Stewart Is a Winner and a Builder Too

If you think Tony Stewart is good at driving a race car, you ought to see him with a hammer and a shovel.

Stewart and a few hundred of his Home Depot friends gathered at the Pomona YMCA on Wednesday and in a few hours turned a barren piece of ground into a NASCAR-themed playground for children 6-12. There’s also a vegetable, herb and flower garden.

“It beats standing around doing an autograph session,” said Stewart, who will begin practice today at California Speedway for Sunday’s Nextel Cup Sony HD 500. “When you finish doing something like this, you feel like you accomplished something.”

Stewart is leading in the points race and has clinched a berth in the 10-race “Chase for the Championship,” the shootout to determine the championship and its $5-million bonus. Two qualifying races remain, Sunday’s and another next Saturday night at Richmond, Va., before the Chase starts.

“We don’t have to make something happen Sunday, so it definitely takes the pressure off,” Stewart said. “We’ll approach it the same way we approach all of our races, however, to do everything we can to win. We’ve been on a little streak and we’d like to keep the momentum going into the chase.”

Stewart won five of seven races in one stretch to take the lead from Jimmie Johnson, who with Greg Biffle and Rusty Wallace also have earned chase berths.

“How we run at Fontana will give us a better feel for what we need in the longer chase races, like Kansas, Atlanta and Homestead,” Stewart said. “They’re all a mile and a half, but that’s not much different from two miles.”

California Speedway is a two-mile D-shaped oval.

In eight Cup races at Fontana, Stewart’s best finish was fourth in 1999 and again in 2001. He also finished second in a Busch series race there last year.

Wednesday, though, he was more interested in digging postholes for swings, pouring concrete, moving mulch and doing odd jobs necessary in building the instant playground.

“It’s something Home Depot and Joe Gibbs Racing and KaBoom are doing around the country, getting involved in communities near race tracks, and it’s fun for me and some of the guys to take part in it,” he said. “I remember when I was a kid back in Indiana, we had places like this to play, but there doesn’t seem to be many around anymore.

“[Car owner Joe Gibbs] says he loves me doing this sort of thing, but he says I can’t use any power tools or anything with a sharp edge. Too dangerous, he said, for a race car driver.”

The swings, baseball backstops, spiral slides and other features replaced equipment at the Pomona YMCA that was more than 20 years old and had been declared unfit for use. More than 500 children who participate in the YMCA’s child care, day camp and day watch had no play equipment before Wednesday.

“The greatest thing was seeing the eyes of the kids when they saw the No. 20 Home Depot car and when we finished, the way they looked at all the stuff we did,” said Stewart, who was joined by fellow NASCAR driver J.J. Yeley and several crewmen.

Plans call for 10 such playgrounds to be built this year. Pomona was the fifth.

Katrina Relief

California Speedway and Irwindale Speedway will help raise money this weekend for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

At Irwindale, fans contributing to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief Fund will receive a pair of general admission tickets for any NASCAR race at the facility for the rest of the season.

At California Speedway, San Bernardino County fire fighters will be collecting for the same fund during the NASCAR Nextel Cup weekend.

Speedway Bikes

Billy Hamill and Greg Hancock, two Southern Californians who moved to England and won world speedway motorcycle championships, will return this week to compete in the AMA national championship.

The Industry Hills Expo Center track will be the site of the second round of the three-race series Saturday night. The final round is scheduled Oct. 8 at Auburn, Calif.

Hancock, from Balboa, won the world title in 1997 and is the defending U.S. champion. Hamill, from Monrovia, won his world championship in 1996. The 20-rider field will also include former national champions Bobby Schwartz, Mike Faria and Charlie Venegas and young Ryan Fisher, who won Wednesday night’s weekly show.

Speedway bikes race every Wednesday night at the Expo Center, a $10-million covered arena at 16200 Temple Ave., Industry. Racing will begin at 6:30 p.m. for the nationals, a one-time Saturday event.

