Though this week's Daytona 500 drivers may be rich and successful now, none of them reached NASCAR's Super Bowl without some bumps along the way. We asked several drivers to share the story of a difficult moment with us. Up next: Tony Stewart.
Tony Stewart’s Road To The 2011 Daytona 500
Growing up in Indiana, Tony Stewart would do anything to race. But in order to do so, he had to find people who were willing to give him the time off to be at the track.
Most of the people who fit that description were racers themselves – and they had random jobs for Stewart, such as working at Woody’s Tow Truck company.
As Stewart tells it:
I drove a tow truck for a buddy of mine one summer – he was racing Sprint cars, and I was just getting into that business. I slept on a fold-out couch, and there were no days off – I was literally on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The only time we were allowed off was to go race.
(Another time), I sealed parking lots in the middle of the night for a guy who raced Midgets in Indianapolis – that was probably the least glamorous job I had. You worked all through the night.
There was never anything that was given to us. We’ve definitely had to pay our dues like everybody else. We had to work the odd, quirky jobs – the weird jobs – jobs that were probably below what we were capable of doing at the time, but they were jobs that would allow us the opportunity to take the time off to go race.
The great thing about people in racing, whether you’re on the...ownership side or the driving side, is racers are very resourceful people and they’ll do things most people won’t do – just to be able to race on the weekends.
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