SONOMA, Calif. – Tony Stewart’s final season in the Sprint Cup Series is starting to make him nostalgic.
Stewart, inducted into the Sonoma Raceway Wall of Fame on Friday along with two-time Sonoma winner Ernie Irvan, said realizing this weekend would be his last at Sonoma left him “not feeling as good as I would have liked.”
A two-time Sonoma winner, Stewart said he loves racing at the Northern California road course and always has.
Now, he’s eager to move on from NASCAR after this year.
“I’m ready to go run stuff that makes me happy, and driving a Sprint Cup car does not make me happy right now,” Stewart said. “A lot of things have changed. The atmosphere has changed. There’s so much stuff in the garage area that’s changed that it was time for me to make a change with it.
“I’ve dedicated 18 years of my life to this series and it’s done great by me – I’ve made a great living doing it. But at the same time, there are other things in life I want to do other than be at a NASCAR track three days a week for 38 weekends out of 52 weeks a year.”
Stewart said NASCAR’s intensive schedule means it takes over a driver’s entire life. It’s all drivers think about and dream about, Stewart said, and racing even seeps into his thoughts while eating breakfast.
When friends like NHRA legend Don Prudhomme and former NASCAR crew chief Ray Evernham told Stewart about how much fun they’re having in retirement, Stewart said it sounded pretty good.
“I can’t imagine there’s not more to life than this,” he said. “I know there is. I know people that talk about it all the time.”
Stewart, who broke his back in January during a sand dunes accident after being separated from a group that included Prudhomme and Evernham, also has long enjoyed sprint car racing. He also owns a team. Other interests include business - he owns Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, which hosts a Camping World Truck Series race in July - and philanthropy.
While Stewart will miss racing at Sonoma, he won’t feel sad about his final event at Daytona International Speedway next week.
“There’s nothing I’m going to miss about that,” he said.
Stewart, 45, also lamented the current state of Cup Series driving. Earlier Friday, he had an incident in practice with Jamie McMurray which ended in Stewart flipping off the No. 1 car after he felt McMurray ruined his lap.
“Some of the things these guys do nowadays doesn’t make sense,” Stewart said. “When we had Dale (Earnhardt) Sr. and Rusty Wallace and Dale Jarrett, they were able to get their arms around these guys and get them to listen and make sense. There’s really nobody here that can do that anymore. Everybody is out of control.”
Asked more about his thoughts on some of the current drivers, Stewart declined.
“I’m not even going to talk about those guys,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”
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