Southland Scene

The USAC/CRA sprint car race between champion Rip Williams and challenger Damion Gardner is getting closer each week and Gardner may finally overtake Williams in a 50-lap main event Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway.

On July 23, Williams held a 109-point lead, but over the last five races Gardner has whittled it to 10, 1,339 to 1,329. Mike Kirby, who won last week at Santa Maria, also is close at 1,237, followed by Cory Kruseman at 1,187.

Big Foot and his monster truck playmates will entertain fans at Irwindale Speedway on Saturday night. And if they don’t cause enough destruction, there is a demolition derby to follow.

Western States dwarf cars will race the final round of a four-event series today and Saturday at Ventura Raceway. Previous rounds were at Hanford, Santa Maria and Bakersfield. Qualifying and a 30-lap race will be Friday, with heats and the final Saturday.

The California Sports Car Club will run a double-points regional event Saturday and Sunday on Buttonwillow Raceway Park’s three-mile course. There will be five SCCA races, plus a Pacific Formula 2000 pro race, each day.

James “Bubba” Stewart, preseason favorite to unseat Ricky Carmichael as national motocross champion, ended his unsuccessful season prematurely when he crashed during practice and Kawasaki officials announced that he would miss the final two nationals of the year.

Carmichael, undefeated in outdoor racing, will be at Glen Helen Park, near San Bernardino, for the AMA season finale Sept. 11.

Drag Nationals

Tense races in the top-fuel and funny car divisions of the National Hot Rod Assn. will give added significance to the 51st Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, the NHRA’s most prestigious event, when final rounds are held Monday at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

Doug Kalitta, who drives the Mac Tools dragster, leads four-time U.S. Nationals winner Tony Schumacher by four points in top fuel, with Larry Dixon 99 behind in third. Schumacher recently recorded the fastest speed in drag racing history, 337.58 mph, in his U.S. Army dragster.

The top five positions in funny car are separated by 71 points. Rookie Robert Hight, Ron Capps, Gary Scelzi and Eric Medlen are challenging perennial champion John Force. Hight, Force’s son-in-law, is leading but Medlen has won three of the last four events in his Castrol Ford Mustang. Force is fourth, but only 47 points behind Hight.

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This week

*--* NASCAR NEXTEL CUP SONY HD 500

*--*

* When: Saturday, qualifying (Speed, 2 p.m.); Sunday, race (Channel 4, 5 p.m.).

* Where: California Speedway (D-shaped oval, 2 miles, 14 degrees banking in turns), Fontana.

* Race distance: 500 miles, 250 laps.

* 2004 winner: Elliott Sadler.

* Next race: Chevy Rock & Roll 400, Sept. 10, Richmond, Va.

*--* FORMULA ONE Italian Grand Prix

*--*

* When: Saturday, qualifying (Speed, 4 a.m.); Sunday, race (Speed, 4:30 a.m.).

* Where: Autodromo Nazionale di Monza (road course, 3.599 miles, seven turns).

* Race distance: 190.747 miles, 53 laps.

2004 winner: Rubens Barrichello.

Next race: Belgian Grand Prix, Sept. 11, Spa-Francorchamps.

*--* NASCAR BUSCH Ameriquest 300

*--*

* When: Saturday, qualifying (Speed, noon); race (Channel 4, 5:30 p.m.).

* Where: California Speedway.

* Race distance: 300 miles, 150 laps.

* 2004 winner: Greg Biffle.

* Next race: Emerson Radio 250, Sept. 9, Richmond, Va.

*--* NHRA Mac Tools U.S. Nationals

*--*

* When: Today, qualifying, 3:15 p.m.; Saturday, qualifying, 10:15 a.m. (ESPN2, 10:30 p.m.); Sunday, qualifying, 8 a.m. (ESPN2, 9 a.m.); Monday, eliminations, 8 a.m. (ESPN2, 9 a.m.).

* Where: Indianapolis Raceway Park.

* 2004 winners: Greg Anderson, Gary Desham, Tony Schumacher and Antron Brown.

* Next event: NHRA Nationals, Sept. 18, Reading, Pa.