Fort Worth, Texas ? Tony Stewart has earned his bad boy reputation.

After all, he finished the last two seasons on probation, last year becoming the first NASCAR driver to win a title while on probation.

The driver was fined $60,000 and had to undergo anger management counseling after he punched a photographer at the Brickyard 400 in August. He also was accused of shoving an EMT worker and pushing a fan.

Six races into the 2003 season, Stewart is off to his best start ever, ranking third in points.

“I’m really making a conscious effort to change who I’ve been,” Stewart said Thursday at Texas Motor Speedway. “Not change who I am as a person, but just change how I deal with things.”

So far so good.

Stewart brings the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Chevrolet this week to the 11/2-mile Texas track, where he’s never been a strong starter, but has three top-10 finishes. In his four Texas races, he has improved an average of 21 places from start to finish.

Qualifying is today, and the seventh NASCAR race at Texas will be run Sunday.

After starting 29th in last year’s Samsung/RadioShack 500, he finished fifth. That moved him the top 10 of season points to stay.

This is the first year that Stewart has gotten to Texas two months into the season already in the top 10.

“It seems like the first seven or eight races have typically been the weakest part of our season,” he said. “The position that we are at, we are heads and shoulders above where we typically have been.”

Busch driver Jason Keller holds up the O'Reilly 300 pole sitter trophy. His Thursday qualifying run of 187.474 mph at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, gives him the pole for Saturday's race. It was his first Busch series pole.