Tony Stewart, upbeat and noticeably thinner, won his first race since breaking his leg in a sprint car accident when he beat an employee around the office at Stewart-Haas Racing in his wheelchair.
His injury? The three-time NASCAR champion called it "a small bump in the road" and expects to be back in a race car in time for next year's Daytona 500.
"I am going to get back in a (sprint) car eventually. There's no time frame on when I'm going to get back in one, but I'm definitely going to cut back the amount of races, just on scheduling purposes more than anything," he said.
Using a wheelchair to navigate his way around the race shop Tuesday, Stewart said he planned to return to the track this weekend at Richmond and hinted he'll use a motorized scooter because he's not yet ready to use the crutches he received last week.
This is the first significant injury for the 42-year-old owner/driver of SHR since his move to NASCAR in 1999. His streak of 521 consecutive starts came to an end with the injury.
Stewart it accustomed to racing as many as six days a week, not to mention keeping busy with his business ventures as co-owner of the NASCAR team, owner of his sprint car teams and owner of multiple race tracks. Stewart joked that his days since the accident have been a lazy loop of watching "Oprah" while he recovers at the North Carolina home of longtime business manager Eddie Jarvis.
The reality is that he's been entertained by a steady stream of visitors -- he had a nine consecutive hours of guests the Thursday before the Aug. 24 race at Bristol. He cited Clint Bowyer as one of his favorite visitors, and mentioned a text message from Formula 1 driverMark Webber.
"The outreach from people from IndyCar racing, sports car racing, NASCAR racing, the sprint car community and the visitors that we had ... that's been a huge, huge asset, and keeping me motivated and my spirits up," Stewart said. "I'm kind of surprised myself to be honest -- I'm surprised I've been this upbeat about it, and I don't know why. But I guess I just look at it as it's just a bump in the road.
"To go 35 years and run all the hundreds of races and thousands of races we've run, and to finally have an injury, it's like, this hasn't been a bad run of going out getting hurt. I'm one of those believers that everything happens for a reason, and I feel lucky that I guess if it's going to happen that the timing of it happened in a scenario where I'm not going to miss next year, I'm not going to miss a race. Got a lot of great friends and a lot of great friends that are drivers that I compete with each week that have been there to keep me pumped up."
He's also kept busy with SHR co-owner Gene Haas' urgent desire to expand the organization to four teams to accommodate Kurt Busch.
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His injury? The three-time NASCAR champion called it "a small bump in the road" and expects to be back in a race car in time for next year's Daytona 500.
"I am going to get back in a (sprint) car eventually. There's no time frame on when I'm going to get back in one, but I'm definitely going to cut back the amount of races, just on scheduling purposes more than anything," he said.
Using a wheelchair to navigate his way around the race shop Tuesday, Stewart said he planned to return to the track this weekend at Richmond and hinted he'll use a motorized scooter because he's not yet ready to use the crutches he received last week.
This is the first significant injury for the 42-year-old owner/driver of SHR since his move to NASCAR in 1999. His streak of 521 consecutive starts came to an end with the injury.
Stewart it accustomed to racing as many as six days a week, not to mention keeping busy with his business ventures as co-owner of the NASCAR team, owner of his sprint car teams and owner of multiple race tracks. Stewart joked that his days since the accident have been a lazy loop of watching "Oprah" while he recovers at the North Carolina home of longtime business manager Eddie Jarvis.
The reality is that he's been entertained by a steady stream of visitors -- he had a nine consecutive hours of guests the Thursday before the Aug. 24 race at Bristol. He cited Clint Bowyer as one of his favorite visitors, and mentioned a text message from Formula 1 driverMark Webber.
"The outreach from people from IndyCar racing, sports car racing, NASCAR racing, the sprint car community and the visitors that we had ... that's been a huge, huge asset, and keeping me motivated and my spirits up," Stewart said. "I'm kind of surprised myself to be honest -- I'm surprised I've been this upbeat about it, and I don't know why. But I guess I just look at it as it's just a bump in the road.
"To go 35 years and run all the hundreds of races and thousands of races we've run, and to finally have an injury, it's like, this hasn't been a bad run of going out getting hurt. I'm one of those believers that everything happens for a reason, and I feel lucky that I guess if it's going to happen that the timing of it happened in a scenario where I'm not going to miss next year, I'm not going to miss a race. Got a lot of great friends and a lot of great friends that are drivers that I compete with each week that have been there to keep me pumped up."
He's also kept busy with SHR co-owner Gene Haas' urgent desire to expand the organization to four teams to accommodate Kurt Busch.
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