After this year’s Bartholomew County 4-H Fair was canceled, Tony Stewart sought replacement dates for his All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget series.
Stewart was able to do that the past two Saturdays at the fairgrounds. The events in the TQ midget series in which the three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion acquired last December helped make up for the one they lost during fair week in July.
”Up to right before (the Sept. 26) weekend, we had only ran five races,” Stewart said. “With all the fairs canceled, that took that out. Then with the tracks that run weekly, they weren’t adding races. It’s been very, very hard and challenging to get dates to race. To get the fair board to allow us to run two races like this, and to get down to Salem last week, this gives us eight races. We’re just trying to do everything we can to get these guys races.”
After winning the Sept. 26 feature event at the fairgrounds, Stewart finished second on Saturday. Cory Clay of Morgantown held off Stewart the second half of the 20-lap feature to take the checkered flag.
”I had a feeling he was right behind me,” Clay said. “I could almost smell him. When you get out front, you have clean air, and you can kind do what you want to on the racetrack because you don’t have to worry about who’s outside of you and who’s inside of you. I think getting out front just allowed this DRC TQ midget to really do what it wanted to do.”
Clay passed Matt Hedrick midway through the race to take the lead for good.
”It’s pretty good for not having brakes the last half of the race,” Clay said. “I was getting pretty good restarts, and I had the top working in Turn 1, and I knew he was going to be on the bottom. I knew I was getting a really good run coming out of (Turn) 2, if I could get into Turn 1 just right. I hit it just perfect, and it worked out.”
Stewart finished second in his heat and started seventh in the feature. He moved up to fifth after one lap, fourth after two laps, third after five laps and second after 12 laps.
”It’s hard to be disappointed coming from seventh,” Stewart said while posing for pictures with fans. “I was a little too tight in the spot that I was really good last week. I needed to be freer to run up high in (Turn) 1, and then after about two laps, it would get real dirty up there, and then I couldn’t run in it. It got too chunky, and I got too tight in it.”
Saturday’s competition was expedited because of the possibility of rain coming in.
”We had to cut our dash and cut a B-main,” Stewart said. “But we had to do that to get the ‘A’ in, and we got it in just in time. I thought the go-kart guys and our guys did a really good job working together to get the whole show in.”
Columbus Speedway Go-Kart Racing has been holding events regularly at the fairgrounds. They ran along with the TQ midgets the past two weekends on their new 1/5-mile track inside the 1/4-mile oval that the midgets use.
”I thought it was great,” Stewart said. “I liked being able to have the go-karts there. It was neat to see the new go-kart track, which I hadn’t seen before. I knew what it meant to me when I was young. I thought that was really cool, and the fact that we were all in the same pit together, it was a much different deal than we had before.”
Stewart hinted that more TQ midget racing could be coming to the fairgrounds in 2021.
”The good thing is, I think both Salem, Indiana, and here are going to work together and try to do some of these double-hitters like we did last week where we run Salem on Friday and here on Saturday,” Stewart said. “I think we’re going to get to see the TQs here a little more next year, hopefully. That’s pretty exciting for us as a sanctioning body.”
