Tony Stewart was about to blow a gasket. His face was a deep burgundy. His gut burned. His eyes were pinched tighter than coin slots. And his hands were squeezing the sides of the table so hard you half expected to see sawdust. Who knew a free dinner could make someone so freakin' upset?

A few days before The Winston in Charlotte, Stewart had left his home on Lake Norman for a quiet dinner by himself at a nearby Cracker Barrel. The meal was delicious, the service impeccable, things were going great -- until the check arrived. Then the managers timidly shuffled up to the table and proudly announced to Stewart that his money was no good.

"I'm sitting there and I'm probably the one person in that whole restaurant who can afford to buy his own dinner," Stewart said. "So why not take a few minutes, look around and use that money to buy dinner for someone who looks like they haven't had a decent meal in two days? I appreciate it, don't get me wrong, but don't take care of me just because I drive a race car. Give it to someone who needs it."

I passed this anecdote along to Stewart's mother, Pam Boas, and she nearly choked up on the phone. You see, it's not easy to sit back each week and watch your son get hissed at by the same people he's risking his life to entertain. "I see people take one thing he says or one thing he does and decide what Tony is like," says Boas. "And I just want to email the whole world and say, 'That's not him. That's not Tony. He has a heart as big as Texas -- you just never get to see it.' "

Well, here's a big part of the problem, folks -- YOU'RE NOT LOOKING VERY HARD. You know about Stewart trying to attack Kenny Irwin in New Hampshire. But did you know when he won that race, after Irwin died in an accident, he quietly flew back to Indy to present the trophy to Irwin's parents? You know he slapped the tape recorder out of a reporter's hand at Daytona, but did you know he bought about a dozen of us hacks lunch a while back and offered, no less than five times, to hold my recorder during one of our interviews? In one breath his owner, Joe Gibbs, talks about Stewart going "ballistic" at the track when his car isn't running well, and in the next he's describing how Tony once jumped down on the living room floor in a sponsor's home to play cars with the guy's son.

Back at his own stucco lakefront home, Stewart's living room is decorated so well that the tan throw pillows on the couch actually match the brown Encyclopedia Britannicas on the shelf. And in many ways, Stewart's tale is a lot like that volume of books. Most of us have taken down one tome, leafed through it, looked at the pictures, put it back, ignored the other 24 volumes and decided we know the man.

When, in fact, the real Tony Stewart is intense, focused and driven -- but not by money. Gibbs says he turned down a million dollars to jump to NASCAR earlier in his career because another owner wouldn't let him hone his skills in the Busch series. But Stewart's also self-deprecating, kindhearted and equipped with a wicked wit. Last year before the Brickyard 400 he talked the Indy police into busting into a hotel room and handcuffing one of his boxer-clad assistants to his bed for 45 minutes.

Stewart has dispatched his private plane to fly sick race fans across the country. He has taken time to visit a Coast Guard station. He has yet to say no to a friend in need of a loan. And minutes before jumping into his car at The Winston he cradled a crew-member's child in his arms. "I know everyone wants to make him out to be big bad Tony," said the child's mother, Patty Gillin. "But to me and my family, he has never been anything but a tender-hearted friend."

	Stewart sometimes tosses good judgment out the window.

A while back, when a little girl, a fan, stricken with cancer was ignored by most drivers, Stewart was the one who stepped up and spent half the day with her. The last time he was in Florida he heard about an abused greyhound, then picked up the phone and saved the animal. "It made me so sick I wanted to cry, so I picked up the phone and took care of it because I'm in a position to help," says Stewart, self-consciously folding his arms across his chest, the way he does whenever he's revealing too much of himself and in need of a kind of emotional seat-belt. "I hate to say this because it will ruin my bad-boy reputation, but deep down inside I am a caring person."

Perhaps, then, all you need to know in your search for the real Tony Stewart is this: The guy simply won't shut up about all the controversial racing-related topics his handlers want him to be quiet about, and at the same time, he just won't talk about the kinds of charitable efforts his lackeys beg him to push.

When it comes to racing, yes, Stewart can be maniacal. Most athletes have tunnel vision. But when he's at the track it's as if Stewart sees the world through two straws. A guy has to apologize for that kind of intensity?

Yeah, he's focused. He's gritty. He's red-line competitive to, a fault. And he's brutally honest. In other words, he's just what NASCAR used to be about before it changed into little more than a high-octane, four-wheel corporate commercial; a slave to phonies, fare-weather fans and fickle sponsors.

"Tony's a real person who speaks his mind and for that he has been crucified," says fellow driver Jimmy Spencer. "The sport was built around people like him. And if we don't get more guys like him in NASCAR, well, I think we'll be in trouble. This sport needs more Tony Stewarts." Alas, there's only one.

If all these NASCAR folks are smart, they'll learn to appreciate him while they can.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at flemfile@aol.com.