KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Few people in racing know Tony Stewart as well as Larry Curry, the general manager of Vision Racing of the IndyCar Series.
When Stewart was a young, aspiring driver in the United States Auto Club midget, sprint and silver crown ranks in 1995, it was Curry that convinced Indy team owner John Menard to give him a ride in the Indy Racing League.
Stewart was an instant star in the series, starting on the pole for the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and winning the 1997 IRL title.
When Stewart left the series to join NASCAR after the 1998 season, Stewart and Curry co-owned Tri-Star Motorsports, an IndyCar team that Stewart drove for  in the 1999 Indy 500 while also competing in the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 the same day.
Stewart continues to confide in Curry even though the two are in different series. Curry shared some of that insight Friday afternoon when asked about Stewart’s interest in leaving Joe Gibbs Racing to become a co-owner of Haas CNC Motorsports.
News of that possibility broke earlier this week and Curry believes Stewart’s interests could be getting back into a Chevrolet.
Stewart has driven Chevrolet throughout his NASCAR career, but JGR switched to Toyota beginning this season. Although Stewart has performed well in the first eight races this season for Toyota, he still feels a strong degree of loyalty to General Motors, which he drove to both of his NASCAR Cup titles in 2002 and 2005.
“Tony has a long standing relationship with General Motors,” Curry said. “Tony is a very loyal individual and cares a lot about the relationships he has created in his career and doesn’t take any of that lightly. It sounds like that is something he has a bit of an issue with right now is he is driving on a team that doesn’t have a Chevrolet.”
Curry said the two talk on a very regular basis but try to keep the conversations to how each other’s races go in the respective series, not about future plans.
“Sometimes when Tony gets closer to deciding what he wants to do, he might say something to me about it,” Curry said.
Stewart has had a great relationship with team owner Joe Gibbs and crew chief Greg Zipadelli. The two are the longest standing driver-crew chief combination in Cup racing.
To make a switch to a lackluster operation like Haas CNC would be a huge challenge to a driver who is used to success at the highest level.
“When it comes to Tony winning is important and if he is going to get in something he wants to know it is competitive, can run up front and give him an opportunity to win,” Curry said. “If he starts to look at the possibility of going into ownership or an organization, one of the things to look at is the depth of the organization and if they are capable of producing that type of effort like he’s got at Joe Gibbs.”
“No, no Indianapolis 500,” Stewart said. “There’s absolutely zero that has to do with Indy Car racing in any of the offers or any of the equation.”
A chance to compete in the Indy 500 would be much easier to accomplish if he were the boss rather than driving for another team owner. Currently, JGR has expressed its desire that Stewart not compete in the Indy 500 while he is under contract to the NASCAR operation.
“When Tony gets back in an IndyCar and I believe that he will, he will get back in one full time,” Curry said. “He won’t be just playing at it. He’ll want to get back in one and doing the necessary testing and understand the cars. We haven’t had that discussion yet, however.”