01-05-2025
With NASCAR days behind him, Tony Stewart is a winner at drag racing
Hall of Fame racecar driver Tony Stewart cruised by CBS Chicago downtown on Wednesday.
The motorsports legend will be back behind the wheel next month at the Route 66 Nationals in Joliet. Stewart is a native Midwesterner himself — from Columbus, Indiana 40 miles south of Indianapolis.
The three-time NASCAR Cup champ shifted his gears to drag racing after two decades in NASCAR. Last year, he took over driving duties from his wife, Leah Pruett, and recently became a first-time father at 53 when his son, Dominic, was born in November.
Stewart said he still has some smoke in the tank when it comes to racing. The 2024 NHRA Rookie of the Year won his first Top Fuel race a little over two weeks ago in Las Vegas.
"Finally got our first win at Vegas — at a four-wide event at that — so yeah, it was nice to finally get the first one under our belt, and you know, I told our crew guys at the end of the day when we had our team meeting, I said, 'The best part of this is here on out, we get to go to the track and show up, and we don't have to worry about answering questions: 'Are you, or when are you going to win a race,'" Stewart said. "We've got that. We've checked that box off. Now we can show up and just race on the weekends. And people don't really understand how much pressure there was to win that first race."
Stewart said bringing a baby along to the racetrack puts a little extra pressure on his wife — but it's great nonetheless.
"We're at the racetrack. We have him at the track, and she still works full-time in the track. So her schedule is a little busier and a little more hectic," he said. "You know, for me, I love it. I mean, I love the fact that when we're at the drag races, we have our hospitality trailer and tent there, and entertaining our guests and our sponsors, and knowing that he's literally 30 feet away from the trailer that I'm racing out of all day, and I can go out there and check on him."
Stewart added that he is done with NASCAR, but he's more than happy to have fans who enjoy both NASCAR and drag racing.
"Zero chance here we're going to see me back in NASCAR. It is fun to meet people that watched us forever — a lot of these people know more about me than I know about me at this point, it seems like — but it's fun to see a lot of NASCAR fans coming to drag races, and the overwhelming response at the end of the day was, 'We had no idea.' When you ask these fans like, 'Well, what'd you think about it?' They're like, 'We had no idea.' I remind them like, 'Hey, you can still watch NASCAR — you can just add this!'"
The Route 66 Nationals are happening at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet May 16-18.
