- Publish date:
Sunday Monkey
You already knewthat Tony Stewart, the feudin', cussin' two-time Nextel Cup champ, had ananimal side--he recently flipped the bird at a fellow driver while travelling200 miles an hour--but he also has an animal side. His pets include an iguana,a tiger named Tangie (who lives at the Metrolina zoo near Charlotte) and thedarling of his menagerie, Mojo, a three-year-old diaper-wearing patas monkeythat Stewart and former girlfriend Krista Dwyer got as a gift from a zoo inRockwell, N.C., last year. "A baby monkey doesn't take long to startjumping from object to object," Stewart says of Mojo, a male who weighs 20pounds and can run 35 miles an hour for short stretches. "It's like havinga child on crack."
Mojo (above, lastyear) eats a lot of sliced apples and pears and baby marshmallows. AlthoughStewart (below) and Dwyer have split, leaving Mojo as the monkey in the middle,Stewart visits him at Dwyer's Charlotte home once a week; he often has Mojoclambering on him at the track on days leading up to a race and for holidaysbrings him to his house in Columbus, Ind. "He's so smart he figured out howto defeat the child locks," says Stewart. Mojo also tracks Stewart on TV.Watching last November's Homestead race, Mojo was so amped to see his master'sface, he leaped at him, sending a 42-inch plasma TV crashing to the floor. Thelittle guy wasn't scolded much for the Stewartesque outburst. After all: Monkeysee, monkey do.
Pro to Pro
SI Players is giving athletes a chance to ask othersports figures any question they'd like. In this first installment, the 2006All-Star MVP queries a former NFL Coach of the Year
MICHAEL YOUNG
Rangers SS
"Marty, why didn't you give the ball to LaDainianTomlinson more in the last couple of weeks last year? It killed my fantasyleague team!"
MARTY SCHOTTENHEIMER
Chargers head coach
"Well, Michael, the conditions for running the ballweren't ideal in the Kansas City game"--the ground was wet--"andagainst the Broncos we got behind, and running the ball was not going to giveus an opportunity to win."
FIVE PHOTOS
GEORGE TIEDEMANN/GT IMAGES (MONKEY); NIGEL KINRADE (STEWART); DARREN CARROLL (YOUNG); SIMON BRUTY (TOMLINSON, SCHOTTENHEIMER)
PHOTO
