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UMRA Announces the Tony Stewart Rookie Challenge
By Alex Wollf

The 2010 UMRA season that was already shaping up to be an exciting one has just gotten better thanks to one of the UMRA’s most famous alums. The 2010 UMRA rookie class will be racing for some extra money this season as part of the “Tony Stewart Rookie Challenge.” Beginning at Montpelier Speedway on May 1 and at each and every UMRA event in 2010, the highest finishing rookie will receive $50 for being the “Rookie of the Race.” To make things even more exciting for fans and rookies alike, there will be a real battle to keep track of throughout the season as the top three rookies at the end of the season will get money from the Tony Stewart Rookie Challenge point fund.

Tony Stewart won 11 UMRA features in his driving career in the series. The first one came on July 14, 1989 at the Rush County Fairgrounds in Rushville and the final one also coming at Rushville on July 4, 1996, just over a month after he started from the pole at the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. Stewart’s involvement in the series has continued even while he has been busy winning two NASCAR Cup championships and becoming one of stock car racing’s biggest stars as he has become a successful UMRA car owner with Ron Combs at the controls. In 2005, Combs delivered the car owner Stewart the one thing he was unable to get as a driver in the UMRA, a championship.

So it is in 2010 that Tony Stewart, a man that has given so much back to short track racing gives back to the series that really put him on the map. Fans are going to want to be at the races this season because the “Tony Stewart Rookie Challenge” is going to be exciting!