Tony Stewart Home Tour with Doug Boles

[Applause] speedway fans doug bowles here with you you know for a long time i've heard this thing about tony stewart's basement columbus indiana where he grew up never had an opportunity to come here you know how busy tony stewart is you know how busy we are in the indianapolis motor speedway season we finally found a few moments where i could drive down tony was in town to get a tour of that famous basement but more importantly talk a little bit to tony about racing his love for racing and his love for giving back and the things that he's doing right now no longer driving except on weekends in those sprint cars when he gets in them or whatever somebody else convinces him to get in srx champion all those things but he's a promoter he's a track owner it's unbelievable how busy this guy is tony thanks for letting us spend a few minutes down here well i'm glad you finally got here we've only been talking about you coming out and hanging out so you brought your crew with you this time so we won't do all the fun things that we do here on a on a weekly basis but uh glad you're finally down here hidden hollow i know you've been pretty busy you have people here almost every week coming in sponsors charity folks but this is an amazing i've heard an awful lot about it but it's pretty impressive uh right now it's pretty neat because it's so quiet but let's just start wondering but you start out with the pinballs so growing up in columbus indiana was our favorite haunted years where you got to go in and play pinballs or how did you get these machines here now anybody that truly knows me will tell you i'm 14 at heart so i told leah when we got married that she was marrying a 14 year old which she figured out really quick was really accurate but i love video games i love pinball machines pinball games i have a practical philosophy in my head about them i mean it's everything that we do in motorsports is all based on hand-eye coordination so pinball machines and the action of the ball and how fast everything moves anything that you can do that keeps your brain engaged quickly and and where you're having to make quick decisions i think is great for race car drivers so for me being someone that likes video games and arcades and pinball machines this is this is like a playground for me pool table obviously every basement has to have a pool table yours is pretty pretty cool it kind of fits the motif here specially built i assume yeah we found a company out in colorado that built these and fits the log home theme of the house obviously but it's uh something i'm really passionate about i have some really good friends that are pro billiard players with jeanette lee shannon dalton in south carolina are good friends and you know obviously when they've been here they annihilate me on a pool table but it's i like playing people that are better than me because that's how you get better but we enjoy that it's it's fun to come down here with this group of guys and my buddies like to play so we we we get very very competitive when we get on this table together for sure so you started the drag team did you decide to do that before or after you got a chance to take some runs on your own actually it was that weekend on monday after that weekend is when i ran my fastest three runs in the car so i ran three passes the quickest pass was a 3.76 second lap at a 322 mile an hour so it is it is absolutely insane and it is crazy and it's funny because the drag race guys think we're crazy driving dirt cars sideways and we think they're crazy starting from a standing start and a thousand feet they're running over 330 mile an hour just i don't know how you would replicate the feeling of the g-forces taken off there and trying to keep your vision focused i assume everything's moving around and shaking and yeah it's that's where back to the pinball and back to where playing pool and video games and all the things that we do that i'm into that's where having that hand-eye coordination is so important to go from a standing start and as fast as the direct cars accelerate to be able to have your mind process the information to where you're seeing it when i ran the indy car at indianapolis and and stock car races at daytona and you know sprint cars at eldora your brain will slow everything down so as fast as it's running as fast as you're going your brain will find a way to slow it down and it's that way in drag racing too but it takes time for your brain to slow it down enough right to to make you really comfortable so it's uh it's part of the process it's interesting to me because i can't think of any any other indie nascar driver than john andretti and you that have really done both more than just sort of a ceremonial or you know sort of a promotional pass so for you to go do 10 runs and say well i have to do i need to do an official nhra run because i want to beat john's best speed so john and it was years ago and i don't remember how many years ago but they were just getting to that 300 mile an hour bracket right and uh john's fastest run was 299 miles an hour so i beat that but not officially beat it i have the time slips for which make it legit but uh in nhra competition john did that so yeah it'd be very cool to see you do that we'd all be excited to see that we'll continue around here but signature wall yeah those are the visited wall yeah so uh and not everybody that's been to the the ranch here has had an opportunity to sign it but we've we've done charity hunts here with kids with the catch a dream organization uh different race car drivers we've got jeanette lee the black widow professional pool player parker bowen iii a pba pro bowler jimmy houston pro angler that you see on tv we used to see him every sunday morning linda vaughn of course