{"id":81719,"date":"2021-10-14T12:20:14","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T19:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=81719"},"modified":"2021-10-14T12:20:14","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T19:20:14","slug":"tony-stewart-racing-becomes-nhras-newest-nitro-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/tony-stewart-racing-becomes-nhras-newest-nitro-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Stewart Racing Becomes NHRA’s Newest Nitro Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tony<\/a><\/p>\n

Racing legend Tony Stewart dips his toes into yet another race category, this time fielding two cars for the NHRA.<\/em><\/h3>\n

Tony Stewart doesn\u2019t do anything halfway. It\u2019s all or nothing for Smoke, who has his tentacles in just about every form of motorsport. Today the NASCAR and INDYCAR champion announced the formation of a two-car, full-time NHRA team under the Tony Stewart Racing umbrella with fianc\u00e9e Leah Pruett<\/strong> driving a Top Fuel dragster and reigning, three-time NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series Funny Car champion Matt Hagan<\/strong> also coming from Don Schumacher Racing to drive a flopper for TSR.<\/p>\n

The move wasn\u2019t unexpected, as Stewart\u2019s been doing his due diligence in drag racing for at least a year, learning about the sport [primarily] from Don Schumacher, who has fielded cars for both of TSR\u2019s new drivers. \u201cI can\u2019t say enough about Don Schumacher and the assistance he\u2019s given me this year, teaching me what I need to know about this sport,\u201d Stewart said during the announcement, made in Charlotte, NC. \u201cI\u2019ve probably annoyed everyone in the paddock with all the questions I\u2019ve asked, but the more I learned about drag racing, the less I wanted to just be a spectator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stewart, who retired from full-time driving in 2016, has been a team owner or co-owner since 2001. He\u2019s co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing in NASCAR and has his own sprint car team, in addition to co-owning the Superstar Racing Experience that premiered in 2021. In 2019, Stewart was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. \u201cI appreciate all forms of racing and I\u2019ve always been intrigued about drag racing and NHRA, in particular. Back in 2009, when Tony Schumacher and I were both representing the U.S. Army, I got to hang out with him and Don Schumacher at the U.S. Nationals. Tony ended up winning,\u201d Stewart said, \u201cand after taking it all in, I was hooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Leah<\/a>Pruett, 33, in her 25th consecutive season competing in NHRA, gave credit to Don Schumacher for taking her on in 2016 and helping elevate her career. \u201cDon Schumacher gave me an incredible chance when we teamed up back in 2016. I\u2019ve learned a lot from him and he\u2019s made me a better driver. He helped take a massive step in my career and this opportunity with TSR affords another big step, she said. \u201cDon\u2019s mentoring has prepared me for this new endeavor in more ways than just on the track.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/a>Hagan, currently leading the Funny Car points as the NHRA Countdown to the Championship enters its final phase, with three races remaining, \u201cGot my start at 13, drag racing a four-wheeler. Went from that to sneaking cars off my dad\u2019s lot and returning them with the transmissions nearly gone. I\u2019ve loved going fast my whole life, from Pro Mod to finding where I thrive in the driver\u2019s seat of a Funny Car,\u201d the 38-year-old cattle farmer said. \u201cThis next chapter with Tony Stewart is one I\u2019m excited for. I\u2019m ready to go racing. That\u2019s what I\u2019m here to do. I\u2019m jumping into this new program with two feet and I\u2019m confident in the package we\u2019re bringing into the 2022 season with TSR. Let\u2019s make some history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vehicle manufacturer that will consolidate power for both TSR teams, together with the teams\u2019 technical alliance associate, its corporate partners will all be announced at a later date. So, too, will the crew chiefs for both Pruett and Hagan, who have been tuned by Todd Okuhara and Dickie Venables, respectively. Okuhara was announced as Tony Schumacher\u2019s new 2022 Top Fuel crew chief in a Wednesday announcement from Don Schumacher Racing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Stewart brings his big personality, and his decades of race experience and mastery, to the NHRA as his race team preps to field two drivers full-time.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":81723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[8458,128,7,1192,1883],"class_list":["post-81719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-leah-pruett","tag-matt-hagan","tag-nhra","tag-tony-stewart","tag-tony-stewart-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Tony-Stewart-mug-Big-Go.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-lg3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81724,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81719\/revisions\/81724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}