NASCAR News: Tony Stewart fires dig at new CEO Steve O'Donnell

NASCAR legend Tony Stewart has said Steve O'Donnell should be the next to go after he replaced the outgoing Jim France as CEO.

That huge news broke over the Talladega race weekend last time out, with NASCAR confirming that France would be stepping down from the role he has held since 2018 ahead of Cup Series qualifying on Saturday.

France remains as Chairman, but now-former President O'Donnell is the man taking over his CEO responsibilities, representing the first time that a non-France family member has held the position in its entire history.

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Tony Stewart reacts to NASCAR CEO change

Reaction to the news has been largely positive, but Stewart's take certainly does not fall under that category. Perhaps that should come as no surprise, given the messages about SRX (A racing series founded by Stewart) that became public during the antitrust lawsuit between NASCAR and 23XI and FRM last year.

Asked about O’Donnell’s appointment on the Rubbin Is Racing podcast, Stewart suggested it wasn’t the right move.

“They need to make another CEO change in my opinion,” he said. “In all reality.

“Obviously, Steve Phelps stepped down, Jim [France] stepped down now. They both were great for the sport, but you know, there were there were a lot of things that came out during the lawsuit that showed people's true colours and yeah, it showed some, it didn't show all of them.

“But even in Steve's case here, in the new Steve's case, yeah, he probably needs to be the next one [to go].”

Tony Stewart has no interest in NASCAR role

The conversation continued, with Stewart then asked if he’d be interested in a consultation role within NASCAR made up of veteran drivers to help the sport move forward.

Stewart, though, has no interest due to it being a route he and the drivers tried to go down before.

“I'm gonna say no, and there's a reason for it,” Stewart said. “Years ago, and this was probably 2014, maybe 2015, there were 20 of us drivers that were from all the manufacturers, we represented every manufacturer, we represented, I believe, every car owner in the Cup Series, and we were all united.

“We picked five things that we said we thought would make it better, and literally went into a meeting with all the bigwigs at NASCAR and presented that to them, and they basically shot down all five things that we said and basically acted like none of us knew what the hell we were talking about.

“When I left that meeting, that is the moment that I decided that I was working on a retirement plan. I said, when the guys that are driving these cars and know what's going on behind the steering wheel, know more than the guys that are making the decisions, and that’s the way we got treated in that meeting, I said, ‘there’s no point working with these guys.’

“So even if they put something together, now, there's a group of drivers that would be more than happy to do that. I am just not one of them."