Tony Stewart makes a pass to take the lead in the first heat race for the All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget race at Tony Stewart Speedway during the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds in Columbus on Tuesday.
Mike Wolanin | For The Tribune
Tony Stewart, in car No. 1, competes in the first heat race in the All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget race at Tony Stewart Speedway during the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds on Tuesday in Columbus.
Mike Wolanin | For The Tribune
Tony Stewart leads the first heat race for the All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget race at Tony Stewart Speedway during the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds in Columbus on Tuesday.
Mike Wolanin | For The Tribune
Tony Stewart watches his crew work on his three-quarter midget before he races in the All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget race at Tony Stewart Speedway during the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds in Columbus on Tuesday.
Mike Wolanin | For The Tribune
Tony Stewart’s helmet rests on his three-quarter midget before he races in the All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget race at Tony Stewart Speedway during the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds in Columbus, on Tuesday.
Mike Wolanin | For The Tribune
Tony Stewart is being pulled in a lot of different directions these days, but Tuesday night, he was back at one of his favorite places.
Stewart made his annual visit to the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair and its three-quarter midget race on the track that was named after the Columbus native last June. He won his heat race but experienced a blown motor and had to withdraw from the feature.
In 2019, Stewart purchased the series, which now is called All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midgets.
“The only thing I don’t like is I just haven’t had enough time to spend with everybody in the series,” Stewart said. “I’m stripped pretty thin these days, but I feel like we have a really good group. We have a great membership group. We have good officials. We just keep tweaking and trying to make it better. It’s competitive right now.”
Stewart said the series still is seeing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, so just getting dates and venues on which to race sometimes is difficult for the series.
“But Columbus has been good to this group and is always giving them dates,” Stewart said. “I think there are really good people. I’m proud of our group. I like the people we’ve got. They all help each other. They all work together. We have an open-door policy with these guys that if there’s something that they feel like we can do better, we all talk about it. There’s nothing that we can’t talk about. That’s what I like about it. It’s downhome, and everybody works together.”
On a bigger scale, the retired NASCAR driver and current co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing helped start the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX series) with three others in 2020. Stewart has three wins on the circuit, the latest coming Saturday, when he took the checkered flag in South Boston, Virginia.
The SRX series is in its second year of competition and its first with a chief executive officer in Don Hawk.
“Don Hawk is doing a really good job for us,” Stewart said. “He didn’t come in until the beginning of the year, so in the short amount of time he has been with the group, I think he has done a great job so far getting us going.”
Last October, Stewart purchased two NHRA teams, one in Top Fuel for Leah Pruett and one in Funny Car for Matt Hagan. Stewart and Pruett have been dating since 2020 and were married last November.
“I don’t think the marriage part has really changed any of (his schedule),” Stewart said. “It’s adding the two NHRA teams. That has definitely divided my time a lot. I still have the same core group of people that help us with the NASCAR side, with the sprint car series side, the sanctioning body side. We’re putting the same effort in. I’m just dividing my time, but when you have good people, you can afford to do that.”
When Stewart and Pruett aren’t racing, they’re splitting most of their time between their homes in Lake Havasu, Arizona, and Columbus. Stewart listed his ranch home on Youth Camp Road for sale in March.
Stewart, who also owns Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, just sold the condo he has had near NASCAR and Stewart-Haas Racing headquarters in Charlotte since 1996 and is getting ready to put his Charlotte home on the market.
“We’re just not there,” Stewart said. “When we go down there, we stay in a hotel. We don’t need to have a house down there anymore.”