Driving and winning has seemingly come natural to Tony Stewart.
Now, Stewart is showing the world he’s become one of the best Top Fuel drivers, too.
Stewart, fresh off his inaugural NHRA Top Fuel win at the Four-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on April 14, notched his second Sunday.
Stewart, driving his Tony Stewart Racing dragster, captured the title at the Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by Peak Performance near Chicago.
With the win, Stewart moved into the season points lead with 514 points, three more points than Shawn Langdon.
“I said at Vegas that I was extremely impressed and happy with the progress and by the time we got here it was … I knew on Friday with the tricky track conditions, we were No. 1 qualifier after the first round, the second round smoked the tires, we fell back to sixth. We’re still excited about it,” Stewart said. “I was really worried about Saturday and Sunday when I knew we had cooler track conditions. I knew that I was going to play into (what) Brittany (Force) and Steve (Torrence) and (Doug) Kalitta and (Shawn) Langdon and Antron (Brown could do). I mean, they can throw down big numbers when the track conditions are right, and so I was genuinely concerned about that because our program hasn’t been there yet, but we haven’t really had an opportunity.”
Stewart’s mindset changed when he clocked 3.679-second elapsed time at 332.43 mph Saturday to claim the No. 2 spot on the qualifying ladder.
“When it cooled off and we ran a .67, (we) got really excited because we had talked internally in our group … about it’s hard to prepare for the fall when we’re really racing for a championship when we don’t have conditions that are going to be like what we’re going to have in fall when it starts cooling off,” Stewart said. “We had that this weekend, and so to run that 67 and then the first round we ran a .69, that is very encouraging for us because now we have some data that we can go back and look at. When the track starts cooling off in the fall and you’re really racing for the championship once the points are reset, we’re not starting from scratch. I’m very encouraged by (Saturday), and (Sunday), but then this afternoon kind of fell back into our wheelhouse.”
On Sunday, Stewart defeated Terry Totten, Shawn Reed, Torrence and then Justin Ashley in the finals. Stewart clocked a 3.777-second elapsed time at 329.10 mph to muscle past Ashley’s 3.818, 324.12 in the duel for the Wally.
“We were in the .70s, the mid and upper seventies. I feel like our car’s really good in those conditions right now. So, we kind of had a mixture of both conditions (Sunday),” Stewart said. “First round was very cool. Again, big numbers, record runs for some people and then to see it warm up, that’s a big swing. We don’t normally see that on the weekend. If it’s hot, it’s normally hot the whole weekend. If it’s cool, it’s normally cool the whole weekend. But this was a mixture of both. Friday was just chaos. Friday, you have to give the credit to the Safety Safari and the track – just an unbelievable job; above and beyond on track prep. The number of times that they sprayed – I mean, we never see them spray between Funny Car and Top Fuel on Friday, and that was something that was done this week, but you had to. You had to call on all of it and (Jeff) Conley was the one doing track prep this week and Josh (Peterson) had prior obligations.
“I was impressed with Conley and then sent him a text message and thanked him. A lot of us internally in the pit area were talking about the effort that was put forth, and Josh does a great job. Conley, it just shows that they have depth.”
Stewart liked what the track looked like come Saturday.
“Saturday, we saw record runs, track records getting broken and that’s because of the work that they put in. So that gave us all the opportunity to work on things that… It’s hard to explain to people that when the cars are faster you think you’re pushing on the edge and you think it’s a smaller window, it’s actually a bigger window,” Stewart said. “Getting that opportunity to have a big day on Saturday and work on that for the fall I think was big for our program. And then to start this morning with a .69 again, we were super happy with where we’re at.”
Things kept clicking for “Smoke” throughout race day.
“The hard part of that is you lose lane choice. So, we sit there and go in now we’re behind the eight-ball pulling the semis with Steve (Torrence) and he takes the right lane, we take the left lane,” Stewart said. “Steve smokes, unfortunately for him, and we get down a clean run and it’s like, ‘Wow, that actually felt pretty good.’ Between the semis and the finals, we’re in the trailer talking about whether we want to go back to the right lane. And I’m sitting there, Leah (Pruett, his wife) and I are sitting on the couch behind the two coaches and I’m pointing to the left, left lane.
