Tony Stewart

Who is Tony Stewart?

Anthony Wayne "Tony" Stewart is an American racecar driver, businessman, and NASCAR team co-owner, and broadcaster. He is a three-time Sprint Cup champion. Throughout his racing career, Stewart has also won racing titles in Indy, midget, sprint and USAC Silver Crown cars.

Racing is clearly in Stewart's blood and he has achieved unprecedented success at every form and level of racing he has attempted, be it go karts, Indy, midgets, sprint cars, the USAC series, World of Outlaws, Nascar, or the SRX racing series (which he cofounded).

Stewart owned and drove the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2014. Though the season turned out to be his worst statistically as a driver, Stewart would win the Owner's Championship with Kevin Harvick that year. Stewart-Haas Racing, has emerged as one of the top, multicar teams competing at the Cup level to this day. From 1999 until 2008, 'Smoke,' drove the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing car, under crew chief Greg Zipadelli, with The Home Depot as the primary sponsor. His ten-year tenure with the same team, sponsor, and crew chief is a NASCAR record. Stewart is also the only driver to win both the Winston Cup under the old points system and the Nextel Cup under the chase playoff format, winning those championships in 2002 and 2005 respectively. In 2011, Stewart became the first owner-driver since Alan Kulwicki to win the Cup Series championship, which ended Jimmie Johnson's streak of consecutive championships at five.

Though he has not appeared in a Cup event since 2016, Stewart still keeps an active driving schedule appearing at local dirt tracks in sprint car and World of Outlaw events across the country, throughout the calendar year. He was inducted into the USAC Hall of Fame, for an exemplary career in that division, after already being a member of the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame (2001) and he added the Nascar Hall of Fame in 2020, and the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2022 to his astounding resumé. Of all Stewart's accomplishments, perhaps the most remarkable is his competing in both the Indy 500 and Nascar's Coca-Cola 600 in the same day, twice, in 1999 and 2001, with an impressive 6th-place and third-place respectively in the latter performance --completing all 600 laps and 1,100 miles. Tony Stewart is the only driver (past or present) to finish on the lead lap of both races on the same day!

In 2023 he began another new racing chapter running a full schedule in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series in the Top Alcohol Dragster division. The following year he made his debut in the Top Fuel division.

Famous Quotes:

• When I go home, its an easy way to be grounded. You learn to realize what truly matters.