He’s Just One of Us

NASCAR champion Tony Stewart is driven to keep his hometown ties strong

This story appeared in The Republic’s He Magazine in June 2005.

OBJECTIVE
To profile Tony Stewart, NASCAR driver and Columbus, Indiana, resident in a way only his hometown newspaper could do.

STORY
Tony Stewart is perhaps Columbus’ most famous resident. The 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup champion and winner of three go-karting championships, four USAC crowns and one IRL title, has his own publicist, assistants and fan club. But when he comes home to Columbus, he’s just trying to get away from it all.

“When I come home, I come home to relax and enjoy myself and everybody’s been really good at letting me do that,” Stewart said during a phone interview.

Since last November the 34-year-old bachelor has been living in his childhood home full-time. And he tries to get back there as often as his hectic schedule allows.

“Anytime that we get more than a day or two off I go straight back to Indiana now,” he said.

Stewart likes that people in town keep to themselves and don’t bombard him with autograph and photo requests. After all, celebrity is just something he puts up with to do what he loves; race cars.

“I don’t enjoy being a famous person,” Stewart said. “When you see me out in town I’m in jeans and tennis shoes and a T-shirt, just like everybody else. I don’t play the famous role like some of the other drivers do. I don’t care about being famous. I just really enjoy being me. I think if you ask my friends, they’ll tell you I’m the same guy I’ve always been.”

When he was growing up here, Stewart was just a normal kid, according to his mom, Pam Boas, who is vice president of True Speed Enterprises, the corporate headquarters of Stewart’s many business ventures and charitable activities.

“He was a happy-go-lucky, fun kid,” she said. “He loved to tease. He still loves to tease.”

Practical jokester

She said Stewart gets his kicks playing practical jokes on friends and other NASCAR drivers.

Jocelyn Zeigler, a former Tony Stewart Fan Club employee and good friend of Stewart’s sister, Natalie Repenning, recalls a Christmas party for employees where Stewart got a taste of his own medicine.

According to Zeigler, Stewart’s pilot gave him a NERF gun. Luckily, she found out about it ahead of time and managed to hide similar guns around the hotel dining room.

She said everyone knew Stewart would try to hide the gun and then start shooting when they weren’t paying attention. The group let him take the first shot, but soon, he was subjected to a barrage.

“We were in this really nice hotel private dining room, and here we are shooting these NERF guns and crawling under the tables,” Zeigler said. “It was so much fun. We got him. He was surprised.”

Boas admits that Stewart, a 1989 Columbus North High School graduate, was always a class clown.

“The teachers had a hard time not liking him, but he was distracting so they’d have to separate him and put his desk in another area,” she said.

Stewart admits that he still loves to play practical jokes to balance out the seriousness in his life with lighthearted fun.

“I kind of like playing jokes on my buddies, having a good time and that’s what keeps everything exciting around our house,” he said. “You can always bet that somebody’s gonna be on the short end of the stick at sometime or another at my place.”

However, Boas is quick to point out that Stewart was never destructive or angry growing up and he isn’t when he’s off the track.

“He’s a very laid-back person,” she said. “He’s intense on the track, but he’s very laid-back at home and away from the track.”

Softer side of Stewart

In fact, Stewart has another side few people get to see.

At the Dodge Charger 500 at Darlington Raceway, Boas served as a grand marshal along with other drivers’ moms in celebration of Mother’s Day.

On national television, announcers showed a card Stewart had made for Boas when he was 10. It said, “Even though I love racing, I love you better.”

Stewart also loves children, and Zeigler can attest to that.

She recalls the first time she met Stewart at an Elks Club Mother’s Day banquet. He had an autograph session afterward and spent a few minutes with Zeigler’s sons.

“He was really warm and friendly, and he was so good with the kids,” Zeigler said.

Her youngest son, Kyle, remembers Stewart calling him “buddy” and “pal” and tousling his hair.

Stewart’s reputation as the NASCAR driver fans love to hate has proven to be difficult to deal with, especially when it involves young fans.

“Tony loves kids and that hurts him as much as anything to see the kids booing him or putting a thumbs down when he’s done nothing to them,” Boas said. But she said he’s learned to not take things personally.

“It’s not just the race drivers,” she said. “It’s anybody that’s in the public eye. They all have to learn that. You have to be thick-skinned because people are going to form their own opinions regardless of how well they know you or if they’ve even ever met you. They will form their own opinions from other people’s opinions.”

In 2003, Stewart took his love for kids one step further and started the Tony Stewart Foundation, which supports ill children, injured race drivers and animal protection.

“Tony’s a big animal lover,” Boas said.

