By Logan Morris
It was a day of reflection for Tony Stewart Racing as they celebrated their 25th anniversary and unveiled a special 25th anniversary logo. Tony Stewart, Leah Pruett, Donny Schatz, and Matt Hagan participated in the festivities. During the event, I had a chance to ask Tony Stewart to reflect on his 2024 NHRA campaign and how he felt it went overall.
“It was definitely a learning year, for sure. But, I think the great thing is when you have your wife [Leah Pruett] as your driver coach, a lot of people go, ‘Hm, how’s that going to work?’ and honestly it’s the best thing I ever could have done, having her there. She knows that I don’t want to do it 90 percent, I don’t want to do it 98 percent right, I want to do it 100 percent right, and if there’s anything I leave on the table, she had the confidence in knowing that she’s going to tell me and I’m going to be receptive of it, but I want to know how to fix it. So, that passion and desire that she has is the same that I have and being able to learn from her definitely made the rookie season much more enjoyable and accelerated the learning curve.”
He went on to say, “I mean we were in really good company this year, so I think of a rookie season, even though we didn’t necessarily get a win, and it would be easy to say it wasn’t a successful year because of that, with the stats from the driving side, the team was happy with what we were doing, we didn’t hurt a ton of parts. They were all prepared early in the season knowing with a rookie driver that it can be very costly and expensive in parts if the driver doesn’t do their job and we did a good job all year of not hurting parts and catching the car and seeing the stats on reaction time within a year, so I’m calling it a very successful rookie season.”
Going into 2025, Tony Stewart is determined to get that elusive first win.
“I was determined last year, so I can promise you going into next year I definitely want to get into Winner’s Circle with this Top Fuel car. We won in Alcohol [Top Alcohol Dragster] this year, we won the Regional Championship, so that kind of pacified the disappointment of not winning in the Top Fuel car, but there were a lot of changes this year. Obviously, myself being heavier in the car, tubing changes this year, spec wise, on the cars. Weight change with the cars. I mean a lot of variable changes in the offseason. So, it just took us a little bit longer, our team a little longer, to catch on to. I feel like right at the end of the season it started showing signs of life again, a couple times during the year it started showing signs of life again and it didn’t work out. I feel that we’re finally starting to get a direction and get the needle moving the right way.”
I also asked him about his thoughts on winning NHRA Rookie of the Year and what it meant to him.
“I laugh about it saying, ‘Apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks.’ But, it was an honor, you know if it was strictly performance-based, you’d have to give it to Richard Gadson. He did an awesome job in Pro Stock Bike this year, but their criteria is a different criteria, and I’m proud of it. I think anytime you win any award in motorsports, you don’t take it lightly, you realize that it takes a lot of work and effort. Whether it was promoting NHRA through the season, or spending time at the rope signing autographs, all the things that they judge on, those sort of things they were excited to do. I’m excited to be a part of NHRA and promote them and see people at the racetrack and see them smile and have a good time. You know, when we’re having a bad day, seeing those people smiling sometimes takes that burn off our shoulders.”
The 2025 NHRA season kicks off March 6-9, 2025 at the NHRA GatorNationals.
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