Tony Stewart was really impressive when he won NHRA Top Fuel earlier this month. The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion has once again silenced his skeptics with his maiden victory in the series, which came on April 14 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In 2021, Tony Stewart indicated that an NHRA team would be built, extending Tony Stewart Racing into Funny Cars and Top Fuel Dragsters. Instead of his wife Leah Pruett, who had originally intended to race it, the Hall of Famer took the wheel of an 11,000 horsepower Top Fuel vehicle in 2024. After a good season in which he finished ninth in the championship standings but has yet to win a game, he was named the Rookie of the Year.
The legend’s first NHRA victory this month changed that. He promoted the four-wide concept while driving the TSR Rayce Rudeen Foundation Dodge//SRT Top Fueler, taking on defending world champion Antron Brown, Justin Ashley, and Jasmine Salinas. Stewart was able to consider the criticism he has received over the years following his significant NASCAR success in an interview with Forbes. “I find that amusing because it’s the complete reverse of that. “It makes me think of another situation from when we first started Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009,” Stewart said. “I was being told I was insane. I switched from Joe Gibbs Racing to a team with cars ranked 34th and 36th in the standings.
“I did it, and it destroyed my career. After three months, we were able to win the year’s highest-paying event. He went on: “I recall that half of those guys were crying when I arrived at Victory Lane. I realized then that it wasn’t about me. It had to do with the individuals we had assembled. And Sunday ended up being just that. The team owner has already demonstrated his abilities on several occasions; his victory in Vegas is simply one more example. “It was a brief moment of just being excited and knowing I could go to the racetrack and not have to answer all these damn questions about ‘when are you going to win a race?” said he. “We’ve done it now. And now we get to show up and just race each weekend. And try to do it again.”
He hopes to keep up his momentum in the series now that he has secured his first NHRA victory. After his victory, he remarked, “I think the first one is always the hardest one to win.” “I think that too often, anxiety and emotion get involved when you’re trying to win that first one. Everyone calms down once you win the first one because they behave differently.
