NASCAR legend wins racing championship following Cup Series exit

If you thought the iconic Tony Stewart was done winning championships when he exited NASCAR competition, you’d be very wrong.

The 54-year-old racing legend claimed four Cup Series titles in an epic career in the biggest league of all - two as a driver, one as an owner/driver and one as an owner.

NASCAR HEADLINES: Kyle Busch in X-rated Darlington verdict as team chief fumes

Stewart though left NASCAR after the 2024 season with the closure of the Stewart-Haas Racing team he co-owned with Gene Haas. Turns out the man they call ‘Smoke’ was far from done with racing though.

Now Stewart is showing off his generational skills in the NHRA Top Fuel Championship - and he is officially a drag racing superstar as well. All this after replacing wife Leah Pruett in the car when she took a hiatus to have their son Dominic late last year.

This week Stewart claimed yet another regular season championship - and the $150,000 which goes with it - at US Nationals in Indianapolis.

Tony will now enter the Countdown to the Championship playoffs as top seed - those playoffs will begin at the next event, the 40th annual NHRA Reading Nationals at historic Maple Grove Raceway from September 11-14.

'The greatest race car driver in the world'

Former NASCAR star and FOX analyst Kenny Wallace responded to Stewart’s latest championship by describing him as “the greatest race car driver in the world”.

Speaking in a YouTube video, he claimed: “There’s people who say ‘yeah I won a drag race’, there’s people who say ‘yeah I won an IndyCar race’ and ‘yeah I won a NASCAR race’. Who has won an NHRA race, who has won a NASCAR race, who has won an IndyCar race? Just a race - not even the championship. Who has done that?

He continued: “Even when you go across the world - SvG, Michael Schumacher, Senna, Lewis Hamilton. I think Tony Stewart is the greatest race car in the world because he has drove everything and he’s won championships in everything.”

Why did Tony Stewart leave NASCAR?

"This is a time where things are drastically changing in the sport. You look at what's going with 23XI and Front Row Motorsports right now and their battle with NASCAR and the direction that things are going, it's not a direction that I want to be a part of," he stated.

"This is the right time, this was never a part of a master plan but this is, as this year has gone on this has become very clear that this is the right time for me to get out of the sport."

READ MORE: Michael Jordan's GOAT response to NASCAR playoff agony for 23XI Racing team

Related