When we talk about Tony Stewart, it’s often only his success. He is, after all, one of the greatest drivers of the motorsports world. You name it and he’s won it. Be it NASCAR, IndyCar, Midgets, USAC, NHRA Top Fuel Dragster, the list is long.
However, amid his 618 Cup Series starts, three championships, and 49 wins, he has seen some struggles. The one that he probably dreads the most is the 2015 season. It’s really unbelievable that someone like Tony Stewart couldn’t even get a single top 5 finish that year in the Cup Series.
What Went Wrong for Tony Stewart in 2015?
This was the year when NASCAR introduced the infamous “Tampered Spacers.” And what it did was cut airflow to the engine and reduce the horsepower on the car. If you recall, the car, which before 2015 was producing higher than 850 hp, was now at only 725 hp.
And this was the change that Stewart and Co. probably could not adapt to. Now, Stewart is someone who debuted in NASCAR in 1999 and basically ran his entire Cup career in high-horsepower cars. So this was too sudden a change for him.
And struggling through the season, in an interview, Stewart had said, “Right now I’m just trying to figure out how to get my car working.” Those were words no one in NASCAR had ever thought of hearing from Stewart. He was the kind of driver to run anything with four wheels to the victory lane. But in 2015, they struggled.
Also, based on the stats, it seemed like they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Stewart finished all 36 races, winless, and he could only manage 3 top 10s, his lowest ever. And speaking of lows, even his season’s average finish, 24.78, and finishing position, 28th, were his all-time career low.
And Stewart, being both the owner and driver of the team, took all the blame for this poor performance. There was chatter about his crew chief, Chad Johnston, getting sacked post-season, but Stewart dismissed all those rumors.
He had said, “I still really like working with Chad Johnston. I don’t feel like he’s what’s holding us back. … I’m holding him and the team back versus vice versa. So it’s just a matter of me trying to figure it out, figure out how to go forward and get our cars better.”
And in the end, Stewart had had enough; the same year, he announced his retirement. The 2016 Cup Series season was deemed to be his last. And to his relief, by the end of it, he did manage to figure the car out. It wasn’t his best season, but he did get a win, five top-5s, and a final chance to fight for the championship in the playoffs.