Tony Stewart hasn’t competed in NASCAR since 2018, and he hasn’t raced in the NASCAR Truck Series in almost twenty years, so there was a lot of hype around him on Friday night as he returned to drive a Ram Truck.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much of Smoke, as he ran towards the back of the pack through the first two stages while the Kaulig Racing team worked on the handling of his truck.
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Near the end of Stage 2, Stewart was still running at the back of the lead pack, and was three-wide on the outside. Unfortunately, Jake Garcia got loose and snapped up the track, colliding with Stewart and putting both drivers into the outside wall.
“Man, I can’t even drive it,” radioed Stewart, who went on to say that he nearly spun out while running under caution.
“If you can’t drive it, we’ll take it to the garage,” the team replied.
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The No. 25 Ram 1500 was too damaged and since they weren’t racing for points, the decision was made to retire the truck from the race, ending Stewart’s NASCAR return before the race even reached the halfway point.
The NASCAR Hall of Famer was then checked and released from the infield care center, saying ‘never say never’ about possibly doing another Truck race in the future.
“We just didn’t know what we were going to have, balance-wise,” he told Fox Sports 1. “It felt a little free at the beginning … First change didn’t really move the needle, so they tried trackbar and air, and it actually started responding. So we probably needed to make that change again, but it was at least in a spot where I felt comfortable three-wide and felt like I could hustle a little more.
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“We still needed at least one more adjustment like that. It was starting to get fun, where we can at least get up there and mix it up a little bit, and get in the middle of that stuff. Not sure what happened underneath us, coming across our nose, but that’s just part of it.”
Another fan favorite, YouTuber Cleetus McFarland, wrecked just six laps into the race. He was making his NASCAR Truck Series debut. Stewart will finish 36th, and McFarland will be 37th in the final order.
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Cleetus McFarland wrecks out, six laps into NASCAR Truck debut at Daytona
Tony Stewart returns to NASCAR in rare media form
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