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From Spectator to Competitor to Owner,
Tony Stewart has Seen and Done it All at Eldora
Next up for Racing Renaissance Man is the NEXTEL Prelude to the Dream
presented by Old Spice on Wednesday, June 6 Live on HBO Pay-Per-View
ROSSBURG,
Ohio (May 31, 2007) – Long before Tony Stewart first turned a lap at
Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, he turned in his grandstand seat to
see the racing action coming off turn four of the legendary, half-mile
dirt oval. It wasn’t until October 1992 when Stewart was 15 that he
finally got the chance to race at Eldora in the USAC 4-Crown Nationals,
as he piloted a USAC Sprint car for owner Steve Chrisman and a Silver
Crown entry for Ben Leyba.
Since that Eldora first,
Stewart returned to Eldora many more times as he climbed his way up the
racing ladder. The Columbus , Ind. , native has made 17 USAC
appearances at Eldora – five in Silver Crown, eight in Sprint cars and
four in Midgets.
Stewart’s best year at Eldora came
during one of the best years of his entire motorsports career. As
Stewart raced to the USAC Triple Crown in 1995 by winning the National
Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown titles in a single season, he bolstered
his championship run by winning the Sprint and Midget races of Eldora’s
4-Crown Nationals.
Today, Stewart is an Indy car
champion and a two-time NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series champion. He is also
the proud owner of Eldora Speedway, home to the June 6 NEXTEL Prelude
to the Dream presented by Old Spice, which will be broadcast live on
HBO Pay-Per-View, with proceeds from the ground-breaking telecast
supporting the Victory Junction Gang Camp and the Tony Stewart
Foundation.
“Eldora is a marquee track,” said Stewart,
who put his money where his mouth is in November 2004 when he purchased
the 53-year-old track from longtime owners Earl and Berneice Baltes.
“There aren’t many half-mile tracks like Eldora, if any. The groove has
always typically been right up by the wall, and when you’re running
that fast at a half-mile track, you have to have a lot of confidence in
yourself and in your car that you can run up there without making a
mistake. If you make a mistake, you don’t have extra room to gather it
back up. You run out of real estate very quickly. It’s a very, very
fast, momentum driven-type race track. You look at the history of the
track and you look at the list of champions that have won, and you’ll
see that it’s a very prestigious list of short track drivers that have
made their mark there.”
Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt
raced at Eldora early in their careers, as did the household names of
today’s racing elite, namely Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman.
While
Andretti and Foyt have hung up their racing helmets, Gordon, Kahne and
Newman are far from that day. Those three drivers, along with Stewart,
Juan Pablo Montoya, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Bobby
Labonte and more, will be a part of this year’s NEXTEL Prelude to the
Dream presented by Old Spice.
The ultra-competitive
all-star race featuring motorsports’ finest drivers will begin at 7
p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT), with an immediate replay and subsequent replays
throughout the week and the following weekend on HBO Pay-Per-View.
Prospective viewers can order the event as early as this Sunday, right
up until race time on June 6. All that is necessary to order the event
is digital cable or satellite service. A subscription to HBO is not
required. The suggested retail price is $24.95 and available to more
than 61 million pay-per-view homes. Ordering information and up-to-the
minute racing information is available at www.hbo.com/sports.
“By
having the facility and having a lot of friends who are also supportive
of the Victory Junction Gang Camp, it wasn’t hard to put this event
together,” Stewart said. “With the drivers that have come and the
people who have come to watch them, along with Nextel and Old Spice’s
involvement, it’s helped make this event bigger and better every year.
“It’s
pretty impressive to see how much support this race has generated, and
every year we have more drivers signing up to come because they hear
how much fun it is. It’s not a big obligation-type event where they
have to do a lot of things. We show up. We race. We get to hang out
walking back and forth between our cars and talk to each other and not
have the pressure that we have at a typical race. You get to race
against your peers and the guys that you compete against every weekend,
but in a lot more relaxed atmosphere.”
Relaxed, that is, until the green flag drops.
“When
you start, you kind of have to find weaknesses in guys just like you do
at a regular race,” said Stewart, who won last year’s NEXTEL Prelude to
the Dream presented by Old Spice. “You have to find the part of the
track where you’re better than they are, so that you can try and set up
a perfect opportunity to get by.
“The field last year
was so tough. I started eighth and it took me the entire race to get to
the front. If Dave Blaney doesn’t jump over the cushion, I’m running
second to him. I don’t even have a shot of winning because we were the
same speed. It just shows how competitive this event really is.”
In
addition to the competition, seeing drivers outside their typical
comfort zone by navigating a race car on dirt is always a source of
entertainment.
“I think one of the things that’s been
the most fun for me is watching guys that haven’t run on dirt come to
Eldora for the first time and then see how much talent they really
have,” Stewart said. “As an example, I remember when Matt Kenseth came
to Eldora the first time. He dragged the right rear corner off the car
during qualifying, which is not uncommon there when you’re running a
dirt lat model. Even the best of the best do it. He was up right by the
wall and had set quick time at that point of the night. He took to it
like a duck in water. It really shows the fans how much talent these
drivers have and why they were able to earn their right as a Nextel Cup
driver.”
A limited number of tickets are still available
for this year’s NEXTEL Prelude to the Dream. To purchase tickets, or
for more information regarding Eldora Speedway or the NEXTEL Prelude to
the Dream presented by Old Spice, log on to www.eldoraspeedway.com.
For more information regarding ordering the event on HBO Pay-Per-View, log on to www.hbo.com/sports.
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