Tony Stewart: driving in Cup ‘does not make me happy right now’
Tony Stewart’s frustration from the first practice session was evident when he spoke of his retirement plans. The three-time Sprint Cup Series champion is retiring at the end of the season.
“Because I’m ready to go run stuff that makes me happy and driving a Sprint Cup car does not make me happy right now,” Stewart, who has two (official) top-10 finishes in seven starts this season. ” … I’ve dedicated 18 years of my life to this series and it’s done great by me. I’ve made a great living doing it, but at the same time there are other things in life I want to do other than be at a NASCAR track three days a week for 38 weekends out of 52 weeks a year. There are just other things I want to do now. I never dreamed there was going to be a time that I was going to think about something like this.
“It wasn’t overnight. There were weeks that you would think about ‘man I really want to go to Monaco and see the Monaco Grand Prix or I really want to go to Knoxville, Iowa and be out there for the A-main of the Knoxville Nationals or the Kings Royal at Eldora.’ There are things I want to do that because of our schedule you don’t have time to do it. There is just not enough time to do everything you want to do. It’s time for me to do this.”
The two-time Sonoma winner made the comments after he was inducted into Sonoma’s Wall of Fame.
Stewart had his best run of the season two weeks ago at Michigan. He qualified in the top five and ran in the top 10 the entire day before finishing seventh. He said then he was ecstatic about the race finish, his best since returning to the Cup Series after suffering a broken vertebra. While Stewart was officially credited with a sixth at Talladega, Ty Dillon finished the race for him because of his back.
Friday was a different story. Stewart had a fast car throughout practice, but was frustrated with his contact with McMurray. The two hit in the hairpin near the end of practice. McMurray said he was on fresh tires and was looking to make a qualifying run. That’s ostensibly why he wanted to keep Stewart at bay behind him.
After the two made contact, Stewart flipped McMurray, a driver who made his debut three years after Stewart and at 40, is five years younger, off.
After the two make contact in the hairpin, Tony Stewart tells Jamie McMurray he’s No. 1 in his heart too. pic.twitter.com/nS1ab1DWhm
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) June 24, 2016
“I had Jamie McMurray screw us up on a lap,” Stewart said. “He was trying to do a qualifying lap. Some of the things some of these guys do nowadays doesn’t make sense. When we had Dale (Earnhardt) Sr. and Rusty Wallace and Dale Jarrett and those guys they were able to get their arms around these guys and get them to listen and make sense. There is really nobody here that can do that anymore. Everybody is out of control out there.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
