefully build a setup in which we can be competitive when we go back for the chase," he says.

  Ryan Newman has been making it hard on his 'teammates' the past few weeks. That deal at Martinsville, which cost Jimmie Johnson a possible victory, and that deal at Texas, which also cost Johnson a possible victory.
   Newman has earned a reputation as the toughest guy in the field to pass or lap. At Texas, though, he was already one lap down and about to go two laps down, when he and Johnson tussled….just enough for Biffle to sneak pass and snake the win.
   Newman has never been one to apologize, though, just grin.
   "Obviously the win at Martinsville was pretty big for our team," Newman said. "To get a win that early in the season was big for us.
   "We had hoped to carry over some momentum from that win, but that didn't work; Texas was disappointing. We just couldn't get the car to handle. It's just tough when the last 234 laps are caution-free.
    "You never get bunched up, and you don't have as many chances to work on the car."
   With teammate Stewart having won seven of the last 17 tour races, Newman certainly has good iron.
   "Our intermediate program has really improved over the past two seasons," Newman says. "We had a great run in Las Vegas. So I'm confident; I've compared the Kansas track to Las Vegas…and we've got the same car.
    "The track has aged, and the seams with the asphalt are sensitive. The biggest thing is probably going to be track position."
    The first lap field will be set in Saturday morning qualifying.
 

 Wonder what cabinet post President Obama might consider Tony Stewart ready to head? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)