In a new interview, NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart did not hold back when explaining why he feels that winning the Daytona 500 “doesn’t mean the same that it did 15 [to] 20 years ago.”
Following the 2024 season and the collapse of Stewart-Haas Racing, former Cup Series Champion Tony Stewart was officially out of NASCAR. However, since retiring from driving in 2017, Smoke has often been outspoken about his opinions on modern NASCAR.
Now, in a new episode of Barstool Sports’ Rubbin’ is Racing, the former driver and team owner tore into NASCAR’s most iconic race, the Daytona 500. Stewart, who now races in the NHRA Top Fuel class, claims that the Great America Race is a shadow of its former self.
Though Stewart told hosts Michael “Large” McCarthy and Daniel “Spider” DiOrio, “I’m going to get crucified by alot of people for this,” the racing icon laid out why he feels that winning a Harley J. Earl Trophy “doesn’t mean the same that it did 15 [to] 20 years ago.”
Stewart says that the equal or “Spec” cars of modern NASCAR, along with the style of racing seen at superspeedways, have created an environment in which any driver can win the 500. This has led to a world in which drivers, who may not be the current icons of the sport, have walked away as the winner of the sport’s most iconic race.
“Anybody can win,” Stewart said. “You look at some of the guys that won the Daytona 500…they’re not guys that should have won the Daytona 500. And they won the Daytona 500, and that’s all they’ve won.” In the eyes of Stewart, these new winners’ resumes do not stack up to those of his longtime rival, Jeff Gordon, and fellow Hall of Famer Richard Petty.
Though Stewart stressed this doesn’t mean that winning the race doesn’t carry any weight, as he says, “I would trade some of my race wins to get a Daytona 500.” Despite his feelings about the modern Daytona 500, Stewart says that the race’s history and legacy will always make it important.
“Even though I don’t feel like it carries as much weight as it used to. It still carries the weight because it’s still the Daytona 500. It is still the marquee event on the NASCAR schedule. It still has that rich history.”
The former co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing also criticized the luck involved in winning the race now, citing drivers who were “the guy that was second or third or fourth when the last lap crash happened and NASCAR hit the button to freeze the field.”
Though he is a winner of the Daytona 500 as an owner, winning with driver Kurt Busch in 2017, Stewart says when it comes to this luck, he doesn’t “hold as much stock in that.” To the surprise of few, Stewart compared this new form of luck to the Indianapolis 500, a race much like the 500, and he tried and failed to win multiple times.
“I still think [at] the Indianapolis 500, that there isn’t gonna be those scenarios. You might get somebody that might win it on fuel mileage. But if they did, they won it on fuel mileage, and there was a strategy that won them that race. Not, they won it because the leader and second place got wrecked on the last lap, and you were the third guy in line that benefited from it.”
Perhaps not by mistake, what Stewart cites here is what happened in the 2025 Daytona 500, when William Byron emerged from a wreck at the front of the field to win his second Daytona 500. Notably, Byron also won his first Daytona 500 in the other manner cited by Stewart, with the No. 24 narrowly leading the race at the moment of caution in 2024.
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