25 Reasons to Be Excited About Drag Racing: No. 7 – Tony Stewart is a Top Fuel Rookie
When motorsports icon Tony Stewart first started making passes in Frank Hawley Drag Racing School’s Super Comp dragster and Top Dragster, he insisted he didn’t intend on competing, that he just wanted to better understand what his now wife, Top Fuel star Leah Pruett, was experiencing on the racetrack. Now, after a full season in Top Alcohol Dragster that nearly resulted in a world championship, Stewart is a Top Fuel rookie and championship contender.
[Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #190, the State of Drag Issue, in September/ October of 2024.]
Stewart, who’s joked that he’s a 53-year-old rookie, made his Top Fuel debut at the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida, driving the Dodge Direct Connection dragster formerly driven by Pruett, who stepped away from driving to focus on starting a family with Stewart. With Neal Strausbaugh and Mike Domagala as crew chiefs, Stewart raced to the final round at the fourth race of the season, the Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas. Several races later, he reached his first two-wide final round at the Sonoma Nationals, where he was runner-up to fellow driver/team owner Antron Brown.
“We needed a day like today for the team guys,” said Stewart, who credited the team’s Funny Car crew chief, Dickie Venables, for providing input that helped the team find a potential “smoking gun” in the setup. “We didn’t really win anything, but we didn’t lose today. In the final, we did everything we could as we left on one of the best Top Fuel leavers. To leave on Antron in the final is very big for me as a driver. We spit a couple of [spark] plugs out at the far end and, if [Brown] had any problem, we were right there for the win.”
Stewart, who has also picked up two regional event victories in Top Alcohol Dragster this season driving for the McPhillips Racing team, has earned the respect of his fellow racers in a short time. It’s obvious that he’s applying himself with the same intensity and focus that brought him numerous world championships in the NASCAR Cup Series, IndyCar, sprint cars, and more.
“I’ve always had a great deal of respect for Tony Stewart,” Brown said after facing Stewart in the Sonoma final round. “He’s one of my heroes in NASCAR and IndyCar. He’s going to be in the winner’s circle soon, trust me. And he’s not going to do it one time; he’s going to do it multiple times. It was a monumental matchup in that final round. He got me first round at one of these races where we smoked the tires and he beat us, and it felt good to get one back on him today, for sure.”
Between Stewart’s incredible résumé and the team’s success in 2023 – coming up just one round win short of the world championship – you can’t argue with Brown’s assessment. The driver known as “Smoke” is a Top Fuel champion in the making.
This story was originally published on November 8, 2024.
The post 25 Reasons to Be Excited About Drag Racing: No. 7 – Tony Stewart is a Top Fuel Rookie first appeared on Drag Illustrated.
