Three time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Tony Stewart, is known for his tough, outspoken attitude and for his love and passion for racing. He has driven many different types of race cars. In addition to NASCAR stock cars, he has spent time behind the wheel of Indy cars and dirt Modifieds.
Perhaps his strongest passion though is for sprint cars. Tony grew up racing these high horsepower, lightweight machines. He has also been sprint cars most outspoken proponent in the wake of recent tragedies that took the lives of Jason Leffler and Kramer Williamson.
In an interview he chastised the media for their criticism of sprint car racing in the wake of Leffler’s death saying, “You guys need to watch more sprint car videos and stuff. It’s starting to get annoying this week about that. That was just an average sprint car wreck. When they wreck they get upside down. That’s not a big deal.”
In an ironic twist of fate, Stewart was injured doing the very thing he loved. Driving a sprint car at a half-mile dirt track in Iowa. The injury was very severe, breaking the bone in his lower leg in two places. The injury ended his season and doctors are saying everything will have to go well for him to be back in time for the season opening Daytona 500.
For a hardcore racers like Tony, one thing is worse than the injury itself – being away from the racetrack. Fortunately for Tony, he found himself a nice set of wheels and made his way back to the garage area this weekend at Richmond. On Friday Tony said, “Being at the track the track is the best medicine for me.”
Tony had time to some shopping on the internet and discovered great motorized scooter. After removing some parts and adding some team graphics the cart was ready to go! It is definitely one of the coolest modes of transportation around the track this weekend.
Tony was all over the garage area Friday watching his cars, checking in on his team members, and getting back up to speed with everything that is going on. As Tony had said, the team business keeps going on, this gave him the opportunity to get his hands back on it.
Like him or not, Tony is all racer and it is always better to have him at the track than to not. He brings a unique perspective to the sport than no one else can bring.
