Every time they talk about Tony Stewart they say he crosses the line.

It was his impression, earlier in his racing life, that he was supposed to.

In 1995 Stewart ruthlessly ran midgets, sprint cars and Silver Crown cars in the U.S. Auto Club series. July 1 in Lawrenceburg, Ind; July 3 in Richmond, Ky.; July 5 in Kokomo, Ind.; July 6 in Winchester, Ind; July 7 in Terre Haute, Ind.; July 8 in Paragon, Ind. There were doubleheaders, tripleheaders, four races in four days in four states.

Stewart was oblivious, and obvious. He won all three titles. In one year. No one ever had.

“He ran 59 races that year,” said Dick Jordan, a USAC publicist and a friend of Stewart’s. “But the amazing thing was winning the Silver Crown title, that last race in Sacramento. There was no way, because he was in third place, 147 points out of second, 155 out of first. But the top two guys dropped out early, and here came Tony, finishing second. It was miraculous.”

At 16 Stewart won the World Karting Assn. title. At 23 he won the USAC midget title. At 26 he won the Indy Racing League championship. Now he’s 31, and if he finishes 22nd or better at Homestead today, he’ll take his first Winston Cup title.

In doing so he has crossed lines and boundaries alike.

He has spun out Jeff Gordon, ripped Talladega fans for being “a bunch of rednecks,” and slapped a tape recorder out of a reporter’s hand after he was black-flagged at Daytona.

At Indianapolis in August – less than an hour from his hometown of Rushville – Stewart scuffled with a newspaper photographer. NASCAR fined him $10,000 but his sponsor, Home Depot, fined him $50,000, put him on probation and, as Stewart later disclosed, nearly fired him.

“Tony maybe is the product of racing a lot of different series, saying, ‘Hey, I say what I want, get out of there and I’m gone,”” said Joe Gibbs, the team owner.

“In Winston Cup there’s more to it than that.”

But not really. Not when the race begins and Stewart is back in the world that demands nothing but his instincts.

“I’ve raced for 23 years,” Stewart said.

“When I was 8 years old it was cool, because I was the only kid on the block that got to race a go-cart that went 50 miles an hour.

“It always seems to amaze me how everybody – and I’m going to blame you guys in the media – always wants to make more out of it than what it is. It’s always boiled down to getting to the finish line before anybody else does.”

Stewart’s heart remains in the bullrings. Gibbs had to bench him from short-track adventures in the midst of the Cup schedule, and Stewart regrets that his business obligations will probably bar him from Turkey Night at Irwindale Speedway.

Because the Winston Cup points system is designed to keep the teams bunched, Stewart has had to learn to turn 10th-place days into fifths, fifths into thirds. At Rockingham two weeks ago he stormed out of the Pontiac and proclaimed it “the worst car I’ve ever driven,” but he had also battled his way to a valuable 14th place, after tagging along in 30th.