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Ever since Tony Stewart won his last Sprint Cup Series championship in 2011, life has been awful rocky. Stewart let his crew chief, Darian Grubb, go after the 2011 season and picked up Steve Addington as his crew chief. He won three races in 2012, but was nowhere near the success he had, finishing ninth in points. With only three wins, 12 top-five and 16 top-ten finishes, Stewart’s downward spiral had actually begun. But not in the way anyone could have ever imagined.
2013 was officially when his career began to take a turn for the worst. Even with one win, his production has began to go down under Addington’s watch. His top-five and top-tens began to decline and he had a string of nine straight races without a top-ten finish. Then his production was beginning to pick up until he broke his leg in a Sprint Car race after racing at Pocono a week earlier. That forced Stewart to miss the rest of the season, and Addington was let go after the end of the season.
When Chad Johnston took over in 2014, Stewart was not seeing any gains. Even with one pole, his top-ten finishes continued to go down, and that wasn’t even the worst part. On the weekend of Watkins Glen, Stewart was participating in another Sprint Car race in at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in upstate New York, where he was unfortunately involved in an incident. Stewart accidentally hit Kevin Ward Jr. after he confronted Stewart on the track. Ward died instantly and Stewart missed the next three races.
Not long afterward, the Ward family tried to sue Stewart for wrongful death and tried to pursue criminal charges. The civil suit was later dismissed and a Ontario County jury opted to not press charges, citing Ward had marijuana in his system during his confrontation with Stewart. NASCAR gave Stewart an exemption to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup title as long as he won a race. But Stewart has not recovered since his return. Stewart only had only one top-five finish at Martinsville, he finished 25th in the series’ point standings.
Stewart was hoping for a huge turnaround when Kevin Harvick came over to Stewart Haas Racing and won his first Sprint Cup title. But Stewart’s finishes sank to an all-time career low.
With Jeff Gordon bowing out after the 2015 season, Stewart has decided to do the same. Even with the Chili Bowl incident, it doesn’t seem to affect his outlook for his last Sprint Cup season. Stewart hopes to have a positive run on the track, similar to what Gordon did in his last season. All Stewart really wants is a happy ending.