Tony Stewart (59:29)
Everybody's been asking that the last six months. Since I ran Vegas in the fall. I don't have any. I mean, it's, you know, going back to that test session. I left the test session. I went and ran a test in Leah's car with Don Schumacher, which was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life, by the way. After it was over, you get home, you're like, that's really stupid. Shouldn't have done that. And you're driving a car that can run 330 mile an hour. I went 318 that first test, and the car was so far ahead of where my brain was, I'm like, yeah, as long as it goes and does what it's supposed to do, it's fine. There's a number of things. You know, a cylinder goes out, and when a cylinder goes out, it pushes the car that direction. And it's like, there's so many things that could go wrong, but if you're not on top of it, you're never going to get catch it. It'd be bad. And I realized that when I left, I finally was like, this is crazy because when we started driving different cars, you just work up to it. You just run part throttle or this and that. It doesn't work that way in drag racing. It's all off the timers and everything else. So how they do that and get you used to it is you go a shorter distance, you go to the 330 cone, then you go to the 660 cones, and then you do full pulls. So that's the steps I went through in two days driving that car and got back. I'm like, man, that's the dumbest thing I've ever done. But I kept testing with them periodically, and I literally. Last year, after the Vegas spring race, the four wide race, I tested, and I never felt the tires spinning. Like, we'd get out 200ft and you're already running 150 mile an hour by then, and it starts spinning tires, but it's still pulling at 1.6 GS and you're like, all right, my brain's catching up. No, it was spinning the tires, and I had no idea that that's what was going on. So I got done with that test and I said, I'm done testing with you guys. I said, of all the racing I've done and all the dirt racing, if I can't feel the tires spinning, I don't need to be driving this race car. So her car chief worked two shops down from ours, and when he came over and joined our organization and he started our team, he goes, hey, I got. I got an idea. There's a alcohol team over here that runs, and they said they'd let you do some testing if you wanted. All right, well, that's a 275 mile an hour car. Well, we'll try that. And went and did a test session with them. Literally hit it off with Rich and Richie, its father, son, Rich mcphillips, senior and junior, and hit it off with these guys and did a couple tests. And after the second test, we were coming back after a run, and Rich told me, he goes, I'd feel comfortable taking you to a race. And I'm like, you're crazy. And he goes, no. He goes, you're doing everything right. He goes, you're smooth with everything. He goes, you're ready to go. Try this. And I laughed about it and kind of blew it off. I mean, literally got back from that and had a meeting with Don Hawk, and we were working on the TV deal, and so I didn't think anything about it. My head got distracted. And I told Lee on the plane about it, and she goes, yeah, you're doing a great job. And I just again, blew it off. About two weeks later, I got the phone call from him. He goes, hey, seats opened up for Vegas. He goes, probably won't run well out there because the blower cars have an advantage because the altitude's so high. They can change pulley combinations and get the boost back. And I said, yeah, I'd love to do it. I mean, I just want to get the experience and you know, little things like at the end of the run when you go past the line, you throw the chute, shut the fuel off, you're on the brakes, there's a guy standing there with flags and you got to know which what he's telling you of this guy is allowed to go first or you're going first or whoever's turning off. And it's like, I don't even know what the flags mean yet, Right. So I remember when he called, I said, hey, can I call you back in five minutes? He goes, yeah, well, I hung up and I picked up the phone, called Lee. I said, hey, should I do this? It's like I didn't even have the confidence to do it. And she goes, yeah, she goes, I think it'd be great. She goes, we'll all be there. Won't let you get in trouble. So that's how the Vegas race in the fall happened and got that first race under her belt.
