Tony Stewart breaks right leg in sprint car race

Sitting before a backdrop with the words “Smoke Will Rise,” Tony Stewart met with the media Tuesday for the first time since breaking his right leg in a sprint car crash Aug. 5.

During the 82-minute press conference at Stewart-Haas Racing, Stewart was forthright about the accident that ended his season and the painstaking recovery from what he calls “the worst of his career.”

A broken right leg will keep Tony Stewart out for the remainder of the 2013 season, Stewart-Haas Racing announced Monday.

Replacing Stewart in the No. 14 car will be Mark Martin, who will start 12 of the final 13 races. Austin Dillon, who filled in this past weekend at Michigan International Speedway and finished 14th, will compete at Talladega. Martin’s first race will be Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

NASCAR heads to its second road course of the season at Watkins Glen, and while former European drivers with a bit more experience making right turns are obviously the guys to watch, the injury to Tony Stewart opens up the field a bit for more traditional NASCAR drivers to make a run at the win.

Stewart, who broke his leg Monday night in a sprint car race -- leaving many to wonder what he was doing racing in the first place -- has taken the checkered flag five times at the Cheez-It 355, more than any racer in the history of the event, most recently in 2009. He also had a pair of wins at the Toyota/SaveMart 350, NASCAR’s other road course event.

“First and foremost everybody is worried about Smoke and how soon is he going to be back,” Zipadelli said Wednesday. “He’s a crucial part of Stewart-Haas Racing. He’s the man. Everybody, I think, right now has pulled together and doing whatever it takes to get this car to Watkins Glen and have the best day that we can there.”

As Tony Stewart recovers from a broken right leg, Max Papis will drive the No. 14 car in this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen.

Stewart broke his tibia and fibula in a sprint car crash Monday night at Southern Iowa Speedway. After an initial surgery to stabilize and clean the Grade 2 injury, Stewart remains hospitalized. A second surgery has been deemed necessary, Stewart-Haas Racing said in a statement.

The video of the wreck that has sidelined Tony Stewart with broken right leg has surfaced.

At the time of the incident Stewart was leading with five laps remaining in the 30-lap sprint car feature at Southern Iowa Speedway. But as he raced through Turn 4, Stewart made contact with the lapped vehicle of Josh Higday causing his car to flip multiple times before landing upright:

As news spread of Tony Stewart breaking his right leg in a sprint car accident Monday night, assorted NASCAR drivers and crew chiefs expressed their support via Twitter.

• Tony Stewart has too much to lose by racing sprint cars

NASCAR driver Tony Stewart sustained a broken right tibia and fibula in a sprint car accident Monday night at Southern Iowa Speedway.

Stewart was competing in a dirt sprint car race at the half-mile track when he was involved in a multi-car incident in Turn 4 that resulted in him flipping multiple times, according to The Des Moines Register. Track officials told the newspaper that Stewart was conscious and talking after being placed on a stretcher.