about signing with the NSW Waratahs and is conside

Tony Stewart will take off his Sprint Cup firesuit one last time Sunday and retreat to his happy place.He will trek across the country, tending to what he considers his bar, although this bar doesnt look like the normal retiree hangout.Stewart owns it. He works there daily. He owns the distillery that makes the spirits that helps everyone feel better or forget about life.The [retired] people go to the bar at night because thats where their friends are, the 45-year-old Stewart said about routines of some after their working days end. Theyve got to pay for their meals and drinks every night.Now I bought the bar. I eat for free. I drink for free. And I get to see all my buddies and do something productive.The bar comes in many forms. The three racetracks that he either owns outright or with partners. The sprint car teams he operates. The stock car teams he co-owns. The sprint car racing series he recently acquired. The remote control race car assembly company he oversees.If Stewart owned and hung out at an actual bar with actual liquor, he could have a safer, cheaper, less stressful retirement from NASCAR racing.But Stewart knows no other way to live his life. He will do more living after Sundays season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, his last race as a Sprint Cup driver but certainly not his last race behind the wheel of a race car and not his last time in the Cup garage as he remains a co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing. His friends will hang with him as long as he allows them. Just ask Danny The Dude Lasoski.Every race car and every racetrack, thats his bar, Lasoski said. Thats his disco. Thats his nightclub. Thats his boat.Thats his everything.Stewart, Smoke as his friends and fans call him, has an addiction. He cant get away. He will view it as his blessing. And some will see it as his curse. The addiction has shaped his legacy in motorsports of a driver who cares so much that it allows him to do great things on and off the track while also creating hurdles and sideshows and tragedy.Hes got the same freaking disease that some of us other ones have and hes just ate up with it, said 61-year-old racer Ken Schrader -- a business partner with Stewart at a couple of tracks -- who will race any day of the week. Unfortunately the only way out is you have to die out. Im lucky because Im older than him.Hes screwed a little bit. Hes going to keep going.How does one contract such a disease? Why does Stewart have it? And why doesnt he take anything for it?Ask Stewart that question, and he doesnt have an easy explanation. He thinks about the time as a kid going to races, and then maybe he has found the reason.Its just like going to an amusement park, Stewart said. What do people like? They like the bright colors. They like the rides. Its all of it. Its the whole experience. Most of all, its the people. Thats the part I like the most.OK. Bright lights. Speed. Cotton candy. Friends. We get it. Kinda.Because if anyone spent every day at the amusement park, that person likely would end up sick from all the rides, candy, soda and beer.Theres just something about racers, Stewart said. Whether its crew guys. Whether its owners. Whether its drivers. Whether its promoters or series owners. Theres just cool personalities.The neighborhood I grew up in, I had neat neighbors, but they werent as cool as the race people were. They just didnt have the charisma.As the racetracks and the money and the prestige increase, things dont remain as cool for Stewart, who ranks tied for fifth in Cup championships with three and 13th on the all-time list for wins with 49. In this, his 18th season, he made the Chase, but after getting knocked out in the first round, hell end up somewhere from 13th to 15th in the standings to cap a career that featured top-10s in nearly half of his races (308 of 617 going into Homestead).The stresses that he could stomach while in his prime now hit him like a tidal wave. Navigating the politics in NASCAR presents an unwelcome chore.Stewart hates it. He loves racing, a sport in which drivers and seat-of-the-pants mechanic ingenuity make the most difference instead of engineers and their computers and those with the biggest wallets.He can accept the short-track politics. Not everyone will get along all the time. But these racers have a special bond of love for speed, the sound of an engine, competition and performing at a level others cant.They choose to be there, and more than likely its costing them to be there, Schrader said. So youre around people who are generally in a better mood and happy to be there.Because its a passion they get upset quicker, too. And they get over it quicker.Stewart owns the All-Star Sprints (more on how he bought that later), a series for some of the fastest, baddest sprint cars on the planet. It races at some of the tracks he owns as well as other small tracks across the country. Take Butler Speedway in Quincy, Michigan. It has big concrete stands, much like a city municipal stadium built in the 1950s. Its grassy area where drivers work on their cars doesnt come close to the garages at NASCARs top levels.The track serves as the place for many to gather weekly on a weekend night. And when Stewarts series goes there, fans and the promoter gear up for one of the biggest shows of the season. Stewart feels those tracks need his series to boost their weekly racing program, to boost the reason they exist.In Stewarts mind, they have to exist.Stewart has raced at these type of tracks all of his life up until a couple of years ago. Think of it as if Kobe Bryant went out and played in a gym where the bench area has warped and the bathroom serves as a locker room.Its the same thing as loving a brand-new baby, driver and Stewart business partner Kenny Wallace said about the allure. Its in its rarest, rawest form. ... Theres nothing artificial about it. Its so raw.We all can afford to go. Its real racing as to where NASCAR is real but even the best people will tell you that