Tony Stewart and the Triple Crown

Many NASCAR fans are curious about the life and experiences of Tony Stewart. Some aspects of his life are mysterious and interesting. The Triple Crown made him a household name.

Tony Stewart became the first driver to win the United States Auto Club's version of the Triple Crown, a championship in each of the three USAC's major divisions in a single season: National Midget, Sprint, and Silver Crown. Midgets are single-seat, open wheel, purpose built race cars. Sprint cars are high-powered race cars designed for running on short oval or circular dirt or paved tracks. A silver crown car is much like a sprint car, but the silver crown is bigger.

Stewart cut his teeth on go kart racing and won a World Karting Association championship in 1987. He moved on to the three-quarter midgets. Stewart credits his father for instilling in him the desire to "never settle for second. He never pressured me to be the best race car driver in the world, but he did pressure me to be the best race car driver that I could be. He never compared me to anybody else. He expected that what I could do was what I could do. He never said that because this guy over here could do something that I should be able to do it, too. He pushed me hard, but he was fair about it. That's probably why you see so much fire in me today, because he always wanted me to be the best that I could be."

Stewart made his NASCAR Busch Series debut in 1996. At that time, he drove for owner Harry Rainer. In nine races, Stewart had a best finish of only 16th place. In 1997, he raced for Joe Gibbs, the Hall of Fame football coach. Impressed with Stewart's performance in 1997, Gibbs signed him to drive the majority of Busch races in 1998. For five times in 22 starts, Stewart finished in the top five. Since 1999, Stewart has participated in 332 races, won 32 races and collected winnings totaling $48,669,860.

Stewart can now add race track owner and race car owner to his resume. He purchased Eldora Speedway located near Rossburg, Ohio in 2004. In addition, he is a co-owner of Paducah International Raceway in Paducah, Kentucky and Macon Speedway in Macon, Illinois. Stewart's race cars are open-wheel short track racing cars, and most of them are being sponsored by Chevrolet at this time.