On the Dinner With Racers podcast, Tony Stewart dropped a bit of news not many people knew, or anyone knew.

Tony Stewart has an offer to run the 2018 Indy 500.

The podcast was recorded sometime in August of 2017 while the DWR boys drove around the country interviewing various people in NASCAR, Indycar and Sporty Car racing. Stewart never said “2018” but said he “has an offer to run the Indy 500 next year” which you can infer as 2018.

Hosts Ryan Eversley and Sean Heckman led Stewart down the Indy 500 road by talking about his past attempts at the double and if he’d ever do it again. They mentioned Roger Penske has a running offer to field a car for Stewart if he wants it. According to Tony Chip Ganassi was at that same dinner and made it well known he wants to be the guy to field a car for Stewart.

After talking about that he said he has an offer to run “next year.” He didn’t mention who the offer was from but there are some pretty obvious clues outside of the Penske/Ganassi offers. The one that sticks out the most is Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Tony financed a team with SPM in 2017, why not run for that same team in 2018.

The DWR guys joked with Tony by asking if he could still fit in a race car. According to Tony he can, obviously losing a little weight wouldn’t be the worst idea but this is Tony Stewart we’re talking about. He’s going to do whatever he wants. Busch beer and pizza for the month of May.

Tony hasn’t raced at the Indy 500 since 2001 when he ran for Chip Ganassi and finished 6th. He then flew to Charlotte, North Carolina for the Coke 600 and finished 3rd. The best showing by a driver doing the double, ever.

Now some 17 years later Tony Stewart says he has an offer to run the race. The thing is, he could still be wildly competitive if he got in the car. Especially with the new body kits, IndyCar will have in 2018.

There was a rumor flying around IndyCar circles that a NASCAR driver was trying to put an Indy deal together there could potentially be a couple stock car guys running. The chances of Tony running are probably pretty slim, the fact he mentioned it though is certainly something.

Follow us on Twitter @ApexOff

Like Us on Facebook