But there’s a school of thought that the honor isn’t as great as it seems. Like the venerable Sports Illustrated cover jinx, strange events and performance drop-offs have accompanied those on the cover of EA Sports games.
Stewart may be buffeted by the fact that most of the EA jinx centers around NFL, MLB and NHL players. And the recent results are pretty inconclusive.
Last year was largely a fiasco. EA went with Elliott Sadler, who posed for the cover in his M&M’s uniform that he wore with Robert Yates Racing. By the time the game appeared on shelves, Sadler had already moved on to Evernham Motorsports.
The year prior, accentuating its focus on teammates, EA had Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson on the cover. Gordon remains a threat to win each week, but the days of his dominance are getting further in the rear-view mirror. Johnson again appeared to be a title contender, but came up short that season. He broke through a year later, of course.
The year before Gordon and Johnson, it was Kevin Harvick. He’s always been a very good driver, but has really come into his own starting with last season. When the cover was shot, he was one of the people in the Childress Racing stable; now, he’s the driver for the primary team at RCR, a claim few would argue.
So Stewart seems a bit more immune to the problems that have befelled people like Dany Heatley and Ray Lewis.
If there is a jinx on the NASCAR side, maybe Stewart has already gone through the worst of it. He didn’t make the Chase last year, a position very unbecoming for a driver of his talent. In five points races this year, he’s a second, two more top-10s and two finishes of 35th or worse.
That includes last week at Bristol, when Stewart had the dominant car but suffered a failure in his fuel pump, relegating him to a 35th-place finish. Stewart’s crew chief, Greg Zippadelli, is confident the problem has been corrected.
Stewart will certainly be on the short list of contenders this weekend at Martinsville. Can he put that bad streak behind him, or will the curse continue?