Tony Stewart is out there living his best life in retirement. Since he stepped away from NASCAR, he's spent his time running Eldora Speedway and racing sprint cars. Now, Autoweek reports that Stewart is finally running in races he's been interested in since 1995.
At 46 years old, Stewart is shipping his sprint car to New Zealand to make his debut in the Porter Hire International Sprintcar Series. If it weren't for his NASCAR commitments in the past, he would have done this over 20 years ago.
"In 1995 when we won the USAC Triple Crown we got booked to go to Australia," Stewart said. "The promoter at Western Springs was Willie K and he tried to get me to come over for the 1996-97 season but just timing-wise it didn't work out. After 1995 I got my first NASCAR ride and the same with an IndyCar drive so there was no way I was going to have the time to come back over. It has been a long time coming to get over here but we are pretty excited about the chance to come out."
Stewart hopes his racing vacation will yield better results than the American races he has been participating in this year.
Stewart said of this year's races, "I got back in a sprint car after two and a half years and did not have a very good summer. I think we won two races all summer, which isn't very good by our standards. I am running the same sprint car that we raced in the US. It is a 410 cubic inch winged sprint car. I am pretty excited - it is what I am doing now that I'm not a NASCAR driver anymore. I am back to running sprint cars a lot."
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