Days After Selling His Racing Series, Tony Stewart Admits Feeling Envious of Kyle Larson’s Dominance

Before Kyle Larson, who is often touted as a “once in a generation talent,” ascended to the top, Tony Stewart was the man everyone in the field looked up to. Open-wheel racing, stock car racing, dirt racing, midget racing, or drag racing—the man has done it all. The “Smoke” was a jack of all trades. He could go dirt racing one day, return to the NASCAR track, and rack up a win the next day.

His uncanny ability to be good at everything defined his NASCAR career. But believe it or not, even he is envious of a certain driver from the current era. Speaking to his SHR driver, Chase Briscoe, the 3-time Cup Series champion, got real about his legacy when he mentioned the only driver that he couldn’t match in his prime.

Envious Tony Stewart is getting real about Kyle Larson

With a glorious career spanning 18 years in NASCAR’s top-tier division, Stewart’s reign at the top as the top dog has made him an icon in stock car racing. But beyond that, the Hall of Famer is a man of many talents.

While the veteran is now retired from NASCAR, he is still active, focusing his time and effort on drag racing, where he won his first national title in Vegas earlier this year, adding one more feather to his long list of accomplishments. However, there’s one area where he gets the “sting,” the one aspect where he gets envious of Hendrick Motorsports sensation Kyle Larson.

Days after his All Star Circuit of Champions series was sold to Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet, Stewart was asked, “Does it sting to this day that you were that close?” It was in reference to almost winning the triple of the midget race, sprint car, and the silver crown car race at Eldora Speedway.

To this, he replied with a slight grin on his face, “Especially after Kyle Larson in his first trip to the racetrack won the midget, sprint car, and silver crown, and not by a little, he won all of them by a lot. So yeah, that stings a little bit that I couldn’t at least match his record.” 

He later added on, saying, “But it’s fun to have those iconic moments and we’ve driven so many types of cars and so many different types of racetracks, there are iconic moments that are to me personally but to everybody else they would have no idea why that was a cool event or that was a special race. It wasn’t always the surface value that made it special.” 

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Before Stewart became the man his peers looked up to, he admired the great Bobby Labonte.

Stewart quotes Bobby Labonte, sharing his advice to Briscoe

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Now, Labonte had won the Cup championship 2 years before Stewart won his first. So safe to say he was like a hero to Stewart. Knowing this, the #14 SHR driver asked his boss what the best advice he had for him was.

Stewart said, “Bobby Labonte was the one that said it best, and he had won the championship two years before I did and when I won a championship he goes, he told me, he goes, ‘The week, championship week is going to be hectic, you’re going to hate it, it’s busy, you don’t get any downtime, they keep you busy the entire time, you’re going to be exhausted by the time you get to the banquet but he goes, cherish every second of it, and every moment of it.” 

Relaying this to his driver, Stewart delivered his best advice, saying, “You got to make yourself take time for appreciating what going on as its happening, you can’t ignore it, there’s moments and those memories don’t come back.”

For someone like Tony Stewart who had unprecedented success across various series, one can imagine that he would have had plenty of moments to celebrate. But more importantly, he became a legend by always looking forward to the next big challenge.

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