Tony Stewart not only confirmed that he let Donny Schatz go, but provided details as to why the hard decision had to happen.
Tony Stewart Racing announced that it was replacing Schatz with Kerry Madsen in a press release where Stewart indicated the change was due to a lack of performance. Stewart said, “in the past few years we’ve weathered changes in the sport and our performance hasn’t been to the level that both Donny and I expect. We’re both competitors to our core and we both hold ourselves to a high standard of performance that we’ve struggled to obtain. Making a change now gives each of us the chance to reset and refocus before 2026.”
Speaking to to Sprint Car Unlimited, Stewart reiterated that it was due to performance telling the outlet, “It was just performance. It had nothing to do with the Nationals. It’s just been multiple years of not going in the right direction, but I thought he did a really good job at the Nationals rebounding on Friday and Saturday and salvaging an 11th-place run out of it. So, I was proud of the weekend, but it’s that saying, ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.'”
Stewart added, “Donny isn’t happy and hasn’t been happy for a long time with performance. I’m frustrated, because I’ve given him everything he’s asked for, and we just can’t seem to find the combination to get him where he wants to be. We’re not frustrated at each other; we’re just frustrated at the situation. At some point, you’ve just got to make a change, and it’s kind of where we’re at today.”
He elaborated on this while explaining why a change needed to be immediately, “We needed to change the direction. I read someone online saying I’m an asshole, and I could’ve let him finish out the season. Well, Donny never signed his contract this year, and we didn’t know if he was going to finish. There was a part with the Ford stuff that if we didn’t switch the motor deal over — Thank God, I ordered motors last year — and he had to run the Ford, he was going to quit. So the reason for the change is kind of the same thing as [Stewart-Haas Racing]. It give him time now to work on the rest of the season. He’ll get something. He’s way too good of a driver to not have a ride, but it gives him time to get something put together for next season instead of waiting until the bottom of the ninth. It also gives us the same opportunity.”
“But we had to try something,” Stewart shared. “We can’t just sit there and keep doing the same thing and think that it’s just magically going to get better. So, I felt like it was the right thing to do … to give Donny an opportunity to put something together. It’s not ideal by any means. None of it is, but there is no off-season in Sprint Car racing anymore. So, at some point, it had to happen.”
Additionally, Stewart indicated he had expended a ton of resources on trying to improve the team’s performance, “It’s been a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and we just haven’t been able to give him what he’s looking for. I’ve exhausted all of my resources. There never been a time where I told him no to anything he’s asked for. I’ve always given him what he wanted, and when you do that and run through everything, you realize there’s really nothing else we can do. This is probably one of the hardest and hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, because we’ve been together so long. I mean, we’ve done a lot of great things together in 17 and a half years. We’ve done more than probably any team out there, but it just isn’t going the right direction.”
Stewart reiterated much of these comments in a separate interview with FloRacing’s Kyle McFadden. However, he made it clear that it was not a mutual decision and Stewart let Schatz go. Stewart explained, “I don’t think Donny was happy to get the phone call (Tuesday) morning about it, but I don’t think anybody really does, especially when you’ve had success with each other. But somebody’s got to give, and somebody’s got to make that hard decision. I’m not going to speak for him, but I would venture to say there’s probably a couple times during the season up to this point where he’s probably thought he might need a change too. It’s who gives in first and, like I said, this isn’t a situation where I’m upset with him. I feel bad that we haven’t been able to get him happy in the car like we used to.”
From there he elaborated on how much he tried to improve the car’s performance and get the feel right for Schatz, “I feel like we’ve thrown the kitchen sink at it. We’ve literally tried everything. We’ve had three crew chiefs during that stint. We’ve had three different motor programs. We’ve been on every shock package that there is available. We tried literally every shock that’s available, we’ve tried different torsion bars. We’ve tried everything. We haven’t just been sitting on our hands. We’ve tried to figure this out. It’s sort of to the point where I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what else to do to get him the feel he’s looking for with motors and chassis and all that. So at some point, you know, it’s kind of like I told Jeremy, I said it’s the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. At some point, you just got to say, this isn’t working anymore. It’s not the personalities that isn’t working. It’s just whatever it is that we had just isn’t working anymore.”
Later in the interview, Stewart claimed he ended his Sprint Car career because he was trying to ensure that Donny was happy, “I mean, I quit driving a Sprint Car because Donny was feeling things in a motor that I wasn’t feeling, and I felt like I was a bad teammate and a bad owner for not feeling the same stuff Donny was feeling. So I stepped down out of my own race car, put Kerry in it to try to get somebody in there that might feel more than what I was feeling, to try to help develop this motor for Donny. And it’s ended my Sprint Car career because of it, but that’s the dedication I had to the program, was that I cared more about getting Donny happy with the motors than I did myself being in a race car. And so I think, again, that’s one of the most frustrating aspects of the bull— that I’ve read today, and the frustration that I have today at this point.”
What do you make of Stewart’s explanation?
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