Tony Stewart isn’t one to let “analysis paralysis” beset him. Despite choosing the analogies of jumping into the deep end of the pool and pulling the pin on a grenade, he is immersing himself in drag racing, this time as a competitor. 
 
“At some point you just got to jump in the water and then you got to figure out how to swim. So this is that moment,” he said Tuesday as he anticipated his driving debut at this weekend’s NHRA Nevada Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
 
Already a two-car nitro-class NHRA team owner, Stewart will race the McPhiilips family’s entry in the Top Alcohol Dragster class in the sportsman-level Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. He’ll start with qualifying sessions Friday at 11:15 a.m. and 5:45 p.m.
 
Along with his 20 competitors, he’ll have a final qualifying session at 10:30 Saturday morning. Assuming he makes the cut for the 16-car field, Stewart will experience side-by-side eliminations for the first time with the opening round that’s set for 2:30 p.m. Saturday. Round 2 for the class will follow Saturday evening at 5:45 p.m. The Top Alcohol Dragster semifinals and finals are scheduled to go at 1 and 3:50 p.m. Sunday.
 
Following his second and last pass at Maple Grove Raceway at Reading, Pa., last month, Rich McPhillips Sr. (aka “Pops”) told him in the tow vehicle on the way back to the pits. “I think you're ready to run a race finally.”
 
Stewart said, “It kind of caught me off guard, and I said, ‘Are you serious? Do you really think that?’” And McPhillips said, “Yeah. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't.” And after all, McPhillips has guided Troy Coughlin Jr. to back-to-back regional championships, propelled Bill Litton to a victory at Texas Motorplex that spurred him onto a 2018 Top Fuel season that netted him NHRA Rookie of the Year honors, taken Mike Coughlin to the winners circle, and developed the driving talents of Jasmine Salinas.
 
Moreover, Stewart’s wife, Top Fuel dragster driver Leah Pruett, agreed. “And,” Stewart said, “their confidence gave me the confidence to pull the pin and say, ‘Let's do this.’”
 
He has acknowledged that he’ll have many challenges as he embarks on yet another adventure in his racing career. But the three-time NASCAR champion, IndyCar champion, USAC Triple Crown champion, and owner of Eldora Speedway and the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX Series) might be wrestling first with the idea of not expecting immediate success.
 
“As far as the expectations for the weekend, I'm looking at it very, very simple right now,” Stewart said. “I get three qualifying rounds. I get at least the first round of eliminations. And, you know, if that's all the further I make it, I'll get four runs running with somebody and I'll get the full experience of what an NHRA competition is like from the driver’s standpoint. So, you know, I guess I'm setting the bar low.
 
“And I think every day that that we've got closer to it I'm like, ‘Well, maybe if I can get through Saturday and get to Sunday,’ . . . so I keep having to reel myself in. It's the competitor in me that comes out. I'll do the best I can, obviously, but I'm not going to be disappointed if for some reason I go out in the first round. You know, this weekend is about gaining experience. And having my teammates around to help out and ask questions to, I think, will be very comforting and it'll be an advantage for me to, you know, help close the gap with the veterans,” he said. “You have to set realistic expectations.”
 
His experience this weekend will help determine how compelling a driving stint in drag racing will be and how long he might want to pursue it.
 
“I think if we advance to the second round or third round, I think every time that we make it, if we make it, it's a bonus. I mean, I think just having the opportunity, like I mentioned to have three, three qualifying rounds and one elimination round with somebody in another lane is just another step forward and learning of whether I really want to do this down the road or not. I'm competitive. And when I get up there each round and each session, I want to do the best job that I can do, and I won't I don't do it half-ass. I mean, I'm going to give it 100 percent. We’ll learn really quickly what I need to work on if I need to, you know, if there's big things that I need to change, this is how we're going to learn what those things are.”
 
One of his major discoveries is what it feels like making a pass with a driver in the opposite lane.
 
“It's a big thing to think about, because I haven't done it yet,” Stewart said. “So this weekend, Friday morning, will be the first time I've run beside somebody.”
 
He said that at Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School at Gainesville, Fla., Pruett “spent time actually staging with me, with her feet, and getting the lights to come on. So, you know, a couple of sessions we've done that now, at least the staging procedure and seeing somebody else come in and bump in.” He said she tried to prepare him for some of the starting-line tricks that an opponent might use to distract him.
 
“She was trying to do some tricky stuff to try to throw me off – which is what can happen in drag racing, what some of these guys will do at times. But the staging part I'm comfortable with, with the lights and how somebody else can stage. But going down the track with somebody the first time, that's going to be an experience that I'm excited about,” Stewart said.
 
On the same track at Las Vegas is where Stewart, with dad Nelson watching on, made his first runs in a Top Fuel dragster. And that’s when he discovered the mind-teasing speeds that can rattle a new driver from the launch, last just a few seconds, and jerk to an end with a negative-five Gs so quickly that it seems it never really happened at all, except in the imagination.
 
“The thing with the Top Fuel car when I started getting some test laps in that car, the hardest part for me was literally getting my brain to learn to process the information as fast as it is happening,” Stewart said. “And it's hard to explain that to people, that literally you step on the gas and the Top Fuel car and you get to the 330 cone and your brain is 100 feet behind the car. Your hands and your rear end are feeling everything the car’s doing in time. But your brain is sitting there, trying to process everything that has happened in that first 330 feet. And that's the biggest challenge for me, just getting my brain to learn to process the information as fast as it's happened.”
 
If nothing else, those who have badgered him about adding drag racing to his extraordinary list of motorsports accomplishments will be satisfied.
 
"You know, I've been getting a lot of questions from a lot of people about ‘When are you going to compete?’ And then there's people that say, ‘Do you want to compete?’ I said, ‘I really don't know, because I haven't done it yet.’ I think this weekend is a good weekend to find out how much interest I really have as far as down the road, and what would I want to compete in,” Stewart said.
 
“So this is kind of the introductory week. To do a national event right out of the gate is definitely not the easiest way to do that, by any means. But the positive to it is I've got good people that are going to be there, as well, to rely on. So I think there's positives to it being at a national event. I think there's some negatives to it being at a national event. But I don't know. I don't know what the future is going to hold with it.”
 
He said, “I don't have a history of being a very good spectator, I always watch and then I get that urge to want to know what it feels like in the driver's seat. So, when I went and started with Leah, and when we started dating, and I got to go to the races, I have a lot of questions because you stand there. And you know, you're in the pit hanging out with the team. But the biggest thing is just you're trying to stay out of their way. And the longer you're there, the more that you see stuff. And that creates questions. And every answer, I got to a question created three more questions. So, you know, here we are, over two years later now. And, you know, I just genuinely love the sport of drag racing. Of all the forms of motorsports I've been a part of, the NHRA – and drag racing in general – is off on its own island compared to everything else. Just to see how powerful these cars are, and how much speed they can run is incredible.”
 
And Friday he’ll start finding out for himself exactly what he has been missing.