Quaker State 400 Countdown: Stewart says Kentucky is his second home track

“It kind of feels like a home track to me, even though we’ve never raced there before. It’s close to home and I’m a southern Indiana guy, so the track is not very far from where I grew up and where I currently live”—Tony Stewart (Tuesday, June 28th)

Kentucky Speedway, as viewed from the Speedway office building, on May 11th

Tony Stewart has won two NASCAR Sprint Cup championships and two Brickyard 400s. He’s a native of Columbus, Ind., and still makes his home there. “Smoke” calls the Indianapolis Motor Speedway his home track, but could Kentucky become his second home track?

Stewart's No. 14 in the garage at Indy last summer

In ten days the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races into the foothills of Sparta, Ky., for the first time, and Stewart is excited about the second closest stop to his hometown.

“We definitely are going to have a lot of our friends and family that are coming down,” Stewart said in a teleconference Tuesday. “I know we’re going to have those fans there. We’ve got a lot of followers with our dirt tracks racing and pavement races. The market is really good for us fan base wise.

The view from pit road at Kentucky on May 11th

“I know there will be a lot of the fans in the stands that are pulling for us that we actually know.”

Stewart has never raced at Kentucky, but has tested at the 1.5-mile oval. However, it’s been a few years since he’s actually tested at Kentucky, since NASCAR has had an all-out ban on testing since 2009.

“The drivers are going to have to take a little bit of time in learning the race track,” Stewart said. “We’ve all had to do it all along the way, but that’s the first thing to do is just literally try to figure out where your reference points are for braking and accelerating for entering the corner.”

He also said it’s important to get the best line down, and it will be different now than it was years ago when he tested at Kentucky because during tests there often weren’t more than a few cars running. Now, 40-plus Sprint Cup Series cars will be turning laps along with the Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series cars throughout the weekend.

“Even though some of these guys have tested here, none of us have the practical knowledge of what the track conditions will be like during race situations and how racing at night will be different from the test sessions during the day that some of us have had there,” he said.

But not matter what the conditions dictate, “Smoke” wants to win in front of a crowd that will certainly be pulling for him.

“You always want to run well at your home tracks,” he said. “Even though Indy has always been my home track in the past, now having Kentucky Speedway there, it’s as much home to me as Indy is. We’re definitely looking forward to it.

“There’s only one first race and you can only win it once.”