“All the credit goes to this team. I’m so proud of my guys.” These were the first words Tony Stewart uttered after returning to Victory Lane after 9 years. The 53-year-old motorsports veteran clinched the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals for his first career Top Fuel victory. Over a year’s worth of hard work and failures went into this, ranging from placing 9th in the 2024 championship to narrowly missing a win in Pomona. But at the end of it, Stewart could not celebrate without remembering something.
After all, the three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion knows where his roots are. Tony Stewart’s legacy team, Stewart-Haas Racing, shut down at the end of 2024. Of all the things that Stewart let go of, one thing stood out in his mind – the team camaraderie.
Tony Stewart emotionally reflects on bygone days
“This is about all of us and what we can accomplish together.” When SHR was shuttering, its championship legacy left questions among fans. Tony Stewart received criticism for failing to hold together a team that won 70 Cup Series races and two championships. But in Stewart’s mind, all of that was temporary. Only one thing was permanent and that was his people. Shutting down SHR affected 300 employees, and Stewart’s team created a great severance package for at least 80 percent of the workforce. It has hardly been a year since SHR screeched towards its end. So his old team’s legacy is still lingering in Stewart’s mind even while fetching his first Top Fuel victory. In fact, Stewart recollected the early days of SHR.
Back in 2008, Tony Stewart shocked the NASCAR world with his decision to leave Joe Gibbs Racing. Leaving a team where he fetched two championships (2002, 2005), he joined Haas CNC Racing as owner and driver. His novel NHRA victory reminded him of this bygone time in an interview with Kelly Crandall.
“I was so excited just to have won that race for myself until the team got up there… It brought me back to a moment back in 2009 when we started Stewart-Haas Racing, and I remember winning the All-Star Race at Charlotte and getting to victory lane. I was in that mode, here people were telling me I was crazy to leave Joe Gibbs Racing to go to a team that had a car 34th and 36th in the points and I had ruined my career by doing it. Here we were from February to May, running 3 months with the team, and we win the highest paying event of the year with the All-Star Race.”
Tony Stewart winning his first NHRA Top Fuel race Sunday in Las Vegas brought him back to a NASCAR moment from the beginning of Stewart-Haas Racing: pic.twitter.com/AZRojHbcDm
— Kelly Crandall (@KellyCrandall) April 15, 2025
Tony Stewart emphasized that it was not about what other people thought. It was about honest hard work by a group of dedicated people. He continued, “They used to pull a semi trailer…I remember looking on there and half of those guys were in tears. I looked at one of the guys and I’m like, ‘What is wrong? What happened?’ They said that group of guys had never won a NASCAR Cup Series race. That moment, I realized it was not about me, it was not about me proving to all the naysayers that I was going to fail with Stewart-Haas. It was way deeper than that. It was about the guys and the people that we had put together and the people we had kept from Haas Racing and what it meant to all of us.”
Similarly, looking at his crew members at Tony Stewart Racing brought an extra edge of joy for the veteran last Sunday. Tony Stewart dedicated his first Top Fuel victory to his team members – and also another special member.
A little bundle brightening up the day
Tony Stewart may have won many trophies and championships. The list is long and decorated in NASCAR, ARCA, IndyCar, and World of Outlaws. Then you have Sprint Cars, Silver Crown, and Midgets. Now, Stewart added NHRA Top Fuel to this inventory. His 3.870-second winning run topped Antron Brown, Justin Ashley, and Jasmine Salinas in the final elimination round. But Stewart’s latest trophy stood out in his big arsenal for one reason. This was the veteran’s first victory as a father! Last year in November, Stewart’s better half Leah Pruett gave birth to Dominic. The little bundle of joy appeared right when his father was amidst the NHRA’s final event of the season in Pomona. That occurrence itself showed that Dominic was here to root for his champion dad.
During the race at the Strip, Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, Tony Stewart got a pleasant surprise. He already mentioned how having his team over there meant the world to him. But having his wife Leah and son Dominic make a surprise appearance made his day even better. The 2024 NHRA Rookie of the Year slipped out his joy when he saw his family in Victory Lane. “I think it was probably one of the coolest parts of (winning) was seeing Leah bring Dominic on the small stage they bring on the race tracks so the fans can join in the celebration Sunday. I had no idea she was coming with him, and when I turned around and saw her, I literally almost lost it up there. That is a great feeling having him there.”
Evidently, Tony Stewart’s NHRA Top Fuel victory meant more than just another trophy. We cannot wait for ‘Smoke’ to keep his thunderous streak alive and fetch more wins!
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