KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina (Nov. 15, 2016) –After three NASCAR Sprint Cup titles, 49 victories and 618 starts, Tony Stewart will climb in his No. 14 Always a Racer/Mobil 1 Chevrolet for the final time in his 18-year career Sunday afternoon at Homestead-Miami Speedway and conclude what is destined to be a first-ballot Hall of Fame career.

But save the tears, race fans. He isn’t done driving and he isn’t going away.

“You’re going to see me driving a lot next year, but most of it will be on dirt,” Stewart said. “I kind of look at this as halftime of my career and I’ll still be around the NASCAR garage. I’ll just have more time. If I see Richard Petty or anyone else in the garage, I can go over and talk to him now and not have to worry about getting to the car or trying to figure out how to make my car go faster. I can focus now on what I want to do and my job at SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing.)”

For his last race, Stewart will drive a special paint scheme carrying each SHR employees’ signature with the words “Always a Racer, Forever a Champion,” as well as pictorial highlights of his 18-year career on the hood. Except for the special paint scheme and hosting about 75 SHR guests to watch his final race, Stewart’s finale will be low-key as the rest of the racing world watches the culmination of NASCAR’s 2016 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, during which the sport will crown its champion.

“We didn’t want all the ceremony and distraction this year,” Stewart said. “We just wanted to focus on the racecar and run well and let the NASCAR fans see us race a final time.”

Stewart has avoided much of the pomp and circumstance, opting instead to race well and accept a few accolades along the way from tracks and SHR’s corporate partners. The strategy has worked as Stewart has returned to the front of the field, logging five top-five and eight top-10 finishes in 2016. The highlight came in June, when Stewart made a last-lap pass of Denny Hamlin at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway to claim his 49th career victory that ultimately led to a berth in the 2016 Chase, where Stewart fell a few points short of advancing to the Round of 12.

He’d like nothing more than to close his 2016 season, as well as his career, with a strong run Sunday on the high-banked turns at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He won the first two Sprint Cup races at the South Florida track in 1999 and 2000, then visited victory lane again in 2011, when he won a thrilling duel with Carl Edwards. The victory left Edwards and Stewart tied in points, with Stewart winning his third Sprint Cup title based on a tiebreaker. In 16 career starts at the 1.5-mile oval, he also owns four top-five and seven top-10 finishes and has led 450 laps. He’s completed 4,186 of a possible 4,277 laps at the track.

The full list of Stewart’s assault on the NASCAR record book is a long one but, when he climbs from the No. 14 Sunday, he’ll do so as the 13th-winningest driver with his 49 wins. His three Sprint Cup titles ties him for fifth all-time, and he’s also won IndyCar and IROC championships. His race wins include: 11 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, six in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, three in IndyCar and four in IROC. Plus, he’s won countless short-track races and titles since he first climbed in a go-kart in Indiana all those years ago.

Not even Stewart knows what 2017 will bring for him. He knows he’ll be dirt racing, overseeing his World of Outlaws team and Eldora Speedway in Ohio. He’ll also keep up with his duties at SHR and welcome Clint Bowyer, who’ll climb behind the wheel of the No. 14 beginning in Daytona in February.

But there will be time for Stewart to enjoy a little of what he has missed while competing on the grinding NASCAR tour the last 18 years.

“There are races and places I want to go to that I haven’t been able to go to because of our schedule,” he said. “It’s not like I have a great vacation I want to go do. I am so mental about racing that everything I want to do has racing in it. There are races and events I haven’t seen – as a fan, spectator – and some I even want to race in. It’s nice to have some flexibility.”

While Sunday night will close a significant chapter in the career of one of the sport’s most significant drivers, it will open new doors that Stewart is ready to walk through and see what awaits on the other side.
TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Always A Racer/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:
Who did you most enjoy racing against?
“Before I got to NASCAR, the greatest guy was Kenny Irwin Jr. We were rivals, but there were a lot of times where we had a lot of fun together. He was somebody I had a high level of respect for. When I came to NASCAR, everybody was fun. You had Dale (Earnhardt) Sr., Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte, Terry Labonte, Jeff Burton and others. I mean, they were all fun before they were fun guys. They all their own personalities and things they liked and disliked. Mike Skinner was a good friend of mine back when he was running full-time. There were a lot of fun guys. That’s the best part about the sport. It’s the people who are part of it that make it what it is.”

Have you thought about what you will do once you retire? What will you miss the most?
“Well, this year’s my 18th year but, you know – I think it’s – I turned 45 this year and you know I still have unfinished business in dirt-track racing that I want to do and, yeah, winning three championships on the Cup side, and I never won the Daytona 500 but I won the Brickyard 400 twice. So I’ve had a really good run there and there are a lot of things in the sport that are changing. But something that’s important to me is I don’t want to lose track of where I came from, and I’m ready to go back to dirt racing. I’m really craving it. I think the stress of trying to be an owner and driver at SHR, I mean, it’s hard to have that much weight on your shoulders and try to compete at that high of a level as a driver and, at the same time, be an owner. So, stepping away from the driver side and being able to do a better job of focusing on the four drivers we’ll have next year. That’ll make my life a lot easier. And then, at the same time, it gives me the opportunity to play two roles. I get to be the boss of SHR but, in the evening, I get to go race and have fun myself and get my fix that way. So I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s going to be – I can already tell – it’s going to be a lot of fun. I mean, Jeff Gordon and I are great friends and he’s in his first year of retirement, so he’s already told me what to look forward to for the next year. So I’m excited about that.

