Anthony Wayne Stewart (born May 20, 1971) is an American race car driver.
He drives the #14 Chevrolet SS in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. For most of his career in NASCAR, Stewart was driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, but now owns his own team called Stewart Haas Racing.
Top 100 Best Tony Stewart Quotes
- We all get so caught up in the moment of what we're doing every day, it's hard to hit that reset button and get pulled away from all that and see life from a different perspective.
- I am a racer. I'm not a race car driver. I am a racer. I race. That's what I do. I don't go on vacation. I don't take my family on vacation because I don't have a family. My family is a racing family.
- When I go home, it's an easy way to be grounded. You learn to realize what truly matters.
- For the most part, the rule of thumb is pretty much you're going to race guys hard the last quarter of the race and for sure the last run of the day. You're still going to give and take until that last pit stop.
- Get in the race car do what I do then go home. We don't have the freedom to do anything anymore.
- Things happen every day. You can't spend your whole life trying to guard against something happening. If you do that, in my opinion, you've wasted your life.
- I go into it with the attitude that I'm not going to look at my leg, and as soon as they get the wrapping off of it, I'm like, 'I've got to look.' It's like yelling at a dog going, 'Squirrel!' I cannot look. And then I spend the rest of the time sitting there with a wet washcloth on my forehead trying to regain consciousness.
- It's very easy to get caught up in everything that's going on and just daily stuff being a distraction. When you have all that taken away from you, your daily activity becomes a lot more subtle, and you appreciate it all a lot more.
- I'm scared of saying something that may get taken the wrong way.
- I'm going to take full advantage of whatever time I've got on this earth. I'm going to get my money's worth. You can bet your butt on that.
- At the age of 41, I'm glad I still have hair.
- I broke my leg is all I did. I didn't break my brain.
- I'm not going to just stop doing it because I got hurt once. People get hurt in car wrecks every day, and they don't stop driving the car for the rest of their life to work. It's my passion. It's what I want to do with my life. It's a part of what I do.
- The one thing I don't do, that helps make me successful, is I don't rob Peter to pay Paul. All of my businesses have to stand on their own.
- You get around people who see us away from the track, and it's a pretty big contrast. You're still competitive, and you still want to win everything, but I think in the car, we're focused and passionate all the time. We get outside the car, and we're a lot more relaxed and easygoing, enjoying things away from racing.
- It's no different than anything else in anybody else's life. Doesn't matter how simple or complex. There are days you hate it and days you love it.
- Race cars, no matter what size or shape they are, they do the same things. It is not complicated.
- All my life I've been that way - ever since I was a kid. It doesn't matter whether we played video games or even before that when we had board games when you played with your sister and mom and dad - I didn't like losing then and didn't want to do anything but win when we played.
- It's like, what if you get a set of tires that aren't balanced right or a driveshaft that's vibrating. That could create a problem. You try to think of every possible scenario of what can make you uncomfortable and try to come up with a solution for it.
- I've got more stuff asked of me every week. But I drive a race car for a living. My car owner lets me race as many sprint car races as I want to run.
- It's hard to not make a mistake at Darlington.
- When you're doing something every week, it's kind of routine.
- I guess I take a lot of pride in that no matter what type of car we drive, we're always competitive in it. That's something I've taken a lot of pride in my whole life.
- I guess if you're not going to win the championship, you're better off taking the opportunity to win a Brickyard or a Daytona 500 than you are to make the Chase and then fizzle out.
- I have to relearn how to walk again. It's not that you have to reteach yourself. But your mind and your foot have to get back on the same page and remind yourself that it's OK to do this. You've done this before. It's reminding it what it's supposed to do again.
- I learned that I was just getting too consumed by racing. That's all I used to do was think about it. You have to be able to turn it off. You have to make yourself stop, or you'll get burned out.
- We're not going to reinvent the wheel this year. We're just going to keep doing what we've been doing all along.
- We brushed the wall, and that shoved the fender in.
- We are getting ready to expand the restrooms on the grandstand side; it is a big project to double the size to handle the capacity. I am just excited about it.
- We're going to kill somebody from Wednesday to Sunday. It could be me or Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. or anybody out there. This isn't a new topic.
- We're ready. I don't feel like we're lacking anything or waiting on anything.
- We were trading cooking secrets, ... What did you do to our car? What's your problem?
- There are no guarantees that because you're good one year you should be good the next. If everybody would quit working to get better and you were good, you could just not have to worry about it. You'd be good all the time. It just doesn't work that way.
- When I'm not dragging the team down, I think it helps all of us, ... When the one person who is dragging everybody back gets on the same page and does his part, it makes a huge difference.
- We were both kinds of laughing about it and hugging on each other about it, ... It doesn't matter what team he goes to, we still view each other as teammates -- even after the end of the year.
- We need to be a little better than we are. But I didn't knock the fence down.
- Like I said after we won the Brickyard 400, ... if I die tomorrow, when I wake up, I've had a great life to this point.
