Tony Stewart ready to move forward

After two years marred by two sprint-car crashes—including the August crash that caused the death of 20-year-old driver Kevin Ward, Tony Stewart wants to move on.

Tony Stewart won a NASCAR Sprint Cup championship as an owner in 2014, but despite that the 43-year-old three-time Cup champion driver couldn’t wait for the year to be over.

“When they counted down 2014, I was never so happy to see that number off the calendar,” Stewart told The Sporting News. “I’m ready to put the last two years behind me and never look back. I’m not looking in the mirror, I’m not talking about it, I’m not thinking about it.

“I’m going back to being me again.”

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Stewart sustained a severely broken leg in a 2013 sprint car crash, an injury that caused him to sit out the final 15 races of the Cup season.

That was followed by the mishap in Canandaigua, N.Y., in August, when he ran down driver Kevin Ward, who was out of his car attempting to confront Stewart after the pair’s cars had collided.

Stewart, who was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in Ward’s death, missed three races in the aftermath of the accident and was never the same for the rest of the season as he dealt with the emotional toll of the incident.

He took the offseason away from racing, eschewing the sprint-car and short-track races he traditionally runs after the NASCAR calendar is done for the year.

“From the personal side, that’s the best thing I could have done during the offseason,” Stewart said, adding that he has no plans to return to sprint-car racing.

“I think it’s going to be a long, long time before you see me back in one.”

Stewart is coming off the first winless season of his 16 years in NASCAR and he missed the Chase each of the last two years.

But he’s ready to get back to contending.

“This is probably the most prepared I have been in a while for a season,” Stewart said. “I’m about as ready as I think I can be.”

Stewart’s last win came at Dover in June 2013 when he won the FedEx 400.

His last Cup title came in 2011, when he became the first driver/owner to win the championship in almost 20 years, since Alan Kulwicki won in 1992.

It was a dramatic win for Stewart, who won the season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway to pull into a tie with Carl Edwards for the points lead.

Stewart was awarded the championship on a tiebreaker, with five race wins to just one for Edwards.

He is also the only driver in history with titles in both NASCAR and IndyCar. Stewart won the Indy Racing League crown in 1997 before making the jump to NASCAR full-time in 1999.

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