jimmy john from jimmy john's johnny morris we even have a guy that's pretty special to the speedway man that hasn't forgot anything over the entire course of his life donald davidson and he goes we'll never forget this well you don't forget he never forgets anything right but uh some really neat people that have been here to the property uh you know like i said it's a lot of the kids from charity hunts and their families have signed at their siblings uh to you know people that own major corporations that have been here for sure well we've been hearing some noise in the background i think it's back through lots of noise into those through the saloon doors yeah this this was actually supposed to be uh a poker room and then we got stuff built it actually didn't fit we couldn't get we couldn't get everybody couldn't get the table in and have room for everybody to get by it so we ended up having to change things but it's all the old classic games we're hearing track and field and cuber making noise frogger and asteroids those are those are my era yeah asteroids frogger moon patrol tetris like i say a lot of these games are hand i all all video games are hand-eye coordination but a lot of these games like tetris is a good one for hand-eye coordination because you can't just stop if pieces are moving and they're going to keep moving so you have to make decisions and it's that's what i like i think that's what makes us better in a race car a lot of times are when you have scenarios and video games guitar hero another one i mean the notes are coming right you can't just slow it down you can't hit pause you have to hit everything on time so i'm a big fan of video games especially for race car drivers because it's all about hand-eye coordination that's pretty amazing now you got simulator games for for drivers but this is the old school way yeah this was before we had driving simulators so now let's i kind of walk through the poker area but to me what's i'm really excited about learning about is sort of this wall here on the other side of the basement that i'm sure started out where you thought you had plenty of room for those helmets and as our fans will notice in a minute you've sort of run out of space but then you got a race car we can talk about too that pretty special 1997 car but uh how many helmets do you have i have over 350 racing helmets that's amazing so it covers everything and they're not not even all of them are racing helmets we have nhl goalie helmet super supercross riders football players to racing so most of them are racing helmets obviously but uh this this wall where all the helmets are back here didn't even originally wasn't even designed to be for helmets uh we we actually designed it to be a trophy case and then once we realized we had had more helmets than trophies that we decided to switch it up and and make it a trophy case so uh for for the helmets which i i'm i'm proud of my collection here it's uh we cover everything from formula one indy car nascar a lot of dirt track racing uh road racing even drag racers this this helmet is a pretty special one to me this is one that when carl edwards and i raced for the championship in 2011 at homestead this was the helmet in 16 that that he traded he went back found that helmet that he wore at homestead in the championship race and that's the helmet that he brought to trade with me so carl's a class act and even he knows this helmet means the world to me to have this in my collection so it's it's at eye level i always want to make sure i can see that i have my very first xfinity helmets that i drove harry reinier's car so i have those helmets down there and then we start getting into this whole row our championship drivers in the cup series and finally got it to where they start bleeding over to the other side over here but i have all three of my cup championship helmets there two from two helmets from my buddy dale jr three from mark martin three ryan newman helmets kyle petty two michael waltrips two daryl waltrips phil elliott it's amazing and we have two richard petty two dale senior i have two of jimmy johnson's which if i had to probably pick one helmet this is probably the one that if i absolutely had to pick one this would be my favorite it's jimmy johnson's seventh championship winning helmet oh wow and that was uh in 2016 the day of my last race in nascar he wins the championship got done with my interviews went to the stage congratulated him gave him a hug he goes hold on a second and told one of these people that was in front of the stage they went to the car got that out of the car brought it back wet sweaty everything handed it to me so that's amazing i told him i said this is on loan when you want this back this is yours and he goes no it's yours so uh i i i hope we get to keep it but if there's but i made sure and let him know listen this is special and it's special to me but at the same time uh down the road if he ever wants that helmet back that is definitely his helmet and we'll go back to him so the basement's full of really cool stuff and obviously i'm sure you've got all kinds of other things but is this your favorite thing to really collect our helmets it is i never collected anything before this and my first helmet was i traded with elliot sadler in 2000 and we were both rookies in 99 together and just one day went up to him said hey you want to trade a helmet with me since we had a rookie year together and that is literally how it started and it has grown to collections that come up for sale and the neat thing is you meet people that are as passionate about helmets as i am and you might have two of a driver's helmet and they have one of what you want so you find a way to trade helmets with other people but the ones that come and that have come from drivers i'll never