Gene Haas knows what it takes to build a successful business. His work as chairman and CEO of the Haas Automation machine tool business, by all reports a world leader, is proof of that.

But what it takes to build a successful race team? That secret had eluded Haas and his racing right-hand man, Joe Custer, for years since the partners had advanced from the rough-hewn world of off-road truck racing.

It's tough to separate the business and racing worlds, particularly since doing either successfully virtually demands that the other keep step. So when Haas formed Haas CNC Racing in 2002, making the seemingly dubious decision to go straight to the top, the Cup Series, without experiencing a lesser division, he tried to exercise the same model: Putting the best people in place and letting them have at it.

But the six-year exercise, which expanded to a two-car operation in 2008 without making appreciable progress, had dismal results, despite using equipment provided by business associate Rick Hendrick, an industry leader.

Aware of the building process, Haas had enormous patience. But it had about expired when he got together with Custer, who was his race team's general manager.

"I kind of told Joe that I don't need to be coming to these races to be running 35th in points," Haas said. "So I told him either we make a change or we turn the place into a truck stop."

Custer had an idea that involved a guy who was a championship racer who'd ironically employed almost identical business principles to Haas in developing a successful open-wheel grass-roots race team; while also expanding his overall business portfolio. The guy was Tony Stewart.

But there was a wrinkle in the process. Haas spent about 16 months in federal incarceration after being convicted of tax fraud. The deal with Stewart went down while Haas was in prison. Following the team's stunning success, right out of the gate at the beginning of 2009, was a challenge.

But the challenge was nothing compared to what Haas experienced when he was released from federal confinement on May 8, the weekend before the Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

A week later, in his first trip back to a race track since his prison term began, Haas' seven-year journey through the Cup Series ended in Victory Lane at Lowe's. Ironically, the only other close call the team had ever had occurred on the same weekend in 2005, when Mike Bliss was bashed out of the way by Brian Vickers coming to the checkered flag in the All-Star Race's qualifier, the Nextel Open.

The aftermath of Stewart's all-star win created an almost humorous -- though not totally surprising -- line of questioning that began when Haas met with the media nearly a week later. And it epitomizes what's at the heart of the transition from Haas CNC Racing in 2008 to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009.

Haas said nothing about his team complex struck him as different, the first time he drove up. But the difference he felt when he walked through the doors was stunning.

"Actually, the biggest difference I see is really kind of in the attitude," Haas said. "It seems like we have this winning attitude throughout the company now and that was probably the biggest thing I've seen. Before, we didn't have too many fans come into our fan shop and there are quite a few of those coming in now.

"So if anything, it just seems like a whole new attitude throughout the whole complex. That's what I've noticed the most. Physically, it looks very similar to what it was."

But from top to bottom, that's nowhere near the case, and it provides a fascinating story.

THE DEAL

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Tony Stewart was all smiles when he announced he would be part owner of Stewart-Haas Racing at Indianapolis in 2008.

Custer was always seen as one of the hard workers in the Cup garage, always approachable when he didn't have a phone glued to his ear. Haas made no secret of how the heavenly marriage had come about.

"Well, I have to give that credit to Joe Custer [because] I really didn't hear too much about what was going on about what to do with the team," Haas said. "But Joe approached me a little over a year ago and said he had this idea. His idea was that we had to make a change.

"Obviously Haas CNC Racing had been in the business for six years and we really were just struggling. Like any other businessmen, you know you have to do something. We needed to do something in a big way. It wasn't funny to go to the races and lose all the time.

"So I really have to give Joe Custer the credit for coming up with this wild, crazy idea."

From Stewart's side, Brett Frood, 34, who's overseen Stewart's business interests since May 2004 was heavily involved. Frood is an executive vice president of Stewart-Haas Racing and handles the team's day-to-day business operations; and to him, Stewart seizing the opportunity to go into partnership with Haas was perfect timing.

The deal was announced at a place that was very important to Stewart, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, during the 2008 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard weekend. Ten months later and awash in success, as little as he's been able to enjoy it, Haas can appreciate where it comes from.

"Actually that's the biggest problem with a team is trying to find the talent," Haas said. "When I started our NASCAR team in 2002, it was really ridiculous. Most people start off with a Truck team or a Busch team or something a little less strenuous, but whatever, I never really seem to get things right, so I just decided, 'what the heck, we'll just go for the Cup team.'"

Haas knew Hendrick since he supplied his racing operation with machine tools, so he heeded his advice.

