Tony Stewart Will Retreat to His Happy Place

By ESPN

Tony Stewart will take off his Sprint Cup firesuit one last time Sunday and retreat to his happy place.

He will trek across the country, tending to what he considers his bar, although this "bar" doesn't look like the normal retiree hangout.

Stewart owns it. He works there daily. He owns the "distillery" that makes the spirits that helps everyone feel better or forget about life.

"The [retired] people go to the bar at night because that's where their friends are," the 45-year-old Stewart said about routines of some after their working days end. "They've got to pay for their meals and drinks every night.

"Now I bought the bar. I eat for free. I drink for free. And I get to see all my buddies and do something productive."

The bar comes in many forms. The three racetracks that he either owns outright or with partners. The sprint car teams he operates. The stock car teams he co-owns. The sprint car racing series he recently acquired. The remote control race car assembly company he oversees.

If Stewart owned and hung out at an actual bar with actual liquor, he could have a safer, cheaper, less stressful retirement from NASCAR racing.

But Stewart knows no other way to live his life. He will do more living after Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, his last race as a Sprint Cup driver but certainly not his last race behind the wheel of a race car and not his last time in the Cup garage as he remains a co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing. His friends will hang with him as long as he allows them. Just ask Danny "The Dude" Lasoski.

"Every race car and every racetrack, that's his bar," Lasoski said. "That's his disco. That's his nightclub. That's his boat.

"That's his everything."

Stewart, "Smoke" as his friends and fans call him, has an addiction. He can't get away. He will view it as his blessing. And some will see it as his curse. The addiction has shaped his legacy in motorsports of a driver who cares so much that it allows him to do great things on and off the track while also creating hurdles and sideshows and tragedy.

"He's got the same freaking disease that some of us other ones have and he's just ate up with it," said 61-year-old racer Ken Schrader -- a business partner with Stewart at a couple of tracks -- who will race any day of the week. "Unfortunately the only way out is you have to die out. I'm lucky because I'm older than him.

"He's screwed a little bit. He's going to keep going."

How does one contract such a disease? Why does Stewart have it? And why doesn't he take anything for it?

Ask Stewart that question, and he doesn't have an easy explanation. He thinks about the time as a kid going to races, and then maybe he has found the reason.

"It's just like going to an amusement park," Stewart said. "What do people like? They like the bright colors. They like the rides. It's all of it. It's the whole experience. Most of all, it's the people. That's the part I like the most."