- Obviously, we wanted to win the race after leading that many laps.
- Now, this year, all it's done is to motivate us more. And today is an example of that.
- I wouldn't feel comfortable riding a bus with cameras on it. It's like we don't have Big Brother as it is all around us.
- I don't feel like we're really in a catch-up mode, ... We had our bad week and even with that, we're only 23 points behind. We could take the points to lead back this weekend very easily.
- I am really happy. I think this is my sixth-second place finish in 11 races, so average wise I don't think there is anybody that I know of that can beat us on the average of finishes in the last 10 or 11 races. So we are pretty proud of what this team has been able to accomplish here. It's been an awesome day. It's still better than third, so 41 guys wish they ran as good as I did and 42 of us that wish we ran as good as Jimmie.
- I'm a little sore. The doctors were great and did a pretty thorough evaluation of me. They didn't find anything broken, but just to be sure, they fitted me with a cast that I'll wear until I meet with my doctors on Monday. It looks a lot worse than it is.
- I had just run a 28.88, ... I'm thinking 'This is pretty good,' and then I get to turn three and I'm thinking 'This isn't good.'
- I hate to say I'm growing up because it scares me to think I might be but maybe I'm starting to realize there are more things to life than driving a race car.
- I feel like we've really taken our program to another level. It's not been because of me, it's been because of the two young guys coming in. Their attitude has kind of spread through the shop.
- If a guy does us wrong the week before, and he does something the next week where he makes an effort to make it right, then I pretty much will let that go. You don't forget about it, but just seeing that the guy makes an effort the next week means a lot.
- I got a little loose over there in (turn) three. It's just one lap. We've got 400 of them tomorrow.
- If the caution doesn't come out, we're going to run third, ... We had a good day. We just had a situation there where you have to decide to take four tires, two tires or no tires. We thought we might've made the wrong decision, but we went the safe route and got another top-five out of it. I'm really proud of this Home Depot team.
- Guys are doing it in the middle of the corner, coming off it and coming on. It's softening the front bumper because it's the guys that are doing the hitting. Trust me, I did my share of it, too.
- He should have been smart enough to know not to be knocking down a guy's door in the first 20 laps. He has no room to complain. He started the whole thing and I finished it.
- He's a talented kid. He's one of those guys that when you explain something to him, he does a lot more listening than he does talking, and that's hard to find with really competitive guys.
- He was proactive about it. He didn't blame the teams and the drivers. He did his part and worked on the racetrack. It's made it better. We're not seeing the problems we had in testing.
- He was proactive about it. He didn't blame the teams and the drivers, ... He did his part and worked on the racetrack. It's made it better. We're not seeing the problems we had in testing.
- He didn't mean to do it. I said, 'At least you're man enough.' Fifty percent of the guys will wait for the phone call the next day. That's why I respect Mark Martin more than anybody.
- Last year, it wasn't that he all of a sudden forgot how to drive.
- I went out and bought $17,000 worth of exercise equipment for my house.
- I think they should leave the rear bumpers alone and make soft bumpers in the front.
- Our number one goal this year is to go win the Daytona 500.
- Matt is always saying that. He has no reason to complain. He started the whole thing by squeezing me in Turn 2 with just 20 laps gone in a 200 -lap race. I just finished it.
- Matt always thinks that. He got back what he started in the first place. He turned me sideways over there. He's got no room to complain. He started the whole thing and I finished it. He thinks I ran over him and he's screaming about it like he always does. It's amazing.
- I won't until Joe says so. He's had two of his Cup drivers upside down here this week. He's not going to be happy.
- I think everybody's pretty worn out after being in Daytona for so long. California means a normal routine and a chance for the crew guys to get back to their families for a couple of days before heading to another racetrack.
- It doesn't mean he's not a good driver. He hasn't forgotten how to drive a race car.
- I'm serious as a heart attack. I'll wake up, I may have stab marks in my back from the edges, but I'm sleeping with it tonight. I'm scared somebody will get into my room and get it. That's how serious I am about it. I mean, it means that much to me.
- I wasn't going to wreck him. A couple of times I had him in compromising positions and I let him go. I didn't want to win that way. Jimmie understands that's just short-track racing. There are a lot of guys who don't. ...When you have a guy who understands and doesn't whine and carry on and complain, that makes it more fun.
- Who cares? All I want to do is just go home. ... I don't care about anything else right now.
- We're closing this thing down now. The next three tracks are all tracks that I'm excited about. So I'm leaving here with a smile on my face.
- We finally found the toy at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box. That was it.
- When you're fat like me, you get hungry. ... I'm still hungry. I hadn't eaten since noon. I'm still too old and still too fat, but as long as those people keep cheering when I get up there, I'm going to keep doing it.
- Yeah, there's really nothing decided yet. I extended my lead over Jimmie (from 15 to 43 points), but Biffle gained on both of us, and those guys behind him aren't out of it, either.
