Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I will give all the credit in the world to Stewart as a driver. A winner and champion in all types of cars. But he threw Schatz the second greatest sprint car driver under the bus. Something went amiss with the 15 team. Stewart blamed Schatz 100% for the problems, Stewart didn't/want to take any responsibility. 
 

If he had any respect for Schatz ,finish the year with him. Don’t throw him out right after the Nationals when he had races in his " home turf". Rico wasn't going anywhere.

I hope Schatz can come back in 2026 and get back to winning. He has some good years left.

Quote from TS: "We always let Donny run our program and that led us down a road we didn't want to be on." 

That's odd, did Donny choose to drop a Ford between the rails? 

I agree with you 100%. I like both men, but Smoke really dissed Donny yesterday. Sad to see after all the sucess they had together.

I'd say he hit Donny with the bus and then backed up to get him another time or two.  I don't doubt it was time to shake things up and maybe Donny wasn't leading the team the way he needed to, but no need to start airing the dirty laundry in public.  That's not Tony's nature and he tends to light things on fire on his way out the door.  Watch out Leah, Matt and Rico......

TSR ultimately got what it wanted. It was no secret Tony and WOO haven't seen eye to eye for sometime. This goes back to the T-Shirt trailers at Volusia when he owned the All Stars. The only reason that car has been on the WOO trail after High Limit started is because that is where Donny wanted it to be. When Donny was let go, it was no shock that car went to High Limit. It will also not be a shock when all Eldora events go to High Limit. 

Will Donny fine another ride, who knows. I hope he does becuase he at least deserves to have one final goodbye tour. If not, I am sure he will enjoy being around home and watching his neices race some more. Hell the fans up here would be more than happy to see him running his late model locally weekly. 

WOO will be at Eldora. Too much money to be made there.

I think back to mr. bob weikert 0 wins would have moved on sooner, Dennis Roth, guy forbrook, Al Hamilton etc...

im not debating the manner - but man this is sprint car racing and performance matters....not debating who is culpable here for lack of performance.

Not debating whether Tony may have been influenced here - but Donnie has not been super pleasant for months in interviews and very uncharacteristically really negative.

Stewart bashed Schatz even more in an interview with Jeremy Elliot on his website this week. Ridiculous amount of bad blood for all the success they've had. 

The tsr 15 didn't all the sudden start winning races after they dumped schatz. A lot of folks want to bust on donny but the results are the same with Madsen. 

Who is running the team today with Madsen as the driver.

To be fair.  Tony Stewarts initial public response to the split was something along the lines of both being competitors and things not going the way either one of them liked and making the change now gives both of them a head start on 2026, making it sound like a mutual split.  It was then Donny Schatz who said it was like a gut punch getting that news, which confirmed it wasn't Donny Schatz decision for the split.  Since then there hasn't been a lot of positive things said about Stewart.  In my opinion this was a thing Schatz opened this can of worms and Stewart just amped it up.

I obviously have no idea what happened but if what Stewart said is true, he's an idiot.  According to him he "let Schatz run the whole program, which brought them down a road that they didn't to be on" but then says "we tried, we gave him everything he wanted".  Who gave him what he wanted?  I thought Schatz was running the program?  Then he goes on to say how Rico can continue to run his program under Tony Stewart's name.  Didn't he learn from Schatz that wasn't a smart idea?  If I'm a sponsor why would I want to hand you millions of dollars if you're not going to have anything to do with it?  And especially since his track record shows that he has no idea how to fix things once they start going wrong.

Some things I find interesting about Tony Stewart are.  First, I remember reading about twenty years ago somewhere that he wanted Danny Lasoski to retire with him and if Tony Stewart quit sprint car racing he would sell the entire operation to him for $1.  Second he wanted Steve Kinser to retire with him, which happened but I've never heard Steve Kinser say really anything about him, which makes me wonder if Steve Kinser really like him or just was happy to have him pay the bills?  Then he said the same thing about Donny Schatz wanting him to retire with him, we all know how that worked out.  Another thing I think is interesting is that many people in the NASCAR world have good things to say about him but outside of that, if they're not working with him, they don't say much about him.

Personally I think Tony Stewart is one of the greatest drivers to have ever lived.  I think Tony Stewart also believes this.  But beyond that, I think he's an arrogant asshole who's done nothing but spend money.  How has he improved sprint car racing?  Is he a great owner?  He's always hired great drivers and great crew chiefs and then firing them when the performance wasn't there.  He's never turned a driver nobody else saw into something.  I'll admit he turned Eldora into something next level however when he's done with that, I'm guessing that track will get bulldozed because he won't sell it to anyone at a decent price.  But every time things have been going well in all of his ventures, he's front and center.  When things aren't going well, he's no where to be found.  When money can't fix it he doesn't seem to have the answers.