Are there non-racing things you want to do?
“Yeah, I’m just not sure what they all are, yet. That’s the thing. When you have raced for 38 years, that’s all you know, it’s all you think about, that is all you dream about. When you wake up, you’re thinking about it. While you are eating breakfast, that’s all you do. I just can’t imagine that there’s not more to life than this. I know there is. I know people who talk about it all the time. I’ve got friends like Don Prudhomme and Ray Evernham and guys who are already retired who talk about how much fun they’re having. I’m like, ‘Man, that sounds like a good time to me.’”

What has this final season been like, for you, with everybody knowing it’ll be your last year in the car?
“Before the season started, we said our only goal was to go out and have fun. Anything else would be icing on the cake.”

Nov. 16, 2016

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

Jimmie Johnson has been there before – more than any other driver in the past two decades.

But this trip to Homestead-Miami Speedway for Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 (2:30 p.m. ET; NASCAR.com/tickets) is different. In the first place, Johnson has his first opportunity to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship under the 16-driver elimination format introduced by the sanctioning body in 2014.

Beyond that, in what is the transcendent story of this year’s Chase, Johnson has a chance to win a seventh series title, one that would tie him for the all-time lead with NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

And crew chief Chad Knaus has been with the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet for every mile of the journey – well, almost every mile, the occasional suspension notwithstanding.

“Yeah, it’s a little different for sure,” Knaus said of the elimination format. “Obviously we’ve been able to go down to Homestead and bid for the championship in a lot of different scenarios, with a points deficit, with a points lead, and this is definitely unique, starting at zero and just going out there for the best man to win. I’m comfortable with it. I’m looking forward to it.

“Quite honestly, I think the Lowe’s Chevrolet has been fast over the course of the last handful of weeks. Our pit crew has been performing very well. Jimmie is very comfortable and in a good state of mind. I’m really excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting down there for sure.”

Knaus could tie Richard Petty’s long-time crew chief, Dale Inman (another NASCAR Hall of Famer) with seven titles with the same driver. In fact, continuity has been the hallmark of the No. 48 team’s effort since day one.

“What’s really cool about it is, if we were able to pull this off, it would be seven titles with the same driver, same crew chief, same sponsor (Lowe’s) and same team, which would be even more phenomenal,” Knaus said. “It’s been an honor to be able to work with Jimmie, Lowe’s and Hendrick Motorsports throughout this portion of my career. Looking forward to it extending a long time.

“But being able to represent this company and our associates the way that we have has been a lot of fun. To Jimmie personally, obviously he is by far one of my best friends, and to be able to have seen him grow and mature into the driver and the family man that he is has been awesome. It’s been a great ride.”

A seventh title for Johnson, however, is far from a given. Joe Gibbs Racing has two entries with defending Sprint Cup champion Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards, and they have two sets of data to use in preparation for the Championship 4 race.

Additionally, Edwards participated in a tire test at Homestead in October, and crew chief Dave Rogers feels that gives his driver a slight edge over his teammate.

“Yeah, I think testing there is an advantage,” Rogers said. “We talked early in the season about which teams want to test where, and then we all agreed on which teams would test at each track. It was important for Carl and I to test at Homestead because we do think it’s an advantage. It’s absolutely open notebook. All of our teammates have every bit of data.

“I took my personal notes, what I thought, things I saw, when the clouds came in, when the rain showers came in, how I thought it affected the race car beyond what you see in the data, and I gave that to all of our crew chiefs, including Adam (Stevens, Busch’s crew chief). So they have that information.

“But it’s the personal experience. It’s living it. It’s seeing the cars with your own eyes. It’s seeing the expression in the driver’s face. That live experience, there’s something to it. I think our teammates are going to get 85 to 90 percent by looking at our notes and looking at our data, but that extra 10 percent is just being there and living through it.”

Stevens, on the other hand, feels he can rely on the data gather by Edwards and Rogers.

“With regard to the test, in my eyes there’s really not much difference from my perspective of being at the test or having a teammate go,” said Stevens, who won the title last year in his first year as Busch’s Sprint Cup crew chief. “The biggest benefit from acquiring the test data is literally getting the track data from the car and the driver to use to develop our simulation tools.

“We could have sent anybody down there to do that. Certainly Carl and Dave gathered that information for us and shared everything they could to help make our program as good as it can be. Would it have been nice to go? Yes. But that also takes away from preparing for that week’s event. As tight as the schedules are, you kind of have to balance that out and spread that workload out amongst the teams.”

Joey Logano didn’t participate in the Homestead tire test, but he has performed admirably on tracks that have featured the same tire codes as the ones in use at Homestead this weekend. Logano was runner-up in the Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway and finished second to Edwards at Texas.

“We led a lot at Texas,” said Logano’s crew chief, Todd Gordon. “I felt like we were very strong there. Finished second to Carl on a rain-shortened race. I’d have loved to have seen where that race went. But I feel very strong about our chances going forward here. I feel really good about the improvements we’ve made.

“I felt like at Charlotte we had speed, and we had a tire failure, but showed some of that. We finished well and were second at Chicago on the same tire. We were second at Texas on this tire that we’ve got at Homestead. I feel like we’ve been able to battle for it, and we’re continuing to make our stuff better. I love our chances going to Homestead.”
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