- Yeah, that was not too bad for a car that was just a little off, ... We had a setback in the practice session the other day and that got us off a little bit. But the guys rebounded really well. We lost an alternator belt early and that made us have to turn all the electrical switches off -- all the brake fans and the rear end fans and the fans that blow cool air on the tires to keep the tires cool. It hurt us because it lets it build air pressure a little quicker.
- Yeah, Matt always thinks that. I guess Matt didn't think anything when he got me sideways over in (Turn) 2. He should have thought about that first. He got back what he started in the first place.
- We did what we needed to do; we gained some points here. A 43-point lead with three races is no cakewalk, by any means, but I'm leaving here with a smile on my face.
- We did what we needed to do; we gained some points here, ... A 43-point lead with three races is no cakewalk, by any means, but I'm leaving here with a smile on my face.
- Yeah, but he's around it every week. It's hard when you're not around that, to go every week to get caught up. Every year that goes by, it just seems like that's a part of my career that is kind of like a chapter in a book that seems it's closed and we've moved on to another chapter.
- The coolest thing is you have 160,000 fans that you can see all day long or all night long. I can remember (passing) Jeff Gordon for the lead and I could see the people cheering. The grandstands are right on top of you. When you get out of the car after practice or qualifying, you can see what the fans are eating and what they're drinking. You're that close.
- What we talk about is between Matt and me.
- Welcome to the wonderful world of racing here. It was just a bad set of circumstances.
- We're trying to win a championship. (The car) was all right. I'm pretty excited and I think it's going to be good for tomorrow.
- We would have loved to have won the race after leading all those laps.
- There are reasons these guys got to this level. They're great drivers.
- There are guys you give the benefit of the doubt if they hold you up a little bit longer than normal, and you have that list of guys you kind of know are going to be a problem when you get there. The window of being patient with them is a lot shorter.
- When you get through a day like this, you're happy it's over because your brain has had all it can stand for one day of this,
- When you got a guy with the things like Chad was saying on the radio, it's like being inside a kindergarten room listening to it,
- We'll have two great performances by Montgomery Gentry and Phil Vassar, and joining us for the fun will be a bunch of my buddies from NASCAR. We're making sure that anyone who comes to the concert is going to have a good time.
- With four weeks to go, you can't narrow it down yet. It's too early. Math is how you do it. Mathematically, everybody is still in it. As long as everybody is mathematically in it, I don't know how you can count anybody out of it.
- Everything that I had heard about him and everybody that I talked to about him said he was a good kid and somebody that they thought had a good future. I wanted to be a part of that.
- Being the favorite doesn't mean a darn thing to me, to be honest, as far as winning the points, ... I've led points championships before. The day I want to be leading is Sunday at Homestead.
- Every race we come here there is a lot of wrappers and stuff, ... The majority of grandstands are on the west side, and the wind was blowing to the east. I wouldn't say it was any worse than it typically is. It was pretty much the normal amount. ... With as windy as it was, I'll be honest. I expected it to be a lot worse.
- As the race went on, we just kept fighting, trying to get the (car's) balance right. But we stayed in the top 10 all day. Most of the beginning of the race we stayed in the top five until we got a little behind, and we just never could really get caught up. But we were able to maintain all day. So it wasn't by any means a disastrous day, but with the big picture, I would have liked it to be better.
- Coming into the corners, you use a lot of brakes, and it's hard to not only get the car stopped but to get it to turn. Then you go through that challenge all over again.
- I've been doing this for 26 years and I've played mind games with people and I've had people play mind games with me,
- It would be kind of nice to see how my head looks in a cowboy hat.
- The thing that has amazed me is that most of the questions I'm answering today are all theoretical. Well, I'm not a philosopher.
- Then all I need to do is stay away from the McDonald's drive-up window and not use all that new equipment to hang my clothes on.
- Any time a great driver like that or a great group of drivers speak highly of you like that, that's probably the greatest honor in auto racing you can have. To hear those comments, that's better than any trophy I've ever received in my life.
- As far as the to-do list is concerned, it's the No. 1 thing. In the last two years, I've led enough laps to win the whole race outright.
- A season's still a season. Let's not reinvent the wheel. We're starting this year with the same guys and the same attitude we did the year before, and the year before that.
- As far as a to-do list this year, that's No. 1. It's the only thing we haven't accomplished.
Tony Stewart Achievements
- 1995, 2002 Hoosier Auto Racing Fans Driver of the Year
- 2001 National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame inductee
- 2002 Hoosier Auto Racing Fans Hall of Fame inductee
- 2002, 2005, 2011 Richard Petty Driver of the Year
- 2003, 2006, 2012 Best Driver ESPY Award recipient
- 2008 Legends of The Glen inductee
- 2008 NASCAR Illustrated Person of the Year Award recipient
- 2013 Myers Brothers Award recipient
- 2016 Sonoma Raceway Wall of Fame inductee
- 2018 Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame inductee
- 2019 Motorsports Hall of Fame of America inductee
- 2020 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee