OCALA, Fla. — Smoke officially rose on Thursday night at Bubba Raceway Park, as three-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart made his long-awaited return to winged sprint car racing after a nearly-three-year absence.
Stewart competed alongside teammate Donny Schatz in the season-opener for the series he owns — the Arctic Cat All Star Circuit of Champions — and while he ended up as the winning car owner after Schatz made a series of late-race maneuvers to steal the feature victory, his driving performance had to feel like a win as well.
Starting the night by qualifying fourth in his flight and 12th overall, Stewart landed on the pole of his heat race, but faded somewhat as he worked to find the handle on his No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Arctic Cat/Ford Performance J&J. He ended up failing to transfer directly to the main event through the heats, but found himself on the outside of the front row for the night’s 12-lap B-Main, a position he held for the duration of that event to transfer into the big dance.
Stewart lined up 20th in a 26-car field and quietly made moves in traffic on a very rubbered-up racing surface around the three-eighths-mile dirt oval, coming home 17th in the 30-lap feature but still able to celebrate after Schatz’s charge from third to first resulted in a victory for Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing in their debut with support from Ford Performance.
The event was Stewart’s first in sprint car competition since Aug. 9, 2014 at Canandaigua Motorsports Park, when his car struck fellow driver Kevin Ward Jr. in an incident that has since been highly-publicized. Ward died from the injuries he sustained in the accident.
A grand jury cleared Stewart of any potential wrongdoing, but a civil lawsuit from Ward’s family remains in the court system, with a deadline for mediation between the two sides recently pushed out to April 21.
In the meantime, Stewart is set to continue his weekend on the dirt, with TSR officials confirming that Stewart plans to race the Friday and Saturday night All Star shows at the Ocala, Fla. dirt track as well.
The three season-opening shows for Stewart’s series are the first of more than 70 total races that he plans to run in a variety-filled racing schedule this season, which Stewart said at the Chili Bowl Nationals is likely to include sprint car, late model and TQ midget starts.
However, he clarified three weeks in a Ford Performance press conference that fans likely won’t know where he’s going to be on any given night … at least for now.
“I think we’re just going to drop in for a while now,” Stewart said in mid-January at Ford Performance’s technical center in Concord, N.C. “I like it on the nights that fans know we’re going because we get to see fans passionate about what we did on the Cup side, but at the same time, it makes it more hectic in the pit area to do our job, and right now, I just want to get back to used to driving the race cars again.”
At least on Thursday night, it seemed as though Stewart is certainly shaking the rust off and getting back used to the cars he made his early name in.
And as he gets more and more comfortable, that could well be a warning sign for the rest of his competition … and a very good omen for ‘Smoke’.
About the Writer
Jacob Seelman is the Managing Editor of Race Chaser Online and creator of the Motorsports Madness radio show, airing at 7 p.m. Eastern every Monday on the Performance Motorsports Network.
Seelman grew up in the sport, watching his grandparents co-own the RaDiUs Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series team in the 1990s.
The 22-year-old is currently studying Broadcast Journalism at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., and is also serving as the full-time tour announcer for the Must See Racing Sprint Car Series.
Email Jacob at: editor@racechaseronline.com
Follow on Twitter: @Speed77Radio or @JacobSeelman77
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