Tony Stewart has always been a curious character with a deep interest in the motorsports world. While ‘Smoke’ enjoyed his time in the Cup Series as a racer, he took it to the next level by becoming a team owner in the competition. With his ventures changing over time and the shutting of Stewart-Haas Racing at the end of the 2024 season, Stewart has developed a keen interest in the NHRA arena.

It is no secret how Tony Stewart’s wife, Leah Pruett, has been an influential figure in his life. While Pruett has had a positive impact on his life, the 53-year-old racer remains thankful to her for several things. One of them includes enlightening him about the NHRA, as Stewart explained in detail.

Tony Stewart opens up on how his wife Leah Pruett changed his casual perspective toward NHRA

It is certainly not easy to be a Cup Series team owner. It only gets more tricky to perform both as a driver and an owner. While Tony Stewart executed both duties very well, his priorities changed with time. Over time, it looked like Stewart lost focus on NASCAR and was more focused on making it count in the NHRA arena. Having said that, Smoke had his first NHRA encounter in the early stages of his ownership career.

In a candid conversation with an Indiana-based radio station 1075 the Fan, Stewart gave intrinsic details of his first NHRA interaction. He said, “I think when when we formed SHR [Stewart-Haas Racing] that was my first real in-depth opportunity to be in the middle of drag racing. Both Tony Schumacher was sponsored by the US Army and we had the US Army with Ryan Newman on the Cup side.”

In 2008, NASCAR secured its primary sponsorship for the 2009 season from the U.S. Army. It was the seventh time in the sport’s history that the U.S. Army acted as a primary sponsor. Back then, Ryan Newman joined NHRA Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher on the U.S. Army Racing Team. Stewart continued, “So got invited as a guest to be with DSR [Don Schumacher Racing] at the Nationals and it was unbelievable. I was still a casual fan honestly until we were talking almost 20 years ago then.”

While Stewart didn’t get attracted to the prospect of racing in the NHRA then, it all changed after he met his now-wife Leah Pruett. Smoke accepted how Pruett had a positive influence on him from an NHRA perspective. He said, “It’s been a while but literally, it wasn’t until I met Leah and then started coming to the races with her. She’d go to my Sprint car races and then when NHRA was running, I would take the weekend off and go with her to her races.”

Stewart continued, “That’s when I became a big fan and kind of set the hook like we were fishing. I think the more I was around it and the more I got to talk to the guys, and ask questions that was when I really got hooked on the sport. So here we are that started in 2020 and here we are in 2024 and we’re in our third year owning a race team and first-year driver now with a top fuel car.”

There is no doubt how the SHR co-owner has grown in stature as a driver in the NHRA. In fact, he was very close to his first NHRA Top Fuel win recently at Sonoma.

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It is no secret how Tony Stewart has been working hard to make his NHRA efforts count. Last weekend, he competed in the 36th annual Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals. Stewart did wonderfully to reach the final round, having defeated Shawn Langdon, Justin Ashley, and Ron August Jr. However, he faced the daunting task of beating Antron Brown.

Brown’s road to the final saw him beat Shawn Reed, Steve Torrence, and Brittany Force. In the final round, Smoke left first, having gotten a small advantage on the starting line. That said, Brown did well to recover as he quickly tracked Stewart and went 3.746 seconds at 329.67 mph to register his career’s 77th victory. Naturally, he looked elated after the win.

As reported by AutoWeek, he said, “Sonoma has a special meaning to me. It’s like a piece of heaven out here and just being here puts me in the zone.” Brown then explained the relationship between him and Stewart. He said, “Me and Tony know each other well. When I started as a team owner he was putting together TSR, we talked a lot about budgets and spread sheets and all that.”

While Brown spoke highly of Stewart, he highlighted how the veteran driver isn’t far away from a win in the NHRA. He said, “He was also a hero of mine when he ran NASCAR and IndyCar. I know how good of a driver he is. He understands the science so as soon as he showed up I knew what he could do. I did tell him to come on over but there are a lot of sharks in the water here. His time is coming and it won’t be one win. It will be a lot of them, but this is a good win for us.”

Indeed, with the passion with which Tony Stewart still races, his first win in the NHRA looks closer than ever. Should that happen, there would be no person as happy as his wife, Leah Pruett.