never trade those out because that's i feel like that's a special bond that drivers have with each other and you know to trade with each other i feel like it's something that's special that you just don't let it get away yeah absolutely you know we've got our brickyard trophy there and then the big big yellow blob on the wall so did you was this what you built did you know this was going to go in here before you built the basement and you built the basement around it or how did this come about on this wall this is what we planned was to have this car mounted on the wall we this is the car that i won not the car that i won the championship in but this is the car i ran in 98 at the indy 500 so obviously it has the one on it because we were the series champion from 97 and unfortunately we had the lead at lap 22 and then the motor blew in this car and stopped at the top of turn one and then again the first i i had the greatest level of frustration yeah because i didn't know that i was going to get an opportunity i thought that was my last opportunity to win an indy 500 so you know again it was a year that i felt like we had good speed and had a car that was capable of winning wasn't near as dominant as the 96 car but this car was definitely had the speed to to win the indy 500 that year so you ran five indy 500s you're really the first person to do the double right and by that i mean you actually finished both races which you know people talk about those 1100 miles but you were the first one really to do the 1100 miles and complete them five times i know i remember roger penske from the podium one time at the nascar bank with santoni you come run a car obviously that's probably not something you're going to do in the future but um winning the brickyard 400 for the first time in the second time is the 15th anniversary of that second win did that help put a little bit of that 500 desire behind you when you got to climb the fence at the speedway it did it didn't it didn't 100 replace it but at the same time that was as close as i was going to get to winning an indy 500 so to win at the brickyard 400 was super special not only once but twice but the first time it was a really really hot day i was nauseous after the race i was so excited and celebrated so hard in the car and then celebrated so hard getting out that all of a sudden i got really queasy i thought i was going to get sick out there but i'm dying right now too tired to chase fences right now but give me five minutes i'll be ready [Applause] uh to see my family and friends that come to the race each year and to finally be able to celebrate a win at indy was that's that's your childhood dream is to win in indianapolis a couple of years later you do it again and and not a lot of people get to win there once but let alone twice it's kind of cool that you're a multi-time winner at the indianapolis motor speedway and the second time was definitely uh we got to enjoy it more while we were still at the track the first year there was so much pageantry around it and media around it that uh the day was basically over and it was like what happened i mean i don't even remember what happened after the race second time we definitely got to savor the moment and enjoy it you know look at all these short track helmets makes me think about 2016 and your retirement and us trying to figure out what to do and we thought let's just build that fake dirt track inside turn three and that was really a promotional stunt it was a way to just have some fun together you were gonna come you actually ended up getting in the car which was a lot of fun for everybody but more importantly i think what that was that was the roots to what is now the bc39 and we got to share a special moment that day with brian obviously not knowing how that was all going to end but you have always loved the indianapolis motor speedway maybe second only to your love for short track around the country so when we had an opportunity to marry those two together how important do you think it is for us to have that race track and especially the bc39 at the indianapolis motor speedway to the dirt track community it's huge and and i think probably one of the most special moments i saw was seeing roger there last year and seeing how excited roger was because roger's a purist as well and to know the history of the the oval but to see and to see how important it was to the racing community to have a track where there's so many more people that will never have the opportunity to compete on the road course or the oval to have that opportunity to come race at the indianapolis motor speedway on the dirt track it's it's perfect i mean you have the best of three worlds now you have the most iconic historic oval in the world a very awesome road course and a very very cool dirt track all in the same facility there isn't anywhere in the country like that this first row is all indy 500 winners so some pretty cool ones in there obviously that you mentioned i mean aj's here of course and aj is disputing this a little bit but i i'm fairly certain we're accurate on this this is aj's 64 winning helmet that i got from from the jones family that bud jones used to be a photographer at indianapolis motor speedway for years and he was uh friends with aj and aj used to stay with with bud and suzy but a cool helmet obviously the al unser helmet i got here i had two missed calls from an albuquerque number i'm like oh telemarketers are really busy i didn't answer two calls from allens or senior which i regret to this day but the third call that came through uh was on saturday and i answered it and now al and i talked for 45 minutes and he knew i had a helmet collection so al actually sent me this helmet this was one that he sent but just really cool guys i mean i i think the world