"Joe and I were kind of wandering around trying to find something else to do and we had some discussions with different race teams that are no longer around," Haas said. "Actually it was Rick who kind of gave us the direction of which way to go. From that, it's really difficult [because] it seems like in NASCAR it takes five years before the people in the garage will even really accept you.

"It's almost like you don't really exist until you've been here for a few years and people get to know you and understand that you might survive. Obviously the teams that disappear, we forget about quickly. But it really does take a lot of tenacity and money and time and effort just to survive in this competitive racing. And finding talent is probably the hardest thing to do for a small team."

THE BUILD

Constructing the entity that's now Stewart-Haas Racing stunningly shows just how minute the adjustments at NASCAR's highest level can mean the difference between contending and just being there.

One of the most critical moves was hiring Bobby Hutchens as director of competition, at the end of the 2008 season. Hutchens, who has a mechanical engineering degree from North Carolina State University and a racing background as a successful NASCAR Modified driver; had spent more than two decades at the sport's highest level with a couple of its best organizations.

Hutchens was a part of four Winston Cup championships with Dale Earnhardt at Richard Childress Racing, in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994; and most recently had worked at Dale Earnhardt Incorporated.

Moving to SHR provided a stark contrast to his previous locations, and was a welcome step back, at least in team size. And maybe the neatest thing about the team's current success is that Hutchens said 70 percent of the former Haas CNC employees were retained for the new team.

"When you talk about those two organizations, there were 400-plus people there and more than four race teams at RCR," Hutchens said. "Here we have two race teams and a little over 120 people. So from a management standpoint it's easier and it's a throwback to where I started in this business -- a lot more of a family atmosphere because you get to know people better."

Easing the burden was the fact that at RCR and DEI, engines and chassis were built in-house. Hendrick Motorsports provides those elements for Stewart-Haas; and it was that linchpin that made the two organizations' transition easier when crew chiefs Darian Grubb and Tony Gibson, Hutchens, Custer -- who's now an executive vice president -- and former crew chief Matt Borland -- who was Haas CNC's director of competition but who's now SHR's technical director -- got together.

"When we went in there, the first week after Homestead, we sat down: Darian, Tony, Matt Borland, Joe and myself, and kind of evaluated the people and the equipment," Hutchens said. "We decided at that point in time we would go through all of the equipment and make all the chassis the same, make all the bodies the same [so] essentially on Dec. 1, we had no cars in the shop.

"That was a big undertaking but we all felt at the end of the day that was the best thing to hopefully aid our performance. Also in that same fact of trying to get those parts and pieces put together the way we want them to be put together, that allowed us to also be able to use the Hendrick database that we were allowed to look at on the weekends and hopefully be able to compare parts and pieces, and as I heard Jeff Gordon allude to earlier, some knowledge.

"That was a big part, I think, in our decision making as far as what we did with the equipment."

THE TRANSITION

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Tony Stewart and Joe Custer have worked together to bring in top-notch talent, including Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman as the second driver.

It didn't take Hutchens, who first talked to Stewart about possibly joining his team at Lowe's Motor Speedway in October, long to come onboard. More recently, it hasn't taken Stewart any longer to win over Haas, who claimed to own some of Stewart's legendary characteristics.

"Most of my information [about Stewart] was like everybody else -- I thought Tony was kind of a hard-ass son-of-a-gun," Haas said. "And actually, I have only really talked to him at any length in the last few months. He is one of the nicest guys I have ever met -- very calm, very quiet. Total reversal of what I saw in the media."

Stewart, who was sitting-in with the same group, couldn't resist interjecting a comment that he said in jest, but is true.

"Be really careful [what you say] because they think a lot different of me than this," Stewart told Haas. "I've worked really hard to build what I've been doing here."

"I think his temper is a lot more controlled than mine," Haas said. "I could be wrong."

Seriously, Stewart said what's learned about Haas has come in a rush, and is almost 100 percent positive.

"If I would have tripped over Gene, I wouldn't have known it -- I had never met Gene before, had never spoke to him before and probably saw him at a race track and just didn't realize that it was him," Stewart said. "Man, it has been awesome. After the [All-Star] win, he was at the shop Monday and Tuesday, in fact I think he has been at the shop every day [that] week.

"He came to my birthday party [May 20]. It's been a lot of fun to hang out with him -- he has a good sense of humor. I think he was kind of taken aback a little bit by how it's changed the last time he was at the shop to this time. I'm excited.

"To see him walk around the shop and talk to all the guys, that is something he hasn't had a chance to do for a while, so I was happy to see that. He is just real mellow. He sat in the team meeting with us Monday and the competition meeting and actually came up with some good ideas on a couple of variables we were having trouble with.