everything it takes from responsibility and money, its like racing is second, third, fourth in line. At a dirt track, racing rules. Its No. 1.Stewart wants to spend all his free time at those places, even though he suffered one of his worst injuries, a broken leg in 2013, at a remote Iowa bullring. He experienced his biggest tragedy, the death of Kevin Ward Jr., who ran toward Stewarts car, which then hit him, in August 2014, at a similar isolated venue.Canandaigua (New York) Motorsports Park, where the Ward tragedy occurred, gives a visitor the feeling of going to a high school football game at the only school for 50 miles that still plays in the smallest classification. A bunch of lights and a field. Thats Canandaigua. A bunch of lights, a half-mile oval of dirt, something that appears as fencing to protect spectators and some grandstands.Stewart cant get enough of places like Canandaigua. He would go to race cars that have incredible speed and hang with people who possess a common passion. Anyone who goes there would wonder why a pro athlete would risk injury, or worse, fooling around in such an arena.What makes it a Taj Mahal when youre a race car driver isnt the grandstands, the lighting and the restrooms, Schrader said. Its how good the racetrack is and how good the racing is.Tony is old school. When he reads about all these different racetracks, you just wanted to go to them. You can go to those places -- its huge. The guys you read about all the time are huge: Joe Blow wins at Timbuktu racetrack 10 times a year. And you go race with Joe Blow -- thats a big deal.Stewart co-owns a couple of these out-of-the-way places -- short tracks in Paducah, Kentucky, and Macon, Illinois -- with Schrader and Wallace, among his investors. He doesnt own them to make money. He had raced at Paducah once before he invested. Hed raced at Macon more and enjoyed the fifth-mile track known for its small but fast layout.They were like, They are going to turn this into a housing development, Stewart said about the time people approached him to buy Macon. You s----ing me?I bought it cheap. I dont even know if I made my money back on it. I dont care. Its a cool racetrack.That sounds crazy. Who buys something just because some people will miss it?Its like going back in time, Wallace said. We all want to go back home. If we all could hit a button and do a time warp -- theres a reason Tony bought his childhood home.Its an opportunity to save something that is good. ... Every time I go, theres a local racer that says, Thank you so much for all you guys buying this racetrack. Thats what its all about.Buying a racetrack because he thought the racers and community would get a raw deal doesnt represent the first time Stewart spent money in a way many wouldnt. In 2000, he saw Lasoski, a good race car driver and a friend but not one of Stewarts besties, walking around all glum one January about not having a ride.Drivers like Tony and I, when we first started, all we had was our helmet bag and our seat, Lasoski said. Thats it. We came up the same way -- sleeping in cars ... [and] we had to work on our merit.Hes got a passion for the sport, but he also has a heart for people. He knew how bad I wanted to race and he wanted to be part of the success.Within a year, Stewart put together a team for Lasoski. Stewart didnt have to invest his own money. A few calls to some potential sponsors to cover costs, a few calls to mechanics he knew could do the job, and all of a sudden Stewart turned into a race car owner.There was no reason he shouldnt have a ride, and he didnt know if he even was going to have a ride -- how does that happen? Stewart said about his thought process. Ill start a team.That sprint car team still exists. It has competed in various series -- and at times has left series -- depending on who needs rides. Donny Schatz just won the World of Outlaws title driving for Stewart.Never did I ever dream of being a car owner, Stewart said. Never. Why would I want to be a car owner? I am a driver.Why would I want to own the cars? Id have to pay for them. ... [Lasoski] wasnt even my best friend, but he was a good friend of mine. It was like, I felt bad.The World of Outlaws in some ways competes with the All-Star Sprints. But the two racing series had a healthy coexistence for years until recently, when the All-Stars lost some luster.In late 2014, some team owners in that circuit threatened to break apart and start their own series. Stewart couldnt bear to see a series that runs at his tracks go through a destructive division.I didnt have any interest in owning a sprint car series, Stewart said.And just like his oh-this-stinks-for-Lasoski view of how he entered team ownership, he saw another situation he didnt like. He now owns the series.Ive seen the All-Stars race for years, Stewart said. I know what it is all about. I know what the competition used to be. And to know what the split was going to do to it was going to destroy it.The guys that started the new series, I met with them and said, Whats the objective here, what are you trying to accomplish? ... I said, Hey, if I can get the All-Stars, would you put it all back together as one? They said, If you can do that, we definitely want to talk. It was their blessing that helped give me the confidence to go do it. We all just wanted it to be better than what it was.Lasoski hadnt raced in that series in 2016 until competing in the season-finale weekend just a couple of weeks ago. He knew what that series used to mean to people. And now he likes its future with Stewart as the owner.Lasoski, who no longer races for the man he thanks profusely for saving his career, watched Stewart show that passion for racing through leadership, trying to do the best he could to remedy the situation of a wet track tearing up equipment.Tony isnt the freak-out guy -- he takes the bull by the horn and he does the best he can do with everybodys best interest in heart, Lasoski said. Thats what we need more in this sport.Maybe the biggest gem of all that Stewart owns sits in rural Ohio: