POMONA — There’s a rookie competing in the NHRA Winternationals who will be getting a lot of attention no matter how he performs.
But this is no ordinary rookie. This is Tony Stewart, one of the biggest names to ever drive any kind of race car. He has driven go-karts, sprint cars, dirt cars, Indy cars, NASCAR stock cars, NASCAR trucks, USAC cars, and won at all levels on oval tracks.
Now he is driving nitro-powered Top Fuel dragsters, moving up from the alcohol class after a one-year trial period.
Stewart used to spend 3½ hours driving a race car 500 miles. Now, at age 52, he spends around four seconds going 1,000 feet.
He spent nearly 45 minutes Friday talking with a small group of reporters in his trailer in the pits at In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip.
Asked about the adrenaline rush he gets from drag racing and how it differs from other kinds of racing, Stewart had an interesting answer.
“You know, I have learned a lot about adrenaline,” he said. “If it comes in peaks and valleys, like it does in drag racing, it can be just as tiring as it is by driving a race for 3½ hours. Sure, there is a greater rush in drag racing because you’re going up to 330 miles per hour in four seconds or less. If you make four runs in a day, that’s only 16 seconds in a race car. But you are just as exhausted at the end of the day as you are after 3½ hours of driving a race car.
A lot of Stewart’s friends in other forms of racing thought he was insane to get into drag racing at his age. There is no senior tour in the NHRA.
But now that he has done it, he is loving every aspect of it.
“There is so much that is great about this sport – the camaraderie among the competitors and just how fan-friendly it is,” he said. “You come to one NHRA event, you are coming back. You can walk around the pits, talk to the drivers, watch the crews work on the cars. You can’t do that in NASCAR or any other form of racing.”
In his debut in Nitro Top Fuel two weeks ago at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida, Stewart qualified ninth before barely losing to Justin Ashley in the first round of the elimination finals.
In his first qualifying run at Gainesville, his dragster blew a cylinder and Stewart shut it down. In his second run, he reached 327.82 mph, his best speed. He had his best time in his fourth qualifying, 3.739 seconds, which put him in the ninth qualifying spot.
The next day, in Stewart’s final-round matchup with 30-year-old Ashley, he got off to a great start. His reaction time to the starting-line lights was .021 seconds, compared to Ashley’s .031. With reaction times like that, these guys could swat flies barehanded.
Halfway down the track, both cars began to lose traction. The drivers “pedaled” their cars, meaning getting off and on the throttle to regain control. Ashley’s experience paid off here as he gained control more quickly and won by .039 of a second, 4.414 to 4.453.
“All in all, I had a pretty good performance there,” he said.
But when asked Friday how long he plans to compete, Stewart laughed. “I thought I might be done after Gainesville.”
He added, “I’m just filling a seat until Leah is ready to come back.”
Leah is Leah Pruett, his wife. For years, she was one of the top drivers in Top Fuel. Now 35, she is hoping to start a family with Stewart and decided to take some time off.
“Someone had to fill in for her, so why not me,” Stewart said.
The two met in 2019 through drag racing icon Don “The Snake” Prudhomme while they were all racing sand rails in Glamis in the southeast corner of California. Tony began attending Preutt’s races and fell in love with both Pruett and her sport. Tony created a new team, Stewart Racing, and Funny Car racer Matt Hagan was brought on board to join Pruett. That was in October of 2021, and Stewart and Pruett were married a month later in Cabo San Lucas.
Pruett has announced she suffers from a disorder that prevents her thyroid from producing an ample supply of hormones. She is unsure if that will affect her attempt to get pregnant.
But however long she needs and wants to stay on the sidelines, she knows her dragster is in good hands.
In the lone qualifying session at the Winternationals on Friday, Stewart was ninth in 4.839 seconds (148.95 mph).
The top qualifiers were Billy Torrence in Top Fuel (3.745 seconds, 330.47 mph), Daniel Wilkerson in Funny Car (4.014 seconds, 314.31 mph) and Erica Enders in Pro Stock (6.556 seconds, 211.69 mph).
TOP DRAW
Stewart has quickly become the biggest draw in drag racing. Huge crowds gathered outside his haulers during the three-day event in Gainesville, and he spent countless hours mingling with fans and signing autographs. More of the same is expected this weekend in Pomona.
“Huge shot in the arm for NHRA,” said Hagan, a four-time Funny Car champ. “It’s one of those things where you’ve got people lined up forever just to sign some old NASCAR stuff.
“The cross-promotion that he brings, the sponsors that he brings. It’s filtering a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of people and a lot of energy just for him being here. If NHRA is smart, they’ll ride his coattails as long as they can. He needs to be the new John Force of NHRA.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.