Stewart plans return by Daytona

Associated Press

KANNAPOLIS, N.C.

Tony Stewart, upbeat and noticeably thinner, won his first race since breaking his leg in a sprint car accident when he beat an employee around the office at Stewart-Haas Racing in his wheelchair.

His injury? The three-time NASCAR champion called it “a small bump in the road” and expects to be back in a race car in time for next year’s Daytona 500.

How much extracurricular racing comes with his NASCAR schedule remains to be seen.

On pace to run more than 100 races this year, Stewart admitted Tuesday that fatigue had set in around the NASCAR race at Indianapolis in late July. That was two weeks before the sprint car crash at Iowa, where he broke the fibula and tibia in his right leg.

At his first public appearance since the accident, Stewart said he was planning to cut his schedule even before the injury, which has required two surgeries and left him homebound for almost a month.