Drag Racer Leah Pruett Has Shown Interest in Husband Tony Stewart's SRX

• Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman will battle it out for the SRX championship on Thursday at Lucas Oil Speedway near Springfield, Mo.

• Drag racing star Leah Pruett, who just happens to be Stewart's wife, might be interested in racing in SRX next season.

• “I don't know if it would be fun for me to have to race with my wife,” Stewart said.

The third season of the Superstar Racing Experience concludes Thursday night at Lucas Oil Speedway near Springfield, Mo. (live at 9 pm ET on ESPN).

And while he doesn’t have to worry about it this year, series co-founder and NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart is already worrying about where he might be sleeping during next year’s SRX season.

Stewart and Ryan Newman, who will battle it out for the SRX championship on Thursday, took part in the series’ final media teleconference of the season on Wednesday. Autoweek asked Stewart if his wife, drag racing star Leah Pruett, might be interested in racing in SRX next season.

“She has and I told her ‘no,’” Stewart said with a laugh. “I’ve rode with her in a streetcar, so it scares the shit out of me.”

Stewart then paused before trying to cover his ass—perhaps hoping to avoid an early night of sleep on the sofa—by adding “I’m kidding.”

But is he really? He knows how much of a gearhead his spouse is, not to mention how competitive of a racer she is. If she were serious about becoming part of the first husband-wife entry in an SRX field, it might be hard for Stewart, who co-founded the series with Ray Evernham in 2021, to keep his wife off-track.

What’s more, with roughly four-plus dozen drivers having expressed interest to be part of SRX this year, Stewart and series CEO Don Hawk make the final decisions on which drivers make the cut, so to speak, to compete in one, two or even all six races per season. If Stewart were to seriously tell his wife “no,” he not only might be looking at an extended sleeping stay on the sofa, he also might be looking for another driver for his Top Fuel team – if not a new wife!

“Leah has expressed a little bit of interest in (racing in SRX),” Tony said. “I definitely would be interested in taking Leah to a test session where she could get some laps and figure it out and we could watch her as well. She's a great teacher in the drag racing realm. She has a very different driving style than a lot of us have. And, you know, she's ran some F-2000 stuff, went to some schools and did well there. So, I think it would definitely be something that would be fun.”

But then reality caught up with Stewart after saying that.

“I don't know if it would be fun for me to have to race with my wife,” he quipped. “I feel like it's for the same reason and drag racing people are asking me why I'm not running a Top Fuel car. If I beat her, that's just an E-ticket to go straight to the couch and sleep. So I just don't see a huge benefit from my standpoint to have to race against my wife.”

The better half of the Stewart family—but after Wednesday, he may be the worst half of the Stewart family—has never, ever been intimidated by any other race car driver in any series he’s competed in, be it NASCAR, IndyCar or NHRA.

But his wife is a whole different story.

“I wouldn't be intimidated on the racetrack,” he said. “I would be intimidated at the fallout after the race, what falls and what my future holds after that.”

NOTES: While Thursday’s race will decide the championship between Newman and Stewart, defending series champion Marco Andretti still has a mathematical chance at making it two titles in a row. But there’s a caveat to that: the only way Andretti has a chance at the crown is if Newman doesn’t show up or fails to get his car started, both unlikely scenarios. … Thursday will mark 26 different drivers who’ve competed in SRX this year, a series single-season record.