It has taken Tony Stewart more than a year, but the defending Winston Cup champion is just about ready to start wearing a HANS device while racing.

Stewart was the last Winston Cup holdout before NASCAR made it mandatory in October 2001 for drivers in its top three series to wear head and neck restraints in the aftermath of Dale Earnhardt’s death from head injuries in 2001.

Saying he was claustrophobic, Stewart chose to wear the less constrictive Hutchens Device, which uses belts and straps to hold the helmet in place, rather than the Head And Neck Support, a rigid collar, similar to shoulder pads, that restricts mobility.

But that is about to change.

“We’re still wearing the Hutchens,” Stewart said earlier this week at Daytona International Speedway. “But we recently have been working with the HANS device at test sessions, trying to get more comfortable with it.

“Test results that we’ve seen have shown a pretty big discrepancy in test results as far as HANS verse Hutchens.”

The biggest problem in the switch remains comfort.

“We’re trying to see what we can do to make it comfortable to wear,’ Stewart said. “Kind of the same things we had to do with the Hutchens. It took time to get comfortable with it. We’re taking the opportunity during test sessions to try to fabricate cars with the HANS device and trying to make it more comfortable for me.”

As far as that claustrophobic feeling, he said, “We’ve found different ways of combatting that. It’s still mainly heat-related. When it’s hot out and you restrict movement on top of that, that makes it worse.”

Asked when he might start using the HANS in races, Stewart said, “We’re still a ways away, but we’ve made significant progress. We’ve tried it twice now and from the first time to now it’s been a big, big change.

“We ran (the HANS) earlier in the week at Loudon and got fairly comfortable with it. I can see the potential of having it switched over by the end of the year.”

Stewart said NASCAR has done a good job with its recent safety initiatives and noted, even though there’s still a lot to do to make the drivers safer in the race car, you can’t rush it.

“I’m not sure I know what the next step should be,” he said. “There’s different people looking at different areas and I think that’s great.

“Some are looking at soft walls. Some people are looking at car construction being a little less rigid, the introduction of composite seats. I think there’s a lot of neat projects being worked on out there that are going to make significant gains when they all finish the projects.

“The good thing is these people are taking a lot of time and making sure that what they’re doing is right before anything is done 100 percent.”

Top driver

Former Winston Cup champ Bobby Labonte has been named the winner of second-quarter voting for the Driver of the Year Award.

In the balloting by a panel of 18 motorsports writers and broadcasters and including one cumulative vote from fans, Labonte edged Indianapolis 500 winner Gil de Ferran by three points. Labonte collected two first-place and six runner-up votes.

The number of fans voting on an internet site almost tripled, to more than 129,000, over the first quarter. Labonte, the 2000 series champion and Driver of the Year, was third in the fan voting, finishing with a 75-72 edge over the Indy Racing League’s de Ferran.

Labonte, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, had five top-three finishes in the six races in the quarter ending on June 8.

De Ferran bounced back from a serious back injury to win Indy and was fourth in the IRL standings at the end of the quarter. He had the most first-place votes with four.

Sebastien Bourdais, the French rookie phenom in the CART Champ Car series, won two straight races for the Newman/Haas Racing team and got two first-place votes. He took third in the voting with 53 points.

Matt Kenseth, who leads the Winston Cup points, won the fan vote for the second straight quarter. He got three first-place votes, but totaled only 37 points, good for fifth, two points behind Busch Series star Scott Riggs.

Other drivers earning first-place votes were USAC’s J.J. Yeley, Larry Dixon from the National Hot Rod Association, the IRL’s Tony Kanaan and Kenseth’s Roush Racing teammate, Kurt Busch. A total of 20 drivers received votes.

Going for it

Two weeks ago in Sonoma, Calif., Robby Gordon won after passing teammate Kevin Harvick as they raced back to the flagstand after a caution flag came out.

Gordon was roundly criticized by runner-up Jeff Gordon and, later, Harvick, for breaking what they called a gentleman’s agreement not to race each other on the way to take the yellow flag.

Jimmy Spencer, known for his aggressive driving style, hasn’t won since the July 1994 Pepsi 400 in Daytona, and he says he would not hesitate to make the same pass as Gordon if it meant another win.

“Passing under the caution is a bad deal, but on the other side of it, you can gain a spot,” Spencer said. “You can win a race because of it. You win a Winston Cup race and you’re set. Your sponsor is set for the rest of the year. The pressure is off.”

Stat of the week

Matt Kenseth’s 174-point lead over Jeff Gordon going into Saturday night’s Pepsi 400 was the largest after 16 races since Dale Earnhardt led Neil Bonnett by 409 points in 1987. Earnhardt went on to win the third of his seven championship.

AP-ES-07-04-03 1306EDT