NASCAR driver, Tony Stewart, was in Lakeville yesterday to speak to fans and sign autographs at the Newton Center. The event was sponsored by Hoosier Racing Tire and Stewart appreciates that the Newton family has always stood by him throughout his career. Tony talked about what it’s like to be both an owner and a driver:
“It’s just a lot of time, I mean it’s a ton of time, a ton of pressure, especially trying to do both roles as a driver and an owner,” said Stewart. “It makes you appreciate guys like Jack Rausch, Rick Hendrick, Joe Gibbs, Richard Childress, and Michael Waltrip and all these guys who have multi-car teams. It’s definitely not an easy business by any means.”
Stewart is a native of Indiana and has another Hoosier racing with him as his teammate, Ryan Newman and Tony says he’s great to work with.
“He’s the easiest guy you can imagine. The hardest thing about Ryan is when he comes in for team meetings and he may have mud all over his boots from working half the day at his farm. We’re great friends and I think that makes us even better teammates because we get along so well.”
Stewart is coming off a 6th place finish from the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis. During the Question and Answer session with fans, he summarized the race:
“The car wasn’t driving good, and I ran into a cone and I ran into a bigger cone, Kyle Busch. That wasn’t very nice, was it? I hit the wall, and I about half burned up the car the rest of the day and I still ended up sixth so that was pretty good.”
