by Marc Phillippe Babineau

Created on: April 18, 2008   Last Updated: November 24, 2008

Tony Stewart, in the number 20 Home Depot NASCAR open stock racing car, is the only Sprint Cup Series driver who can claim that he has led more than ten percent of the laps he has raced in his NASCAR racing career (Tony has raced 9,095 laps in 328 races in NASCAR racing, and has led 9,892 of those laps). Tony Stewart has started in each and every race in the 36 races in each year of the past ten years of driving in the Sprint Cup series portion of NASCAR's regular season of racing. For 125,395 miles, Tony Stewart has had to basically turn left at over 160 miles per hour.

For this boyhood dream of a career, tasting his first racing victory at the tender age of 8 years, Tony Stewart has earned $45,909,153 in Sprint Cup racing winnings alone. Tony's racing success started in 1978, when he started racing go-carts at just 6 years old in Westport, Indianapolis, with his first trophy adorning his walls two years later. Considering that Tony Stewart presently also races in the Busch Series/Nationwide Series, IROC, and the Craftsman Truck Series racing leagues as well as Sprint Cup, and is relatively as successful in those circuits as he is in NASCAR's Sprint Cup series of racing, his choice of careers seems to have been the right one. Throw in his numerous sponsorships, as well as other just as successful racing stints prior to his permanent induction into the Sprint Cup series, (after a short introductory 22 race start in 1997), Tony Stewart is a very busy, respected, beloved and successful man behind the wheel of a race car.

In one day, in Tony Stewarts' rookie season in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing, he raced the Indianapolis 500, flew to Concord, North Carolina and raced the Coca-Cola 600, for 1,100 combined miles of racing in one day. A man of determination had made his first impression on NASCAR racing fans, media, league officials and competing teams. Tony Stewart repeated this feat in 2001, when he drove an Indy car for Chip Ganassi at the Indianapolis 500. He bettered his mark from 1999 by finishing the race in sixth place, before jetting off to Concord, North Carolina, for the Coca-Cola 600, where Tony improved that finish as well, finishing in third place in the 600 mile race. When it was all said and done, Tony Stewart completed all 1,100 miles, breaking his own record for most racing miles driven in one day.

In the 328 races that Tony Stewart has raced for Joe Gibbs racing (his only owner/pit boss in NASCAR Sprint Cup series racing), he has 32 wins, 122 top five and 196 top ten finishes. In that period, he has started in the pole position 10 times, with an average start of 15th place and an average finish of 12.5th. In 2002 and 2005, Tony won the Sprint Cup series seasons. He came in fourth in his rookie season in 1999, and second overall in 2001. There are some tracks more friendly to Jared's friend (from the Subway weight loss commercials) than others have been. Tony has won 4 times at Watkins Glen in ten years, and 3 times at Richmond, with a few fourths and fifths thrown in here and there for good measure. And to think, Tony Stewart has many more years ahead of him at the wheel of the number 20 Home Depot NASCAR racing car. Has the Hall of Fame already begun preparations for his inclusion? It would be the most understated and obvious inclusion in the NASCAR Hall of Fames' existence.

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