Tony Stewart is getting back behind the wheel.
The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champ will race this summer at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in one of NASCAR’s most interesting upcoming experiments. He’ll compete for his own team, Stewart-Haas Racing, in the second-tier XFINITY Series race, which will be held on the iconic venue’s 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course, the team announced Wednesday morning.
The recent NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee will celebrate his 49th birthday about a month before the July 4th race, marking his first NASCAR start since 2016 and his first XFINITY Series race since 2013. At the XFINITY level, Stewart has 11 checkered flags in 94 starts, and he won his lone 2013 race in the series, the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway.
Stewart said in a video on Twitter that he toyed with the idea of running an XFINITY road course event. And he couldn’t pass up the chance to do it at Indy.
There’s no place like home… and home is where I’ll be on the Fourth of July. pic.twitter.com/VPi07b9gqV
— Tony Stewart (@TonyStewart) March 4, 2020
In his own video announcement, Stewart says:
“It’s a home race for me. … It’s an opportunity to go run there where nobody has any notes. It’s a blank sheet of paper for everybody.”
Not long after NASCAR and IndyCar icon Roger Penske became the owner of the Brickyard earlier this year, it was announced that the XFINITY race, the Indiana 250, will be on the road course, while the Cup Series will remain on the oval. It’s the first time the NASCAR series will have two races in the same location but on different tracks.
According to the team’s statement, Stewart’s car number and primary sponsor will be announced closer to the race. More via Stewart-Haas Racing:
“Everyone knows what Indy means to me, so I can’t think of a better place to race on Fourth of July weekend,” said Stewart, who grew up 45 minutes from Indianapolis in the towns of Columbus and Rushville, Indiana. “It’s going to be cool making history by turning left and right in a stock car at the Brickyard, and the racing will be full of action and contact. Any time you can drive any racecar [sic] at the speedway is special, and you know I’m going for the win. The date is already circled on my calendar.”
It will be his first XFINITY race at Indy. However, in the Cup Series, he won at the Brickyard twice (2005, 2007).
And, as one of a handful of drivers to compete in open-wheeled and stock cars, he ran the IndyCar Series’ Indianapolis 500 five times and was the 1996 race’s Rookie of the Year.
With Stewart’s return to both racing in NASCAR and Indy, the July 4 event will almost certainly be highly anticipated by not only his fan base but also by NASCAR fans in general.
And given the governing body’s experiment with the Indy road course this season, perhaps more people than usual will watch the XFINITY race, even if it is on a holiday often centered around outdoor activities. Or, perhaps the opposite will happen because the longtime tradition of racing at Daytona over (or around) Fourth of July ended last season, and the Brickyard took over on the 2020 schedule.
For those who might have planned to ignore NASCAR during the holiday — or who simply just wouldn’t think about planning to watch the second-tier race on July 4 — Stewart’s return to the track, especially after a long absence behind the wheel, could add a (needed) jolt to the race weekend.
Combine this with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s annual XFINITY race and the third-tier Truck Series bounty on Kyle Busch that has the NASCAR world buzzing, and the lower series might attract more eyes and larger fan bases this season.
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