Tony Stewart is trying not to be reminded about Aug. 9, 2014. He isn't having much luck.
The respected-but-struggling NASCAR owner-driver addressed the media Wednesday in advance of this weekend's race at Watkins Glen International - a race he has missed the last two years because of two awful memories.
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In 2013, Stewart broke his right leg in an Iowa sprint-car race just before the Watkins Glen race and missed the rest of the season. He has had four surgeries on the leg and will require a fifth at the end of the year to remove a rod in the leg.
Then last year, he was involved in a horrific tragedy at a dirt-track event at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in upstate N.Y., the night before Watkins Glen when the right real wheel of his sprint car struck and killed 20-year-old Kevin Ward Jr.
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"I'm trying not to think about it," Stewart told reporters, according to ESPN. "Unfortunately, I have a feeling it is going to be brought up a lot this week. It doesn't help you continue to move forward."
While Stewart returned to NASCAR racing three weeks after the tragedy, he has not won a Sprint Cup Series event. He also has not returned to dirt-track racing, which is his passion.
Eddie Gossage, president of Texas Motor Speedway and a close friend of Stewart's, says Stewart may never move forward in the dirt-track racing aspect of his career.
"He has always told me that the Cup stuff is work and the sprint car stuff was just fun," Gossage told USA TODAY Sports. "He's threatened many times when he's frustrated to just chuck it all and go back to sprint-car racing. Then the incident last year affected him so much more than I think people think it did. He can't really race sprint cars right now, and I don't know if he ever will, which is sad because it's what he truly, truly loves."
Stewart himself says the tragedies from 2013 and 2014 will always stay with him.
"I don't think I'll ever be the same from what happened the last two years," he said, according to USA TODAY Sports. "I don't know how you could be. I don't know how anybody could ever be back to exactly the same way they were.
"But not being back exactly the same way doesn't mean I (haven't) become better in some ways. There are always positives that come out of every scenario."
They have to in order to replace the void - perhaps permanent - left by his inability to race on dirt tracks.
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