I’d heard the stories about the two faces of Tony Stewart. There’s the Tony at the racetrack, who would rather do just about anything than talk to the media. Then there’s the Tony away from the racetrack, when he isn’t worried about getting the most out of his car, and that Tony is all that we could ask for as an interview.

I can now verify that with my own experience.

I was going in to talk to both him and crew chief Greg Zipadelli for our NASCAR preseason section cover story (Feb. 10, in case I haven’t mentioned that), and I knew both had talked about their relationship for years. So I was a little bit nervous I would get shut down by Stewart before I even started.

I started off with Zipadelli alone in his office, and he was good. We talked about how he ended up at Gibbs and his connection with Stewart. Then Stewart’s PR guy, Mike Arning, walked Stewart into the office and left us there. I figured I was done with Zipadelli, and his phone had rung twice in our time together, so he excused himself.

The moment of truth…and Stewart was better than I could have ever dreamed of. We talked about his purchases at Barrett-Jackson’s car auction. You can go to the auction’s site and look at the car list. He bought a ’57 Bel Air and there were several of those that were black and white so I’m not sure which one is his. He bought a 1950 Mercury for $85,000 and a 1967 GTO for $120,000.

Oh, and we definitely talked about his hair, which is much longer than it was last season. My exact phrasing (moving my hands around his head area): What’s up with that? He laughed and explained:

“The girl that cuts it is here in Charlotte; I live in Indiana. I went six weeks and didn’t have a day in my schedule to come down here and get it cut. This was probably late spring and it got to the point where it was so ratty I wasn’t even embarrassed about it any more. It was too long to be short. So I just let it go. As the season has gone on, there were more and more women like, ‘Don’t cut your hair, we love your hair!’ and I was like, ‘Whatever, it’s saving me money on haircuts and I don’t have to worry about being in Charlotte,’ so we just kind of let it go. It’s funny because our local news station in Indiana had a segment on it. It’s like, ‘Wow, this is kind of funny that just not getting a haircut has created such a stir.’ It’s kind of why I’ve let it go and just run with it because it’s funny to see just how obsessed people get with stuff that really doesn’t matter.”

He also voted for his most memorable 500s (he actually gave me five) and we talked about his cell phone (he has the Verizon Voyager I’m looking at getting).

Oh, yeah, and we talked about him and Zippy.

I got so much stuff I’ll be able to do not only the cover story on their relationship, but also a Stewart feature during Speedweeks…so Smoke fans, keep an eye out.