“So, we kind of all agreed that that’s kind of where we needed to be. We felt like we had such a good run there and when we saw the data for the finals, as far as, you know, Curt Johnson does an amazing job for us as our track guy and to get the numbers and sit with the winner so close to where we ran the semis and we just ran in that lane, but Justin ran in that lane, too.
“Let’s take that lane, let’s put him in the lane that he wasn’t in for the semis and put him in the opposite lane – make him have to think about what that lane wants. I felt like it was the right decision for us to be in the left lane. I felt like I beat her (Kelly Antonelli, Vice President of Racing Operations for the Tony Stewart Racing) up when she told me what my reaction time was (.048), because Justin’s the best in the class.”
When Stewart lined up against Ashley, his thought process wasn’t changing.
“I looked at Leah and I said, ‘I’m going to tell you what I’m thinking. I want to know what you think after you hear this.’ I told her, ‘Yeah, we’re going up against Justin, but as soon as you try to do something to try to equalize Justin, you put yourself in a position to make a mistake.’ I said, ‘I just need to do what I’ve been doing, be consistent and just do what got us here.’ And she kind of had a long answer. So, at the end of it I was like, ‘So what you’re saying is just yes, you would agree,’ and that was the moral of the story.
“Then to get to the staging lanes, Matt Hagan’s up there and we’re an awesome team. We need to be on the plane heading home, and he comes up and he’s like, ‘Hey, just keep doing what you’re doing.’ He goes, ‘Just be up and ready for him.’ And that was the mindset that Leah and I left the trailer with as well.”
Stewart, who is in his second season driving an NHRA Top Fuel dragster, became the first NASCAR Cup Series champion driver (2002, 2005 and 2011) and IndyCar Series champion (1997) to win an NHRA Top Fuel Wally.
Although he’s proven himself on every track imaginable, Stewart still leans on his wife, as well as Hagan, when it comes to getting NHRA racing advice.
“It was great to have two teammates with Leah and Matt who had been racing in NHRA for years and years and years to have that backing as a driver and to have that kind of support system to bounce ideas off,” Stewart said. “It’s like, ‘Yes, three of us are thinking exactly the same thing. Just don’t change the routine, just do what you’ve been doing but be ready.’ Justin has the ability to bring out the best in everybody that he races. They know when they race against him that they’ve got to bring their best; they bring their ‘A’ game when they wind up against him. And it’s a curse for Justin as well because he’s so good that you know that you have to rise to the occasion. The hard part is doing that, but when you do it then the hard part after that is now how do you do it all the time like he does?”
Despite all his past racing success Stewart knows none of that matters when he competes in Top Fuel, especially when it comes to leaving the starting line.
“I’m not in my rookie season anymore, I’m in my second year, but you’re still trying to figure out, ‘How do I repeat that and how do I bottle that and bring that out every time that I go up to the line?’ He does it every round of qualifying too,” Stewart said. “I mean we all get the sheets after Q4 on Saturday and you look at these times and you’re like, ‘My God, I don’t have that in my playbook.’ And so, you try to figure out how you create that. I think that’s what makes the win here today that much more special was when you lined up against Justin Ashley – you’ve got Justin as a driver, you got Mike Green as a tuner, you got Davis as a car owner, you got Scag as a sponsor.”
Knowing what he was up against with Ashley and Green, a championship crew chief, is what made Stewart’s latest victory more memorable – but he doesn’t need Ashley to be his rival.
“We’re driving 300-mph cars and it’s okay for us to respect and like each other and have to compete against each other at this level. I like that part of it. I like where I’m at,” Stewart said. “I like the atmosphere that NHRA provides. I’m very happy about my decision to be where I’m at. So, when you go up against Davis’s team and you go up against Scag and Randy and his program and you race against Justin Ashley – and I guarantee you I can go in my cellphone right now and there’s a text message from Justin Ashley and Mike Ashley congratulating us, and probably Randy as well and Davis. It’s the camaraderie in the sport that I think is underestimated. As much as NHRA wants the drama because they think they got to be like NASCAR, they don’t have to be like NASCAR. They have something that nobody has.”
The family environment of NHRA is something Stewart welcomes.
