For a long time, fans have wondered what really broke Tony Stewart’s passion for full-time Cup Series racing. What might have forced his sudden retirement at the end of the 2016 season? Well, on a recent episode of the Oil and Whiskey podcast, he finally pulled back the curtains.

According to Stewart, there was one breaking point that might have pushed him in the direction, and it happened back in 2014. This was a time when there were plenty of regulation changes coming about the sport. It was then that he, along with 19 other drivers, decided to raise their concerns to the officials in a meeting. But what was supposed to be a discussion escalated into a heated conversation. So much so that Stewart now admits that that things were on the verge to get physical, until Mike Helton read the room and decided to budge in!

“Mike Helton realized I was about to climb over this massive oval table that we were sitting at and choke him out,” Stewart revealed on the Oil and Whiskey podcast. The one he “nearly choked” was an official who had dismissed every concern the drivers had raised about the 2014 rules package, which Stewart and the other drivers were not expecting.

“We went into it with the attitude of we’re all partners on this,” Stewart continued. “The fans were pissed, the attendance was starting to go down, the viewership was starting to go down, and we’re all unhappy, and they’re mad at us because we’re mad at the end of the races.

“The moment where I said, ‘Yep, I… I’ve had enough of this sh-t,’ was when we went in there with all five of those things, and they shot all five of them down and said, ‘Our data says the other way, that it’s the opposite of what you guys are saying on all five accounts.’ The guy who said that was a guy who worked for an auto manufacturer…. Never worked on a race car, never drove a race car, never worked on a race team, worked for an auto manufacturer. And then he says, ‘Our data shows otherwise.’ I’m like, ‘What is your data?’”

In fact, Stewart might still be holding onto the grudge even though it has been more than a decade since. “If I ever find him again and I find him in an alley, I’m going to beat the brakes off of him.” However, to really understand the depth of the issue, you need to really see the amount of changes that were brought by NASCAR around that time.

They introduced several regulation changes, like reduction in horsepower along with a greater focus on aerodynamics. The suspension setup was also changed, which in turn put extra stress on the Goodyear tires. Ultimately it forced the company to introduce harder tire compounds which caused the cars to sit lower and rely more on the bump stops, which normally limits how much the suspension can move.

The setup helped create smoother airflow under the car and improved aerodynamics, but it also put much more pressure on the tires, causing them to wear out faster. Overall, drivers like Tony Stewart hated how the new rules simply took control away from the drivers and handed it to the crew chiefs. Stewart admitted that while he initially did try to adapt to the changes, he slowly realized the racing no longer felt the same.

“And so then it basically brought the setup of the car to a stronger spot than the driver,” Stewart explained. “And that’s when I didn’t like it. When it took me out of the equation, it put it more in the hands of the crew chiefs.” Stewart then moved on but he was never really far from the racing world.

NASCAR finally proved Tony Stewart was right all along

It took NASCAR more than a decade of fan backlash and veteran drivers exiting, but the sport has finally started moving back towards the direction that drivers like Stewart were fighting for years. This year, they introduce a major rule change for road courses and oval tracks shorter than 1.5 miles. They also bumped the horsepower from 670 to 750 at the same time. And honestly, it all resulted in a massive improvement in racing.

However, the Next Gen cars are still far more aero-dependent than their predecessors, and the effect can be seen in many superspeedway races. Fans criticized the races at . As of now, there appear to be no plans to go beyond the 750 hp limit, but if the sport does decide to change that in the future, it could potentially improve racing by a huge margin.

As for Stewart, he never waited around for NASCAR to figure it all out. He focused his time and energy on building Stewart Haas Racing. Since then he has closed that chapter down too and now moved to NHRA drag racing. Earlier this year, he added another major win in Top Fuel competition, clocking a 3.683-second run at 332.51 mph to edge out Justin Ashley’s 3.714 at 328.54 mph at the NHRA national event.