Tony “Smoke” Stewart and his team are starting to find their groove, and that could be a serious problem for the rest of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Top Fuel teams. Stewart has now been to four final rounds in 2025 and won two, with his latest win being at Route 66  Raceway. This makes Stewart the only person to have multiple wins in the NHRA, NASCAR, IndyCar, and USAC racing series.

While Stewart did win 2024 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Rookie of the Year honors, it wasn’t an easy season. Stewart’s crew chief Neal Strausbaugh was very vocal about how unhappy he was with the car’s issues. However, Stewart believed in Strausbaugh, and that decision is now paying off.

So far in 2025, Stewart and his team have been very consistent. Strausbaugh and co-crew chief Mike Domagala have also found a way to coax more performance out of the TSR Top Fuel machine. At the Route 66 Nationals, Stewart laid down a career-best pass of 3.679.

“I said at Vegas that I was extremely impressed and pleased with the progress our team has been making,” said Stewart. “There were tricky track conditions on Friday, so I was excited about getting number one qualifier in Q1. When the track cooled off and we ran a 3.67 Saturday, we got really excited. We had talked amongst our group about how tough it is to race for a championship at the end of the season when we haven’t raced in cooler conditions like we will have in the fall. Now we have data that we can go back and look at.”

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The team had recently gone back to the clutch program it ran when Stewart’s wife Leah Pruett nearly won the NHRA Top Fuel title in he very car that Stewart drives. That change has been a catalyst for positive change for the team.

After winning the Route 66 Nationals and taking over the Top Fuel points lead, it’s safe to say that Stewart has fully adapted to drag racing and understands what it takes to win. Now the question becomes, will Stewart and his team be able to conquer the grind that is the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series and still stay on top? Well, if Stewart’s previous career accomplishments are any indication of what could happen, the rest of the Top Fuel class had better pack a lunch, because Smoke doesn’t back down from a challenge.