“They have an atmosphere here that is family friendly, that is fan friendly, that is competitor friendly and that we all like each other. I was with Steve Torrence and Natalie in their motor home until 10:30 last night. We’re camping together and that’s the stuff that I like about our sport,” Stewart said. “When you line up against them, you want to beat them. We joke around saying, ‘Yeah, you want to put your foot on their throat and make their face turn blue,’ but that’s competitors and that only lasts for three and a half seconds. But when you get to the top end, whoever loses, you congratulate each other, and it doesn’t have to be cut-throat all the time. It’s respect, and that’s what NHRA has is these teams, these drivers, they all respect each other and that’s what I really love about the sport.
“It makes wins like today mean that much more because of that. That’s an element they don’t have in NASCAR. Those other drivers aren’t going up there after a win going, ‘Man, hey, congrats.’ They’re mad because they lost to somebody and that’s what you have to be over there. But it doesn’t have to be like that over here, and that’s what I really love about NHRA right now.”
It isn’t shocking Stewart transitioned into a national event winning driver in NHRA, but he isn’t in the business of patting himself on the back.
“This is a sport where the drivers aren’t the ones who make the difference. It is not. I mean that’s just a fact,” Stewart said. “I mean (it is) the crew chief over here and (it is) the driver everywhere else in every other form of motorsports. That’s just a fact. My job is to leave on time. Matt Hagan said it best. … Two years ago, when I ran the alcohol (dragster) at Indy, I was second to Julie (Nataas). I remember we smoked the tires the first two or three runs of qualifying.
“But I remember Matt Hagan going, ‘You just got to simplify.’ He goes, ‘Your job is to leave on time, keep it in the groove, and try to turn on that win light.’ And it’s that simple for the drivers. That is our responsibility driving these cars. I was 70% of the equation in sprint cars, in NASCAR, in sports cars, in IndyCar, in every car I’ve ever driven. You come to NHRA, it is literally like being on its own island and now the crew chief is at 70% of the equation. I’m 30% of it. My job consisted of going up against the best leaver in the class today. I was fifth in average last year, which I was proud of as a rookie, and my goal this year is to go from fifth to fourth or third, and it’s hard.”
In this version of Top Fuel racing Stewart knows he has his hands full against the competition, especially when it comes to reaction times.
“I mean I’m going up against Justin Ashley, Shawn Langdon, Antron Brown and Doug Kalitta,” Stewart said. “Those are the four guys who beat me last year consistently. That is a tough group to beat. Got the utmost respect for those guys and everybody that’s behind us too. We got an eight-time world champion behind us with Tony Schumacher. There’s no slouches in this deal. But to sit there and be in the top five, I was extremely proud of that but I’m also a guy who doesn’t go, ‘Well, that’s good enough,’ and you can’t be not going up against Justin, not going up when you race Antron or any of these other guys.
“Shawn (Langdon) gave me a lesson this week. I mean I’ve made a big mistake on Friday, and he picked up on it immediately. Shawn Langdon is probably the best student of drag racing that you’re going to find in NHRA, and he has spent a lot of time with me that I’m very appreciative of. He has spent a lot of time talking to me about the ins and outs about this sport, but I lost the Mission race to him (Saturday) and I laughed about it because I made the mistake when we both ran first round of qualifying because we’re one-two in the points, we wind up together and he flickered the ball is exactly what he’s supposed to do as a driver. He flickered the bulb, and it screwed me up so bad because the bulb went out, and I didn’t realize it activated the tree. And that’s just a rookie mistake. Learned from it. He did it again in the Mission finals (Saturday) and when he did it, I laughed because I’m like, ‘I knew when I got in the car that he was going to do that.’ It’s not like I was oblivious to what he was going to do.”
Now, Stewart is more encouraged than ever about the progress his team has made and what the future holds.
“To come from Bradenton (Fla.) and go to Gainesville (the first race of the season) and have the test week that we had and the race week, all of a sudden we got a car that’s consistent and going down the racetrack,” Stewart said. “And now we knew we had a car that was good in the heat, now we got a car that’s showing some promise when the conditions are cooler, I’m extremely encouraged about the rest of the season. It’s no guarantee that it’s going to stay this way, but to be six races in the season and leading the points, we got a lot to be proud of.”
