"I'm like a cat with nine lives": When Tony Stewart commented on his diverse racing career 

In 2019, Tony Stewart, interviewed by Jeff Gordon, two legendary NASCAR drivers who share seven Cup championships between them, spoke about retirement, Hall of Fame and having multiple careers.

Gordon mentioned that Stewart had simply retired from full-time Cup racing and that his career was a 'crazy ride.' It's worth mentioning that Tony Stewart's exploits and experience weren't simply in NASCAR. Stewart tasted success in IndyCar, in Sprint Car, in midget cars, and more recently, in the NHRA.

Jeff Gordon mentioned that at that time, in 2019, Tony Stewart was more or less in his 'second or third career', and that he has done anything but retire, to which Stewart replied:

"I'm like a cat with nine lives, but I've burned about half of them up so far. I'm enjoying it I've driven so many different types of cars, everything from IndyCar all the way to the other end of the spectrum with a heavy stock car in NASCAR and everything you can think of in between." [3:10]

Nevertheless, Stewart remarked that the one form of racecar he hasn't figured out completely but has won races in was winged sprint cars.

---

Tony Stewart got 'pretty frustrated' with his NASCAR Hall of Fame induction in 2020

Tony Stewart announced in late 2015 that the coming season, 2016, would be his last in the NASCAR Cup Series. A few years later, Stewart was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2020.

However, he said that he didn't exactly embrace being a HoF inductee during the buildup. Stewart told Jeff Gordon during the aforementioned interview in 2019 that being inducted in a Hall of Fame while he's still an active driver made him feel conflicted.

"Honestly got pretty frustrated with it at one point because I just didn't want to feel like that I was old and retiring yet I felt like all the Hall of

"Fame stuff was making me feel like I was being forced to retire. And it's not that way obviously but you just don't think about Hall of Fame's while you're still driving you think of Hall of Fame's like you said to reflect back on your career and look at what you've done but I'm still looking ahead not back right now so that's where I'm conflicted on trying to put it all together," Stewart explained. [2:10]

Having said that, he remarked that he was looking at Jeff Gordon's trophy display to get ideas for his own. But even with the HoF honor hovering on his horizon at that point, Tony Stewart claimed he was still 'so focused' on his sprint car season at that time.