of ari lion dyke you know i got to race with him my time in in irl and he was the toughest guy by far that i raced with there uh didn't matter what track we went to he was he was the guy that i was worried about every week to have to beat but uh such cool iconic people that have won the indianapolis 500 and i have some formula one drivers some guy named hamilton a lot and another guy that used to win a lot too michael schumacher and got a chance to spend some time with magnuson who drove for gene haas we we got an opportunity to take him to north carolina and put him in a wing sprint car on dirt which was a lot of fun and there's nobody in the formula one world that would ever let their drivers go do something like that but gene haas was awesome about and thought it was really cool never ends yeah even leah's helmet that i don't even have one of my wife's helmets in the collection she has every helmet she ever raced and will not give one up and at this point she's softened up a little bit and she's like i'll give you one i'm like no if you have all of them keep all of them that you've ever had so but that's the that's the helmet she had on when she crashed two years ago in st louis and the car folded in half so we had to take that to some doctors so they could see where right where she had contact with the helmet but uh gotta keep her healthy we kind of we kind of like her a little bit well i appreciate the time i think we'll wander back through the the casino um now that you're making such big money at the track yeah being the boss and everything not exactly working that way but that's okay um no this is we we have fun i i love i love going to las vegas and we uh we just we just play with fake chips down here it's uh well i always like the action couple years new year's dick jordan used to always have his event that he loved the fact that you came and and i'm sure dick's excited that you're carrying on sort of a tradition that you'd help dick start in terms of just getting buddies together and having a good time and and really just enjoying and bench racing yeah we do we we utilize the poker table and have a group that'll come down and play and we'll always have either races or you know ball games on tv to watch while we're playing but uh you know inevitably at some point they they end up gravitating toward the roulette wheel or the blackjack table over there and we have some fun so it's uh it's something i like i mean i love going to las vegas it's uh i like the action and to be able to have tables here at home where we can not necessarily practice it's everybody thinks they're going to come up with a with a system that's going to work and you're always going to get paid on there is no such system but it's uh it's fun to try different things and you know have fun down here that's great so i think we'll we'll end it over here i know you've got a golf room so when folks are here they get a chance to do some inside golf but you also have a bowling alley here a couple yeah i've got a couple pba pro bowlers shawn rash and ej tackett that we uh helped sponsor a little bit but uh we've had a lot of events here go bowling's had events here at the house where they brought contest winners die hard batteries we had contest winners that were here and we bowled for a while and we had had them in on the golf sim played pool did we did everything down here it was like a bunch of kids in a playground it got turned loose but we've had a lot of fun down here sean comes down here and throws one ball and if he doesn't throw a strike on the first ball it's the next 12 balls or strikes and i'm just trying to get one strike in a game so he's way better than i am but it's it's fun to have friends that uh like we said you know shannon dalton and jeanette lee on the billiard side it's neat to have friends that we're at we were at the top of our games and in our different respective fields and you know when they come down you get a great appreciation for why they're so good at what they do right well i appreciate you taking the time to show us the basement like i said i've heard about it haven't had an opportunity to get here but more importantly thanks for continuing to be such an ambassador for our sport you retired from driving at the cup level but you're still active as a driver in a lot of different series uh owning the srx owning the racetrack owning all the all-star series i mean all the things that you do there's not a better ambassador across the board for racing for central indiana for the indianapolis motor speedway than you tony really really appreciate your passion you want to close this out and throw a couple balls here if you if you beat me at this i might i'm probably going to do a gutter ball on this one so well don't do it on purpose so these are the weights i assume yeah these are the weights these are these are balls that are drilled for me so uh that they may or may not fit you but but there's plenty of balls here to choose from so i'll go first so that way for the big ball he goes for the big heavy well let's go for it i can't remember last time i went bowling but uh this lane work okay yeah there we go gutterball coming up okay it's nate obviously he's not working in the office as much as helen roger here working in the office if he's doing that right out of the gate that's so wrong all right let's see what my first ball produces here all right we're going to end it on that note again tony thank you for the time i appreciate it glad you came back like the rest of the season we'll see at the racetrack thank you thanks fans see you soon [Music] you

Channel: Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Views: 763,944

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Id: 3gMGuhHPT1w

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022