Eldora Speedway. Eldora and Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway play host to some of the biggest dirt-track events all year.Stewart never wanted to buy Eldora. But one day in 2004, track owner Earl Baltes called.It was a deal where Earl said, We think youre the perfect guy to take this over, Stewart said. I didnt know if I was the perfect guy to take it over, but for him to have that confidence in us, I was willing to take a shot at it.Again, the connection with the people resulted in the deal getting done. Stewart tries to carry on the Baltes tradition.Everything we do there, I think about is this something that Earl would be proud of, Stewart said. Thats a lot about how I make a lot of the decisions. If I didnt think Earl would be proud of it, I wouldnt do it.If I think its something that may not be business-wise 100 percent the perfect way to do it but I think Earl would like it better than another way, most of the time I would lean that way.Roger Slack, who runs Eldora for Stewart, confirmed that philosophy. With Stewart far from an absentee owner, Slack has set up a way for Stewart to receive a stream of every event, every race.He doesnt just watch.The phone will start ringing if he doesnt like a restart, Slack said. Part of that is the racer in him. He wants restarts to be fair and clean. And he cares about short-track racing and dirt-track racing.Earl could have sold this place to at least five people looking and probably could have sold it for more money. But he chose to sell it to Tony.Stewart leads by example, motivating through his passion for racing. Those working with him know that only the most passionate would stick around a sport that has injured his body as well as part of his soul with the Ward tragedy, in which he still faces public scrutiny over striking the driver who approached his car on the track at Canandaigua.No matter what anybody calls you or trolls you, Tony has been called the worst of worst the last two years, Slack said about how Stewarts presence motivates his staff. My bad day is never going to be as bad as his.Despite the bad days, Stewart still goes to the short tracks, where he plans to race 40 to 50 times next year.Its not that the neighbors arent neat -- its just at the racetrack, youre around people that have the same likes and dislikes that you have, said his father, Nelson Stewart, who at 78 still races. So you have a comfort zone there.During an off weekend in August, as his fellow NASCAR competitors flocked to beaches, Tony Stewart drove a pickup truck. His destinations: six dirt tracks in six nights.Going home and blowing your nose in the shower to get the dirt out of your nose and Q-tip your ears -- I love it, Stewart said. Its the people. Its the action. Its the racing. Its all of it that is fun.He might spend retirement at an event or two that he couldnt go to before. Maybe a football game, if he cant get to a race that night.He came to a [Carolina] Panthers game last year and watched the playoff game with us and had a good time and relaxed, said Kevin Harvick, who drives in NASCAR for Stewart. Youre not going to get him to do that very often.Hed much rather be racing somewhere. Thats just what makes him tick. ... He just loves racing, and hes built his whole life around it.He built his bar. His place. He will have days when the bar doesnt perform as well as he wishes. He might try not to show his frustration in public.It would surprise few, though, if he threw a wine glass against the wall in frustration or let the sarcasm drip in delivering a tongue-lashing.When theres a day that theres fallout from caring that much about it, it weighs a lot more than the days on the stuff that we do that people never see or never know what we do to try to make it better, Stewart said.Stewart grudgingly bears this weight. He has no clue where to put it. He has no other option.The hard part is you just wish ... there are times when you know there are things that are wrong that need fixed that in your mind you want to try to help fix it, Stewart said. But there are so many of those days that you wish you could be like, You know what, it just doesnt matter to me. I did my job today. I got to enjoy being a race car driver. I got paid today. And I can go home and not worry about that.I cant do that. Thats my life. Thats what I do.No one would dare talk him out of it. 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Parramatta are unfazed by reports Jarryd Hayne is edging towards signing with rugby union, saying theyre content with their roster.Haynes future is up in the air after he failed to make the final cut for the Fiji Rugby Sevens Olympic squad.The 28-year-old departed Parramatta for a stint in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers in 2014 and the Eels remain in the hunt for his signature.However, Hayne on Wednesday met with ARU officials about signing with the NSW Waratahs and is considering an option to play Super Rugby and moonlight in Japanese Rugby.The Sydney Roosters, South Sydney and Newcastle have all ruled themselves out of the race for the cross-code star with the Eels and Gold Coast the NRL sides left vying for his services.Asked if he felt nervous after seeing photos of Hayne meeting with the ARU, Parramatta coach Brad Arthur said: Thats fine. Were really happy with our list and our squad moving forward and if Jarryd wants to be part of that, thats great.ddddddddddddIf he doesnt, hes got to do whats best for Jarryd.Eels star playmaker Kieran Foran has asked for a release from the final three years of his deal, potentially creating salary cap space for the recruitment of Hayne.In 2012, the Eels and the NRL bungled a deal to get Israel Folau, who had just finished a stint in the AFL to the club, but Arthur said he didnt have any fears if the club missed out on a blue-chip player this time around with Hayne.I think its a big moment for Jarryd and what he wants to do for the rest of his career, Arthur said.If he doesnt want to play rugby league, theres no point anyone trying to force him. ' ' '