Friday, Tony Stewart got behind the wheel of a Sprint Cup Series car for the first time in nearly 6 1/2 months as he took part in the two practice sessions ahead of Saturday Night’s Sprint Unlimited race at the Daytona International Speedway.
“It felt good,” Stewart said. “That is better than I was hoping for, honestly. I thought we would have some kind of ache, pain of some kind that would bother us. It was like putting on an old pair of shoes again.”
Stewart suffered a broken leg in two places during a crash in an Iowa race on August 5th, 2013. The 42-year-old Stewart underwent three surgeries and countless hours of rehabilitation before he could be cleared to return to the track. After making 521 consecutive starts in NASCAR’s premier series, Stewart missed 15 straight races at the end of last season.
Stewart was anxious to return, describing the first practice session as an agonizing wait before he would get his turn on the track.
“Every five minutes I was looking at the clock from 3 o’clock on going, ‘Is it 4:30 yet?’ because I wanted to get dressed at 4:30 and come in,” Stewart said. “That is a long time to be staring at the clock for an hour and a half. That is small compared to the seven months. … I didn’t want to wait anymore, to be honest.”
In the first practice session, Stewart logged 24 laps around the 2.5-mile course at Daytona. He came in with a top speed of 197.377 mph, good for 10th fastest among the 18 drivers that took part.
In the second and final Sprint Unlimited practice session, Stewart ran 26 laps, which is the most of the 15 drivers that took part, with a top speed of 197.994 mph, good for ninth fastest in the session.
“I’m glad it wasn’t any bigger deal than that,” Stewart said. “That is the good part of it. I didn’t think it would just blend in like it did. It just kind of felt like any other day at the office. Once we got off pit road and got going and actually got in the pack there, you forgot about all the other stuff and you went back to work. Just got back in the swing of things. For somebody who hadn’t been in a car it sure doesn’t feel like I haven’t been in a car. It feels like I was in it a week ago already. I was pleasantly surprised for that.”
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Main photo credit: Jeremy Toeman via photopin cc
