“Smoke” Signals Exit From Sprint Cup

Tony Stewart

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Three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Tony Stewart announced Wednesday that he will be retiring as a Sprint Cup driver at the end of the 2016 racing season, bringing an end to a 20-year career for one of the sport’s most successful and controversial drivers.

Saying it was "the right time" and wanting a chance to do something different, Stewart plans to make a final run for the title in 2016, and then give up the driver's seat of the No. 14 Chevrolet to the recently unemployed Clint Bowyer.

"It's kind of a bittersweet day," said Stewart. "This was 100 percent my decision. There wasn't — there was not one factor that led to this other than just I felt like it was the right time. You know, everything in racing is timing, and the opportunity to get somebody like Clint Bowyer, I mean, that's when you know you seize the opportunity.

"There wasn't any pressure from anybody. If anything it was the opposite. I had more people trying to talk me out of it than anything."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]While racing has always been Stewart's passion, he's always seen Sprint Cup as merely a means to an end ' a way to pay the bills while still allowing him to kick up some dirt in his Sprint car. In short, he loved to race, but his career as a NASCAR driver ' and now an owner ' left him little time to do anything else.

Now that he'll be giving up his Sprint Cup ride, he hopes to have more time to compete on the short tracks where his career began.

"Having the opportunity to go do some other things outside of NASCAR is, you know, it's time to do that," said Stewart. "It's time to be able to not be focused 100 percent seven days a week on the NASCAR side. It doesn't mean we won't work hard and stay focused on the task at hand, but there's other things that I want to do the rest of my life that I haven't been able to do so far.

"I'm excited about it, but at the same time I'm sad about it, as well. I love what I do with NASCAR and I love what I do as a driver, and the great thing is I'm not going anywhere. I'm not really retiring, I'm just changing positions."

Although he'll be retiring as a Sprint Cup driver, Stewart plans to continue on in NASCAR as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, which currently fields cars for Stewart, Kurt Busch, Danica Patrick and defending Sprint Cup Champion Kevin Harvick.

NASCAR is not going to get rid of Stewart that easily.

(L-R) Team co-owner Gene Haas, Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart

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"NASCAR is probably going to be the most disappointed of everybody today because they aren't getting rid of me. They have to deal with me as an owner," said Stewart. "There's still the opportunity to get fined and there's still the opportunity to be put on probation, just like always, just from a different capacity than now."

Stewart says while he'd still like to win some marquee races like the Daytona 500 and Southern 500, what he'd love to do is run the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Eldora Speedway ' a track Stewart has owned since 2004.

But when asked if he'd like another crack at winning the Indy 500, Stewart's answer was an emphatic "NO".

Stewart insists his decision to give up Sprint Cup had nothing to do with his performance on the track, where he's been enduring the biggest slump of his 20-year career.

Since winning the title in 2011, Stewart's star has slowly faded. After finishing 11^th in points in 2012, Stewart has failed to make in into field for the Chase, and missed out on the last 15 races of the 2013 season after breaking his leg in a sprint car accident.

Then in August of last year, while running yet another sprint car race, Stewart was involved in an incident at Canandaigua Motorsports Park where he struck and killed 20-year-old driver Kevin Ward, Jr., after Ward ran onto the track to confront Stewart after the two had tangled during the race.

Stewart's short-fuse temper was back in the spotlight as Ward's family accused Stewart of intentionally hitting him. A New York grand jury failed to indict Stewart of any charges in the incident, but he still faces a civil lawsuit brought on by Ward's family.

Stewart would go winless in 2014 for the first time in his 16-year Sprint Cup career, but Kevin Harvick succeeded in bringing home another title for SHR.

Stewart, however, said none of that factored into his decision to hang it up.

"Zero percent," said Stewart. "Not one percent of it has had anything to do with it. I mean, this is strictly what I want to do, and my leg feels fine. There's nothing wrong with my leg. The tragedy, nothing is going to change that. It happened, but it's not going to direct the rest of my life. I'm still going to go race when I want to go race, but as far as the Cup Series, it had no bearing on that."

More than anything, Stewart says it was all about timing ' being able to tap a standout drive like Bowyer to take over the reins.

With the opportunity to sign Bowyer, who became recently unemployed when Michael Waltrip Racing announced they were closing their doors at the end of this season, Stewart felt the timing was right.

Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart

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"It's the right opportunity, and when somebody in a scenario like Clint's this year came about, you jump on those opportunities, and you know that timing is everything," said Stewart. "You know, it just all meshed.

"Everything happens for a reason, and you look at my career and you look at all the different entities that we have, nothing was ever part of a master plan. It all just came about with opportunities coming at the right time, and I think this was one of those, as well. I think it was the right time for me to make a change and had the perfect opportunity to get the perfect driver to fill in for us. We're going to enjoy this, we're going to have a lot of fun, and we've put the right guy behind the steering wheel coming forward."

Stewart's retirement caps a remarkable career that includes championships in USAC, IndyCar, IROC, and Sprint Cup, including 48 Cup Series wins – tying him for 11^th on the all-time win list with two-time series champion Herb Thomas.

Success on the track seemed to come easy for Stewart. And regrets? He's had a few.

"There's days I wonder if I should have taken Penske's offer to run the 500, there's days I wonder if I should have back in '96 at the end of the year taken Rick Hendrick's offer to drive the 25 car, and there's days that I wonder if I should have taken Barry Green's offer to drive for Team Kool Green in the CART series," said Stewart. "I think it's all worked out pretty good since then, so I think we've made the right decisions. We've always trusted our gut instinct, and I don't think it's led us wrong yet.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]"You know, I think everything that's happened in my life has happened for a reason. I don't think there's anything that — I think there's things that I would like to have skipped in my life and things that have not happened, but I think everything in the big picture has happened for a reason and is part of something that's a lot bigger than what we are in this room."

Despite all his accomplishments, Stewart doesn't want the extra attention of a "retirement" tour, such as what Jeff Gordon is doing in his final season. Instead, Stewart just wants to go out on top with another title run.

"This isn't something new that drivers have come and gone," said Stewart. "You've been around this sport a long time, and you think about when Pearson and Petty and Yarborough, you think of all the drivers that were here that are not here anymore and retired, there was always somebody else that came along that brought the same level of excitement to the sport.

"I still want to win races. We're going to gouge our eyes out and do everything we can to win races and win another championship, I can promise you – next year is not a coast and collect year. This added year is not just a ride-it-out year. It's just the opposite, because I don't have to worry about making anybody mad next year and having to deal with it in 2017."