Tony Stewart had a frightening exit from last weekend’s NHRA Reading Nationals. The NASCAR Hall of Famer lost to Doug Kalitta in the second round on Sunday, but it didn’t end with the defeat. After clocking a 335-mile-per-hour speed, the 2023 champion’s top fuel dragster crossed the center line and collided with Stewart’s car. Stewart walked away from the wreck with assistance from the NHRA Safety Safari, but he can’t recall the incident at all.
There are rarely ever any minor incidents while racing top-fuel dragsters, and Sunday’s crash illustrates how a failure on one car can impact both dragsters attempting a pass. As the parachute deployed on Kalitta’s dragster, the left-front suspension failed. Now on three wheels, the car pulled to the left into Stewart’s dragster, knocking it over on its side. The machine was quickly righted when it impacted the wall and ground to a halt. Stewart reassured everyone that he was fine despite having “one hell of a headache,” according to Road & Track.
Stewart doesn’t remember the crash, only waking up afterward
It was probably a bit more severe than just a headache. Stewart told Fox Sports 1:
“I don’t have a damn clue, honestly. I honestly don’t remember any of it. The first thing I remember, they’re waking me up here. Not sure what happened, but it appears to have been pretty massive. Looking at Doug’s car and my car, I’m glad PBRC builds our cars, because we have safe race cars, obviously. I’m as curious as everybody else as to what happened. I just know that we’re not where we’re supposed to be at the end of a run here. So, just confused.”
Despite the crash, Stewart remains the points leader after the second round of the Countdown to The Championship, the NHRA playoffs. If you’re wondering how a retired NASCAR driver ended up in this position, he made his NHRA Top Fuel debut last year when he took over his team’s entry for his wife Leah Pruett after she became pregnant with their first child. Stewart retired from NASCAR in 2016, but returned to racing in 2020 to co-found Superstar Racing Experience, a made-for-TV short track series. He won the inaugural SRX championship. However, the series folded two years afterward. If Stewart does become the NHRA Top Fuel champion in November, it would add to an impressive trophy case highlighted by three NASCAR Cup Series titles.
