Tony Stewart will race on July 10 at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds, but local fans will also have a chance to see him in action this week.
Thursday will be Tony Stewart Night at the Rush County Fair in Rushville. The Columbus native will compete in the King of the UMRA Three-Quarter Midget race that evening.
Stewart lived in Rushville with the family of Tate Martz for a few years when Stewart was in his early 20s, and Martz was 10 or 11. Martz, now 35 and a driver on the TQ Midget circuit, thinks this will be the first time Stewart, now 47, will be racing in Rushville in roughly 20 years.
That’s where Stewart earned the nickname, “Rushville Rocket.”
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“It will be really neat,” Martz said. “With him returning to the fairgrounds, there’s a lot of people excited about it. I get asked about it a lot. As competitors, we race because we love to race, but this gives it a little bit more attention, and a bigger crowd always makes it fun and exciting for everybody.”
Pits open at 4 p.m. Thursday. There will be a meet-and-greet with Stewart from 5 to 6 p.m. Hot laps begin at 6:30 p.m., and the feature will start around 8:30 p.m.
The event will raise money for boys and girls club in Rushville. A helmet also will be passed to take donations for TQ driver Robbie Roland of Carthage, who was badly burned in a fire.
“It’s neat the way (Stewart) gives back,” Martz said. “This is stuff that he doesn’t have to do. I’m sure he has a lot of other things with his NASCAR teams and his sprint car teams that he could be spending time doing, but he feels it’s important to give back to the grass roots where he began.”