He has a Chihuahua named Kayle, who travels with him. Checkers, a miniature Australian Shepard, was a gift from fellow driver Kyle Petty and his wife, Pattie, after Stewart won a qualifying race at Daytona. Checkers stays at Stewart’s recently acquired property on the west side of Columbus.

He also owns Buddy, a Shih Tzu, who stays with his Columbus neighbors.

“Buddy was just a fragile traveler, and so Buddy stays with a neighbor,” Boas said.

Stewart also has a monkey that lives in North Carolina, and he even adopted a tiger at the Metrolina Wildlife Park in Rockwell, N.C.

Just like the old days

In between races, qualifying days, appearances and signings for Home Depot and other sponsors, Stewart still finds time to have a normal life.

When he’s in his hometown he visits with friends, chats with neighbors, maneuvers construction equipment and drops by the downtown Dairy Queen Brazier that was his first sponsor.

A longtime neighbor, who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons, said that sometimes Stewart is home only for an hour or two and then he’s off again. However, when she does see him, they wave and exchange pleasantries, but she doesn’t bug him.

“He puts up with so much,” she said. “I think he comes to Columbus to get away and forget who he is. I feel sorry. I wouldn’t want to be famous like that.”

Stewart’s neighbor has known him since he was in diapers. “He’s always been cute as a button,” she said.

The neighbor remembers Stewart balancing his tricycle on two wheels and riding it around and around his back yard until he wore down the grass.

It was his first racetrack, and it was Stewart’s dad, Nelson, who noticed the young boy’s talent.

“Daddy could see it when Tony was a toddler,” Boas said. “The balance thing was something Nelson said was very crucial. That was the first big clue.”

But there were other clues, too. Boas said her son was always playing with Matchbox cars instead of playing football or basketball.

The early years

When Stewart was 8, his dad and family friend Curt Meyer went to buy a go-kart.

“I think he was really the guy who talked my father into getting it,” Stewart said.

Soon after, Stewart strapped himself into a go-kart and raced at a Westport track for the first time.

“When we put him in a go-kart he just had a natural talent and did very, very well in it,” Boas said. From then on, Stewart was obsessed with racing. “He loved it,” his mom said. “He lived and breathed for racing. That’s all he wanted to do.”

Stewart got his first sponsorship dollars from Bob Franke, owner of the downtown Dairy Queen Brazier.

“They would race down at the 4-H fairgrounds, and then he would come here after the races on a Saturday night and enjoy some Dairy Queen, and I just got to know him and finally decided to sponsor him,” Franke said.

Stewart also recalls the good old days and the great perks that went along with having Dairy Queen as a sponsor.

“The coolest part to me was always that I got a free milkshake at the end of the night so to me that was like the ultimate in sponsorship, a chocolate shake,” Stewart said.

At the time, Franke had no idea Stewart would be so successful. He just enjoyed go-kart racing and liked the family.

“He was a good little racer then, and he just stuck to it, and it turned out great for him,” Franke said.

Even in high school, Stewart was at the racetrack almost every weekend. But he also found time to work at NAPA Auto Parts store, a car wash and McDonald’s, Boas said.

In his free time, Stewart hung out with friends, played video games and shot pool, the same things he does now.

“That’s why he loves to be home because that’s where his friends are,” Boas said.

A normal life

In his free time Stewart likes to hunt, fish and ride four-wheelers. He and his friends also get together to play the occasional game of poker.

“There’s times when a group of us will just sit around and do nothing,” Stewart said. “It’s nice to not have to do anything with our schedule as busy as it is. Just being able to kick back and do nothing is kind of nice sometimes.”

According to a press release, Stewart is in the process of building a 10-acre lake on his west-side farm.

“I’ve not done anything to the house. All I’ve done is worry about making a really killer fishing lake out there.

“We’ve had construction crews out there for three months now working on this lake. When they know I’m coming home, they don’t book a guy to come in. They always leave a spot open, and I’ll work whatever piece of machinery they need me to work on Monday.

“That’s a good enough release for me. That’s like a vacation for me to be able to do that.”

Stewart’s close friend and fellow NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt Jr. also owns a farm. But it’s nowhere near Columbus. It’s in Kannapolis, N.C., Earnhardt Jr.’s own hometown.

“Dale Jr. has never been to Columbus, Indiana,” Stewart said, hoping to quash a persistent rumor. “And Dale Jr. has not bought any property in Columbus, Indiana. We’re great friends and I hope one day I can get him to come up there and hang out and just relax for a couple days.”

Even though Stewart has enough money to live anywhere in the world, he’s happy to be back where he belongs.

“It’s home,” he said. “I know that sounds simple, but it’s just home. That’s where I was born. That’s where I was raised. The house I’m living in is the same house that I lived in when I was ten months old so it’s just one of those places.

“It’s a nice place to get away and forget about what I do every day for a living.”