"He is a very, very smart individual. He has a lot of knowledge. Obviously, to build a company that he has with Haas Automation is pretty impressive. You don't just come up with that out of nowhere."

And Hutchens confirmed that Stewart's attitude was what had convinced him to join him.

"I feel very fortunate that I was lucky enough to get the job," Hutchens said. "I guess the thing that appealed to me the most was how Tony viewed how he wanted to do this and how he wanted to set it up and probably bigger than anything, why he wanted to do it.

"To me he's a grass roots racer to a certain degree -- he's kind of a throwback guy. He races for the love of the trophy and the love of the sport and the love of racing and that's why I got into this. My dad had [race] cars when I was a kid and that's all I ever wanted to do, was race, and I felt like this was a place where I could come and still feel like a kid and compete at the top level and at the same time win races and championships."

THE PAYOFF

From the beginning of this season, Stewart-Haas Racing's performance has surprised some people, but if you talk to the insiders -- including Stewart himself -- it shouldn't have surprised anyone.

While all eyes are on Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman has held his own on the track and could get the team's first points victory.

Stewart started the year with a fifth-place finish in the Daytona 500, fell back to eighth in the standings two races later but keyed off five top-five finishes and eight top-10s, he's moved to second in the standings, only 44 points behind Jeff Gordon.

His hand-picked teammate, as so many aspects of his team were, Ryan Newman, started the year with pathetically bad luck -- but none-too-shabby performance -- and it's finally paying off.

Newman finished 36th in the Daytona 500 and three bad races later had almost fallen out of the top 35 in the owners' standings. But in the eight races since, he has six top-10 finishes, four consecutive top-fives and is threatening Stewart for being the first to win a Sprint Cup points race.

And oh yeah, he's currently seventh in the drivers' standings.

It made Stewart's victory in the All-Star race almost anti-climactic, were it not for Haas' presence.

THE REACTION

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For most of the Stewart-Haas team, this was the first time they had ever been to Victory Lane -- including co-owner Gene Haas.

Kyle Busch had one season in which to thrive as Stewart's teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing. In 2008, while Stewart strained to finally win a race in the last quarter of the season, Busch overflowed with a NASCAR-record 21 victories in its three national tours.

Looking back, Busch said he was initially baffled when he heard the news of Stewart's decision. But it didn't take Busch, who also owns his own short track team and is equally a fiery free spirit, long to figure it out.

"I thought, 'Why would you leave a good situation where you're at, at Gibbs?'" Busch said. "He's got the opportunity to probably make more money where he's at, yet drive for his own team. He can say and do what he wants any time of the week -- he doesn't have to worry about talking to Joe Gibbs after bashing Goodyear. That all works to his benefit I guess.

"He's in a good situation where when he retires; he's a team owner, so he's going to be involved in the sport for a long time. He didn't have that opportunity at Gibbs to become part owner in the team. I believe Gibbs would've helped him start his own team if he wanted to, but I think he wanted to go into something that was already there, and there was sort of a foundation and a shop and a building -- and of course, Gene Haas, who's got a pretty big checkbook."

But he doesn't feel a need to wave it around. Haas said he didn't see himself disrupting the successful flow that "his guys," Custer and Matt Borland, have engineered with "Stewart's guys," Frood and Hutchens.

"Running a business and doing it successfully is probably a little bit of magic there, too," Haas said. "What I'm really good at is basically finding people who know what they're doing and letting them do their thing. I've never really been a hands-on manager myself. I don't put my fingers in things -- I put a lot of faith in the people I have and then let them run with what they have and see where it goes [and] for me, personally, that's been pretty successful."

Haas said he didn't see his involvement changing, considering how he feels about the personnel he has.

"I really think that Tony and Ryan are two of the best drivers on the circuit today, and I think they know what they're doing," Haas said. "We have great crew chiefs, we have good managers and it's been well thought out. When I sit in on the driver meetings, I'm really just learning and that's probably the fun part for me.

"I don't think I can really interject a lot into the business because I don't live this on a day-to-day basis. But I have a lot of faith in the people that I see. Obviously we're starting to finally get some results. Winning our first race in seven years was something that was a long time coming. And we'll have to see where it goes from there."

Stewart, showing he's still got at least a little bit of disagreeability in him, gave his co-owner some credit.

"He is a real intelligent guy, you can tell," Stewart said. "He has an engineering background like Ryan has. Sitting in the meeting there, he was pretty quiet through the whole thing. When we got in a spot where we were trying to find a solution to a problem, he chimed in and actually had a solution for us that was pretty impressive.

"It's kind of neat to have him back. I'm excited for him."