Maine has a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion.

Oxford, Maine, to be precise.

Yes, it was Tony Stewart who did the glamorous work, sawing on the steering wheel and leaving Carl Edwards in the vapor trail Sunday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

It was Stewart showered with the most champagne. It is he who will cash the largest check and bask in all the trappings discussed in an infamous Rolling Stone interview three years ago.

As evidenced by a punctured grill and a lug nut with a mind of its own, however, stock car racing is every bit a team sport.

Michael Morneau, 26, is a vital cog in the operation that celebrated a race victory, multiple comebacks for the ages and an improbable championship.

“It’s surreal. There have been a lot of blessings in disguise,” Morneau said Monday in a phone interview from his North Carolina home. “To go from Oxford, Maine, and make this all a reality and in my seventh year to win the Sprint Cup championship, it’s like winning the Super Bowl or the World Series. No one can ever take that away.”

The strapping Morneau works in the suspension shop at Stewart-Haas Racing four days a week and is the rear tire carrier on every pit stop from Daytona Beach in February to South Beach in November.

Of course, there were no job descriptions on a showery Sunday in the Sunshine State when a hole in the nose of Stewart’s Chevrolet brought all hands on deck before some spectators even had time to settle into their seats.

Stewart’s crew somehow corrected the damage without losing a lap to the field. Relegated to 40th place in a 43-car field, though, their championship hopes were left for dead.

“When that happened, I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ But you don’t throw in the towel when you work with Tony Stewart,” Morneau said. “If he gets it in his mindset, nobody’s going to beat him.”

Another catastrophic stop — that pesky lug nut wedging itself in the gun — prevented the team from changing all four tires and again dropped Stewart to the middle of the pack.

With an assortment of dramatic moves in traffic, a conservative spell that allowed him to save fuel and avoid a gas-and-go pit stop, then a well-timed rain shower, Stewart was able to sneak ahead of Edwards with 50 laps to go.

And the rest is racing history. Stewart maintained a one-second advantage until the checkered flag and forced a deadlock for the championship. He took the tiebreaker by winning for a record fifth time in the 10-race, season-ending playoff.

The driver and team that barely made the postseason cut are headed to Las Vegas for next week’s banquet at the pinnacle of their sport.

“It still hasn’t hit me yet,” Morneau said. “I started racing when I was 13 years old, and I never imagined this.”

Transitioning from underage four-cylinder driver at Oxford Plains Speedway to a NASCAR champion is rife with as many twists, turns, challenging choices and anxieties as you might imagine.

Morneau’s journey began with three years of automotive classes at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School under the tutelage of local racing personality Mitch Green.

Extended recovery from a serious snowmobile accident his senior year ended Morneau’s driving dreams. Instead, he was accepted at NASCAR Technical Institute and relocated to suburban Charlotte, N.C., after graduation.

He supplemented those daytime lessons with nights at the Performance Instruction & Training (PIT) school.

“That’s where I learned how to carry tires. I thought, hell, I might as well give that a shot and try to broaden my horizons as much as possible. They don’t guarantee you a job, but they help you with job placement,” Morneau said.

Help arrived more quickly than Morneau imagined. One of his PIT instructors worked at what was then Haas-CNC Racing. He offered Morneau a chance to practice pit stops with the team.

Morneau immediately clicked with the group’s chief mechanic. Robert “Bootie” Barker took the Maine teenager under his wing and promised to teach him “everything he needed to know” outside of school.

The experience led to a handful of Hooters Cup, Camping World Truck and ARCA races, followed by a full-time job with Haas-CNC beginning in the fall of 2004.

Low in the pecking order of NASCAR Sprint Cup teams, Haas-CNC struggled mightily for years. Morneau worked with a revolving door of drivers — Jason Leffler, Mike Bliss, Jeff Green, Johnny Sauter and Scott Riggs.

When Stewart announced in 2008 that he would leave Joe Gibbs Racing to buy a 50 percent stake in Haas-CNC, Morneau wondered if he would have a job when the transaction was complete.

“They came in and said, ‘You go here, you go there.’ I was one of the ones to make the cut,” Morneau said. “I’m not trying to pump myself up, but I’m one of the better tire carriers on pit road. I’ve been fortunate to have the talent to keep me in it.”

Morneau has been equally blessed away from the track.

His son, Griffin, was born in January. On Nov. 28, two days before he leaves for Las Vegas, Morneau and his wife, the former Cheryl Brown, will celebrate their second anniversary.

“The support from everybody up there and especially the support from my wife and son mean so much,” said Morneau, his voice cracking with emotion. “It’s not so much the hours in the shop. I work 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., four days a week. It’s the travel. It’s when we rain out and I have to call and say, ‘Sorry, honey, I won’t be home tonight, we’re racing tomorrow.’ They sacrifice so much for me.”

Morneau intends to repay Stewart for his faith and confidence, too.

“He’s a really great guy for work for. I learn something new every day,” Morneau said. “I’m a pretty loyal guy. I can’t predict what tomorrow will bring, whether it’s being shop foreman or director of competition someday. Whatever the man upstairs has for me.”

So far, “whatever” has been a sensational ride.

— Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com.

Copy the Story Link