Stewart-Haas Racing considering Ty Dillon to replace injured Tony Stewart

There is no timetable on when Tony Stewart may return from a broken back sustained in an all-terrain vehicle accident last month. All that’s known is the three-time champion will miss sizable portions of what is his final NASCAR season before retirement and that Brian Vickers will drive Stewart’s No. 14 car in Sunday’s Daytona 500.

Beyond the season-opening race Stewart-Haas Racing has not named a substitute, with the team declining to say whether Vickers would be behind the wheel of the No. 14 at Atlanta, the subsequent event following Daytona. SHR president Brett Frood described the driver lineup as “fluid” during a press conference last week.

One candidate to fill Stewart’s spot in the Feb. 28 Atlanta race is Ty Dillon, a full-time Xfinity Series participant sponsored by Bass Pro Shops, which serves as Stewart’s sponsor in select Cup races. That mutual connection is the likely impetus behind Dillon getting an opportunity, with the 23-year-old acknowledging he’s had discussions to temporally replace Stewart.

“That’s a legendary seat, that’s Tony Stewart’s ride -- a guy I looked up to as a kid and watched him,” Dillon said Tuesday at Daytona 500 Media Day. “For Stewart-Haas Racing to have interest in me to begin with is an honor. If we get everything done and I’m in the car at Atlanta, it would be great. I’m not going to jump the gun and say it’s a done deal.

“All I can say and really cool to even be in the consideration to be in that seat for Tony.”

Stewart suffered a burst fracture of his L1 vertebra in a Jan. 31 all-terrain vehicle accident in the Southern California desert near the Arizona border. He underwent surgery three days later in a Charlotte, N.C., hospital and is out indefinitely. This marks the third time in four years he will miss multiple cup races, having missed 15 events in 2013 and three in 2014.

When Stewart announced that 2016 would be his final full-time NASCAR season last September, he also named Clint Bowyer his successor. To fill the one-year stopgap, Bowyer -- whose previous team, Michael Waltrip Racing, folded at the end of 2015 -- signed with HScott Motorsports.

Upon the news Stewart would miss a considerable amount of time, Bowyer became a seemingly logical option. But on Tuesday, Bowyer dismissed him moving to SHR prematurely was ever a realistic scenario due to the short time frame. Stewart was injured Jan. 31, just three weeks before Daytona, and sponsorship considerations on both sides were too complex to resolve.

“How would you ever make that happen [just] before the season, before you’re going to be racing at Daytona?” Bowyer said. “Furthermore, I wanted Tony to come back. I’m glad that he chose to come back and however many races that is, we need him here. I want him to come back and get back to his running up front and winning ways.”