Tony Stewart Calls Himself ‘Dumb Car Owner,’ Backs NASCAR’s Brutal Win-Stripping Penalties

No feeling is worse than having a win taken away against your will in sports. Tony Stewart knows what it’s like. Last September, some unapproved ignition parts in his NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster disqualified him from the Carolina Nationals, which proved very costly since Smoke lost the title to Julie Nataas by 21 points. If that hadn’t happened, the 53-year-old racing legend would’ve become the first driver in history with championship trophies in NASCAR, IndyCar, USAC, and NHRA. But alas!

Now, disqualifications aren’t a new fad in auto racing. That’s why rules exist for all those who wish to compete. But how far does the NASCAR rulebook take things to overturn Victory Lane celebrations that put an asterisk in a driver’s win record? Well, self-proclaimed ‘dumb team owner,’ Tony Stewart might have an idea. So, he laid it bare for all of us to hear alongside fellow NASCAR icon Dave Blaney.

Tony Stewart’s ‘dumb mistakes’ and NASCAR’s pricey consequences

In a profound surprise, Tony Stewart recently sat down for a heart-to-heart with the Blaney racing family on the Racers Roundtable podcast. 2023 NASCAR champ Ryan Blaney, his uncle Dale, and father Dave Blaney, aka the “Buckeye Bullet,” were all present as the conversations evolved. The discussions eventually settled upon a lesser-talked-about topic in the sport of stock car racing: why NASCAR took away wins ‘back in the day,’ unlike what has become the apparent norm at the present moment. And Tony Stewart had quite a coherent explanation for that head-scratcher.

He elaborated, “So back in the day in NASCAR, you didn’t have cell phones, you know… Radios were great but not great. And it was really important to Bill France, that when they saw the end of the race and they left the bleachers, they knew who won the race…. That is why for such a long time in the sport, that tradition never changed.” Smoke then brought forward the justifying case of NASCAR’s most recent results-altering disqualification drama from 2022, which resulted in former Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch both getting scratched off the wins column.

NASCAR had penalized those two after both drivers finished 1-2 at Pocono that year and handed the win to Chase Elliott, the rightful third-place finisher. In the words of the Cup Series’ Managing Director, Brad Moran, NASCAR declared the DQs because ‘there were some issues discovered that affected the aero of [their] vehicles. The part was the front fascia.’ This incident marked the first time since 1960 that the sport overturned a race win.

A decision like that makes Smoke positive “that the sport is finally catching up on.” He believes it is necessary, and so does Ryan Blaney. Ultimately, Stewart laid out his conclusion with a respectable dig at himself, when he said, “Then you got dumb car owners like me that let our guys throw stuff on there that doesn’t even get us in the top 20, and [NASCAR] penalize you $300,000 or $400,000 and a gazillion owner and Driver points. So, that hurt. We obviously aren’t learning from our mistakes.” With Stewart-Haas finally closing shop at the end of the 2024 season, Tony Stewart will, unfortunately, no longer be a team owner in NASCAR.

Regardless, money like that is no laughing matter, although the sport’s sanctioning body has taken away race wins for much less.

When Dave Blaney was a two-time NASCAR winner for four days

Here’s where Dave Blaney’s account makes its way into the picture. Ryan Blaney’s father is a dirt racing legend in his own right. He has won close to one hundred victories in the World of Outlaws series and even claimed the championship in 1995. Sadly, all his success never translated onto the NASCAR circuit, but he’s got a solitary Busch Series win from 2006 to show for all his commendable advances in the sport. However, what many fans do not know today is that the Buckeye Bullet almost had two.

In 1999, Dave Blaney was enjoying his sophomore year in the Busch Grand National Series. He was winless the season prior, and it looked like things were finally reaching an uptrend in Atlanta. He won the pole in that race—the 1999 Yellow Freight 300—and finished second to future Truck Series veteran, Mike Skinner. But the next day, NASCAR disqualified Skinner’s own debut Busch Series win because post-race inspections determined his truck’s engine sported an unapproved cylinder head. This violation stripped away Skinner’s win at Atlanta, and he got moved to 43rd when the dust settled.

But four days later, after an appeal from Skinner, NASCAR reinstated their original decision and awarded him the win, placing Blaney back in second. Dave Blaney kept that win on his record, albeit unceremoniously, for only four days. He remembered that moment with Stewart, and said, “I might be the only guy I can remember. I did win a Busch race, at Atlanta. I won it Sunday night and Monday, and then I lost it on Tuesday.”

“That’s probably not happened to many guys in NASCAR,” reminisced Dave Blaney, and he’s probably right. But does any of it mean NASCAR should go back to its old ways and let the results rest as they used to, back in the day? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.