Tony Stewart has been named the Grand Marshal for the 40th Chili Bowl Midget Nationals at the Tulsa Expo Center. The three-time NASCAR champion will attend the main event on Championship Saturday, January 17.
Chili Bowl co-founder Emmett Hahn has heaped high praise on Stewart, calling him an ‘ambassador’ of the sport. He noted that Stewart was responsible for bridging the gap between NASCAR and dirt track fans.
The midget racing feature has drawn nearly 400 candidates for the main event, including the likes of Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Logan Seavey and Sammy Swindell. Notably, Swindell is a five time winner and is competing for the 36th year.
On Monday, January 5, Chili Bowl Nationals made the honour official with an X post, writing:
“🚨𝐒𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬🚨 Tony Stewart Named Grand Marshal Of The 40th Chili Bowl Nationals Powered by NOS Energy!”
Tony Stewart responded to the post and wrote,
“See you at the @cbnationals!”
Tony Stewart has won the Chili Bowl main event twice, in 2002 and 2007. He has three podiums, four top-5s and seven top-10s over 12 starts in the main event.
Stewart is currently gearing up for his third season in the NHRA. The Indiana native first competed in the sport to fill in for his wife, Leah Pruett, who stepped away for the birth of their first child.
Stewart secured his first NHRA win in the Las Vegas 4-wide Nationals and followed it up with another in Chicago. His consistent results earned him the 2025 regular-season championship in the Top Fuel category. However, Stewart ended the season with a fifth-place finish in the final standings.
Tony Stewart details devastating NHRA crash
Tony Stewart had a torrid start to the 2025 NHRA Countdown. During the Reading Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway, Stewart and Doug Kalitta collided after the latter’s left wheel collapsed. The two dragsters crashed at over 325 MPH, while Stewart’s Dodge Direct Connection Dragster flipped over into the left guardwall.
Stewart maintains that he has no recollection of the crash whatsoever. In a subsequent podcast interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr., he delved into the whole ordeal.
“I asked. Leah, i said. ‘Why do they keep asking me if I’m okay?’ And she goes. ‘Watch the replay and she goes, don’t watch the tires and don’t watch the pipes and the cylinders go out.’ She goes, ‘just focus on your head. Watch your head.’ I watch the replay in slow motion, my head, it looks like I’m trying to shove my head through the dash,” he said.
“I felt like somebody had dropped literally dropped a 15 pound bowling ball off a top of a large step ladder right on top of my head for about six straight hours,” he added, “But you know, that got better and it’s, you know, here we are.
Three days after it and I just feel like a telephone pole walking around like all the muscles are tight.”
Kalitta, on his part, called it the ‘worst wreck’ in his career, as his team entered a backup dragster in the semi-finals. Despite the collision, Tony Stewart returned to competition the following weekend at Charlotte. Kalitta went on to win the 2025 season with a 144-point margin over runner-up Shawn Langdon.
Heading into his third season, Tony Stewart has switched teams to make way for Leah Pruett’s return in TSR Nitro. He has signed up with Elite Motorsports and will now compete against his wife for the first time.
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