Tony Stewart, after difficult year, sees special triumph in Xfinity Series championship
As cars roared by and drivers picked their lanes on the Phoenix Raceway front stretch, readying for two overtime laps that would decide a championship, Tony Stewart was still.
He sat quietly in the No. 00 pit box, his armed crossed, his mind ablaze.
Then came that one final caution lap. Then that restart. Stewart stood up and pumped his fist as the cars sped by. He then locked his eyes on one of the multiple screens in front of him and saw Cole Custer, his Xfinity Series driver, get a good jump, then fall behind, then somehow claw his way back to the front. Stewart stood up and watched as the cars ran around Turn 4, and he stayed standing as Custer crossed the start-finish line first and won the Xfinity championship — looking out as the 00 pit crew celebrated below him.
A few minutes later, as Custer completed his burnout, Stewart kept his eyes on the TV in his pit box, rewatching that improbable replay in wonder.
“When you’re a competitor you’ve got to understand every aspect of it, and watching it live as it was happening, it was like, ‘What just happened?’” Stewart told reporters in the Phoenix Raceway media center. “He comes off of Turn 4 and you see him get the lead back, and you’re like, That turned out great, but how did it happen?”
How is an important question.
But when? That answer is easy:
Not a second too soon.
It hasn’t been the easiest year for Stewart-Haas Racing, particularly its Cup program. Kevin Harvick, so long the organization’s bastion of consistency and a close friend of Stewart, announced his retirement before the season. Chase Briscoe was slammed with a near unprecedented penalty that essentially rendered him out of playoff contention in May. Ryan Preece has struggled all year. So has Aric Almirola, who’s also retiring after the Cup championship race. The organization, barring a near impossibility Sunday, will notch a no-win Cup season for the first time since 2008.
This all wasn’t lost on Stewart on Saturday night.
In fact, it made it more special.
“If it’s easy, it’s not any fun,” said Stewart, who won two Cup championships as a driver and has proven he can win in pretty much everything he hops in, even now. “You take competitive people that want to win and be competitive — if it’s easy, it’s not worth doing. You might do it once. You might do it twice. But if it’s just that easy, and the only time you stay is if you win, then everybody would get out of here after they’ve won a championship.
“These are the moments that define legacies and dynasties. It’s not always going to go right. ... The thing that we still have at SHR — and it’s the Xfinity program, it’s the Cup program — is we’ve got a bunch of racers in there that don’t have any quit in them. They fight.
“We haven’t found stuff for the Sunday program, but we found it for the Saturday program, and I’m proud of these guys for what they did.”
The Xfinity Series’ Championship 4, in fact, was filled with NASCAR owner legends. They all descended on pit lane after the race to speak with their drivers. Dale Earnhardt Jr. showed Sam Mayer something on his phone and shared words of encouragement. He did the same with Tyler Allgaier. Joe Gibbs, owner of Joe Gibbs Racing, walked down with his grandson and Cup driver, Ty, to congratulate John Hunter Nemechek on a special season — Nemechek’s last in Xfinity before he moves on to reach his Cup dreams in 2024.
In a way, this scene reflected NASCAR’s current changing of the guard. The old generation speaking to the new one. An exchange of knowledge as old as time itself.
Generational differences have been a talking point this season. Kyle Busch kicked off the discussion before the spring race in Atlanta, where he said that “we have completely lost any sense of respect in the garage area between drivers” and that “nobody gives two (expletive) about anybody else.” That sentiment was ignited throughout the year and came to another head after Friday’s wreck-and-retaliation-riddled Truck finale.
Allgaier, 37 and among the most veteran guys in the series, spoke on that “respect” theme, lauding the Xfinity Series’ clean racing and the respect all the Championship 4 shared. Nemechek did as well. Stewart had plenty to say on that, too, saying at one point: “I’m not hiring any of those guys that were pulling those antics last night.”
Perhaps that, too, made Saturday more memorable. Prevailing, yes — but prevailing the right way.
“We were able to make moves and race our tails off and still not wreck each other,” Custer said. “It’s just hats off to everybody. And I think everybody in that Championship 4 deserves to be a champion. Justin Allgaier is just an unbelievable race car driver and deserves to be a champion. John Hunter also.”
Custer did, too, clearly.
And in a year where so much at Stewart-Haas Racing went wrong, Stewart was going to be sure to soak all that in Saturday.
”It’s been a tough couple years for the Cup program,” Stewart said. “But nights like tonight and finishing off the season on the Xfinity side with a championship and watching (crew chief) JT (Jonathan Toney) pull this off was something that the Cup shop will absolutely (use) as momentum.
“That’s a boost that these guys, that the whole shop, needs right now. Whether they’re racing on Saturday or Sunday.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2023 at 12:00 AM.
