Two of Tony Stewart’s favourite things are driving a sprint car on the dirt and baiting the media. This week Tony, also known as Smoke, got to do both as he’s spending his Christmas vacation in Australia along with his sprint car driver Donny Schatz.
The Australian media got a taste of his second favourite thing when the two-time Sprint Cup champ and now co-owner of a Sprint Car team landed in Sydney.
When asked why he’d fly half-way around the World for un-NASCAR like pay he replied
"I get a vacation and I was going to come and watch Donny (Schatz) race on my vacation, so why not race myself? If I'm already going to be here, I might as well race too. I mean it was literally that simple. It's not a difficult equation for me to figure out."
Also Winter weather hit his home in Indianpolis, and it’s summer in Australia. "When I left yesterday it was snowing, I think I'd rather be here. I think if I'm going to be here and there is going to be sprintcar races, I think I'd like to go sprintcar racing. It's pretty easy for me to decide."
The bottom line for Stewart was the challenge of racing on dirt. “It’s nice being in a car that you know is a third of the weight of our Cup cars and has the same horsepower but I get to do it on dirt and have a wing that I can have control of in the car and have the ability to do it adjust it back and forward and go from there, so it's nice to be on a surface that I don’t get to race every week”
Stewart will be racing four nights in a sprintcar at Tyrepower Parramatta City Raceway with his first night of racing coming on December 26 in the Valvoline Sprintcar Grand Prix. He will then contest the Hogs Breath International on December 29 followed by the $50,000 to win Scott Darley Memorial Race on January 2nd and 3rd.”
photo:Paul Carruthers
The Australian media got a taste of his second favourite thing when the two-time Sprint Cup champ and now co-owner of a Sprint Car team landed in Sydney.
When asked why he’d fly half-way around the World for un-NASCAR like pay he replied
"I get a vacation and I was going to come and watch Donny (Schatz) race on my vacation, so why not race myself? If I'm already going to be here, I might as well race too. I mean it was literally that simple. It's not a difficult equation for me to figure out."
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Also Winter weather hit his home in Indianpolis, and it’s summer in Australia. "When I left yesterday it was snowing, I think I'd rather be here. I think if I'm going to be here and there is going to be sprintcar races, I think I'd like to go sprintcar racing. It's pretty easy for me to decide."
The bottom line for Stewart was the challenge of racing on dirt. “It’s nice being in a car that you know is a third of the weight of our Cup cars and has the same horsepower but I get to do it on dirt and have a wing that I can have control of in the car and have the ability to do it adjust it back and forward and go from there, so it's nice to be on a surface that I don’t get to race every week”
Stewart will be racing four nights in a sprintcar at Tyrepower Parramatta City Raceway with his first night of racing coming on December 26 in the Valvoline Sprintcar Grand Prix. He will then contest the Hogs Breath International on December 29 followed by the $50,000 to win Scott Darley Memorial Race on January 2nd and 3rd.”
photo:Paul Carruthers