Tony Stewart’s chances of a win in his first NASCAR race back from retirement ended before the race was even halfway over.
Stewart’s truck was shoved into the wall when Jake Garcia’s truck got loose off Turn 4 in the second stage of the 100-lap Craftsman Truck Series race at Daytona. As Stewart was to his outside, Garcia overcorrected and collided with Stewart as he hit the wall.
The damage to Stewart’s truck was significant enough that it ended any chance he had at winning the race. After his Kaulig Racing team made repairs, it eventually decided to take the truck to the garage.
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The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer was making his first start in a NASCAR race since he retired after the 2016 season. Stewart won 49 races over 618 career Cup Series starts and was one of the best drivers of the 2000s before he stepped away. Stewart won the 2002, 2005 and 2011 Cup Series titles and his final title is widely credited with helping create NASCAR’s recently-ditched winner-take-all championship race.
That season, Stewart and Carl Edwards waged one of the greatest playoff battles in NASCAR history. Stewart, who won five races in the 10-race playoffs after going winless in the regular season, won the final race of the year at Homestead-Miami Speedway to tie Edwards and win the championship via tiebreaker since he had more wins.
Stewart was back in NASCAR on Friday night thanks to Ram’s re-entry into the Truck Series. The manufacturer returned to the NASCAR Truck Series in 2025 and Stewart, whose NHRA team fields Dodges, was chosen to run the team’s No. 25 truck that will have a rotating cast of drivers throughout the 2026 season.
The race was Stewart’s first Truck Series start in over 20 years. He had last made a Truck start in 2005 and had won twice in six starts across NASCAR’s third-tier series.
