Nascar Race Today

Tony Stewart, right, is a driver, race promoter, track owner, team owner and all-around icon in NASCAR. (Photo: Andrew Weber, USA TODAY Sports)

Why will Tony Stewart be sidelined from NASCAR for the first time in 14 years by a crash that has nothing to do with his day job?

For his own gratification and the greater good of auto racing.

Look no further than a vintage moment for the driver known as "Smoke" in the pits Sunday at Pocono Raceway, minutes before he would climb into his No. 14 Chevrolet and race for 400 miles.

With a steely stare, clipped speech and a recalcitrant tone that any reporter knows well from covering NASCAR, the three-time champion berated ESPN.com's David Newton for a recent column suggesting that Stewart should curtail his moonlighting from NASCAR.

"You're hurting short-track racing," Stewart sternly told Newton toward the end of the conversation.

Unfortunately for Stewart, it's the driver who is ailing today after breaking his right leg in two places in a sprint car crash in Iowa.

And it's NASCAR that also will be feeling the pain of losing the on-track charisma and magnetism of its most gargantuan personality for an indefinite period of time.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. might have a larger fan base. Jeff Gordon might have more mainstream crossover appeal. But Stewart is consistently the most beguiling driver in Sprint Cup. Whether it's what he says before a microphone or what he does behind the wheel, everything Stewart is involved with bears watching - and has since his streak of 521 consecutive Cup starts began with the 1999 season.

The admonishment before the Pocono race - an example of the pure and unadulterated passion increasingly missing from the politically correct and corporate environs of major-league auto racing - was why NASCAR needs Stewart, for better or worse, as a headline-grabbing star who moves the needle in a sport that was built on emotion.

It also is why NASCAR won't have him for Sunday's race at Watkins Glen International and perhaps the rest of the season.

Stewart's recovery could take a while, especially since drivers rely on their right leg and foot for feel with the accelerator. Not to mention the physical comfort level Stewart will need to achieve to climb back into a car.

There isn't much upside to that scenario, but the silver lining might be that Stewart's presence still casts a shadow long beyond his sponsor-laden firesuit as he has emerged as a budding icon in American motor sports over the past decade.

Since becoming a Sprint Cup co-owner with Gene Haas four years ago, he has earned a seat at the table in long-term strategy decision-making and strategy for the sport. When NASCAR elected to run a dirt-track race on a national series for the first time in more than 40 years, Eldora Speedway was chosen largely because it was owned by Stewart, who owns several racetracks and always endeavors to put on a first-class show.

At 42, he has become mindful of his place in the sport he loves dearly. With many living legends of racing, such as A.J. Foyt and Roger Penske, well into their 70s, the leadership of the next generation will come from multifaceted talents such as Stewart, who believes that one of the best ways to be a racing evangelist is by barnstorming around the country's tiny dirt tracks and fervently spreading the gospel via the grass roots.

Between sprint cars and stock cars, he competed in 90 races last year and was on pace for more than 100 this year.

But this also isn't purely about altruism and the benefits of playing a folk hero. Extracurricular racing is part and parcel to Stewart's existence.

In an interview with USA TODAY Sports four days before the Daytona 500, he was asked if he was happy with a harried life as team owner, track owner and driver that hardly affords any down time.

The answer from a self-described "simple kid from Indiana" was profound in its simplicity.

"I drive a race car for a living," he said. "My car owner lets me go race as many sprint car races as I want to go run. Life's good."

That wasn't always the case at Joe Gibbs Racing, which forced Stewart to scale back his non-NASCAR pursuits during the 2002 season when he won his first Cup title.

One of the major perks of Stewart becoming a team owner was the comfort of giving himself the green light to drive in lower-tier series as often as he wished.

That implicitly prioritizes moonlighting ahead of the sponsors that pay millions to put him in a Sprint Cup car, but Stewart was cognizant of those risks of sprint cars (whose open-wheel construction make them inherently more dangerous), and they were outweighed by the negatives of excusing himself from strapping into a race car in every available moment.

That would be tantamount to stripping Stewart of the essence that has made him into such a larger-than-life figure in American racing, which is facing myriad challenges to remain relevant and retain its popularity in the 21st century.

Stewart never will give up that fight by skipping a short-track race for his own benefit. For racing's sake, he probably shouldn't.