How do you answer critics? For Stewart, you drive well

Kasey Kahne's car owner, Ray Evernham, said the star could use a beating.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- When the going gets tough for Tony Stewart, he responds the only way he can -- by answering his critics on the race track.
NASCAR's reigning Bad Boy and former champion has shaken off one controversy after another to string together three consecutive top-5 finishes and his only victory of the season.
"We've been through so much controversy in my whole career in the Cup series, anymore I'm just kind of numb to it all," Stewart said. "It's not a distraction to me, it's not an aggravation to me. I've found a way to simplify everything and not worry about it."
The incidents
Under fire most of the season from his fellow competitors for aggressive driving, things boiled over in late June in a confrontation with rookie Brian Vickers following the race in Sonoma, Calif.
Vickers claimed Stewart hit him in the chest while he was sitting inside his car, and NASCAR gave careful consideration to suspending Stewart before the July 3 race at Daytona.
When Stewart was instead fined and placed on probation, his rivals wondered how he avoided a stiffer punishment.
Stewart ignored them and finished fifth at Daytona.
He then won his first race of the season at Chicago, but that was marred, too. Stewart knocked Kasey Kahne out of his way en route to the win and a fight erupted in the pits between Kahne's crew and Stewart's crew.
Stewart tuned that out, too, along with the boos that rained down on him in Victory Lane.
Meanwhile, the firestorm around him grew to magnitude proportions.
"He definitely needs to get suspended," Ray Evernham, Kahne's car owner, fumed after the Chicago altercation. Evernham also said Stewart could use a "good beating."
Suspension or else
"That's the problem with him," he added. "Nobody has ever really grabbed him and given him a good beating. If he doesn't get suspended, maybe I'll do that."
Stewart kept racing, and finished fifth last week in New Hampshire.
He heads into this weekend's event at Pocono Raceway in fourth place in the point standings and a favorite for the Nextel Cup championship when the 10-race playoffs begin in September.
It's a trend Stewart has followed throughout his NASCAR career: When he's in the most trouble, he has his best races. The theory was proven in 2002 when Stewart punched a photographer following the race in Indianapolis, then rebounded to win the next week at Watkins Glen.
"When I'm in the race car, my job is to go out and win the race," Stewart said. "And that's what my passion and desire is, whether its in a midget or in a sprint car or in the Nextel Cup car."
Major headache
No one denies Stewart creates a ton of aggravation for his Joe Gibbs Racing team and is often a major headache for Atlanta-based sponsor Home Depot. The company was embarrassed in its hometown earlier this month when the No. 20 Chevrolet was heartily booed as it drove around the field during an Atlanta Braves game.
But all that is overshadowed by a tremendous talent on the track that forces those around him to overlook the bad things.
"Tony Stewart is very emotional," Gibbs said last week. "But I think he's one of the neatest guys -- he's easygoing, he's laid back, he's fun to be around and he's got a good sense of humor.
"So you've got to take the good and try to balance that out."
Often lost in Stewart's negative actions is his off-track charity. He's helped raise millions of dollars for Kyle Petty's Victory Junction Gang camp, just one of several organizations he helps out, and was recently given NASCAR's "Good Guy" award by The Sporting News.
Ambivalence
How could the Bad Boy of NASCAR also get the Good Guy award?
"He's two different people from the standpoint that he's given us a bunch of money for Victory Junction," Richard Petty said. "Yet he goes around and does some childish stuff. I don't think he's grown up as far as really understanding how the public looks at him.
"He'll eventually learn to look at the bigger picture."
Gibbs thinks Stewart already is. He said last week that Stewart must perform as if he has "two strikes against him" and that the driver finally understands that.
"I think what Tony has to understand is his past, and he has had situations there and he can't be put in those situations again," Gibbs said. "I think he's determined to do that. We're not looking to control him. He just has to be careful about the situations he gets in, knowing how much publicity it gets.
"Whenever Tony Stewart does something, it's a big deal."