Tony Stewart can see the changes happening around NASCAR, and he is willing to give Steve O’Donnell credit for some of them. But that does not mean the former Cup champion has forgotten what happened between them. Stewart still carries plenty of resentment toward NASCAR’s leadership over the way his concerns were handled during his driving days, and private messages about his SRX series only added another layer to the relationship. So when O’Donnell eventually reached out asking for Stewart’s help, the answer was anything but diplomatic.

“Steve O’Donnell sent me a text message on Christmas morning last year. We haven’t spoken for a long time, and it wasn’t, ‘Hey, just want to say sorry about the past,’ but ‘Hey, if we can put this behind us, maybe we can work together.’ He goes, ‘Oh, you know, Merry Christmas, this and that, we’re trying to get the needle moving in the right direction. You think we could get together?’ I’m like, ‘You can’t even say sorry yet. And you want my help now?’ Piss off. I’m still pissed,” Tony Stewart recently revealed on the Door Bumper Clear podcast.

That response makes more sense when viewed against the history Stewart has with NASCAR leadership. Long before O’Donnell’s private messages about SRX became public, Stewart had already reached a breaking point over how NASCAR responded to concerns from its drivers.

Stewart recalled a meeting around 2013 to 2015 when roughly 20 drivers representing the teams and manufacturers went to NASCAR leadership with five suggestions they believed would improve the racing. One of the major issues was reducing aerodynamic dependence and making the cars more difficult to drive.

Stewart even brought video comparing World of Outlaws and USAC sprint-car racing to demonstrate how less aerodynamic dependence could keep more cars in contention. Instead, he said the group’s concerns were dismissed, an experience that became part of what convinced him to start planning his retirement.

But the bitterness did not end there. Stewart’s relationship with O’Donnell took another hit through the Superstar Racing Experience. The short-track series, founded by Stewart and Ray Evernham, ran from 2021 through 2023 and featured a mix of current and former stars from NASCAR and other racing disciplines.

During the legal battle between NASCAR and 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports over charter agreements, private messages from NASCAR executives became public. The messages showed that NASCAR leadership was concerned about SRX and particularly about Cup drivers and team owners competing in Stewart’s series.

One exchange became especially revealing after Denny Hamlin announced plans to race in SRX. O’Donnell responded, “This is NASCAR. Pure and simple. Enough. We need legal to take a shot at this.” In another message, he reacted to another owner joining SRX with, “Oh great, another owner racing in SRX.” NASCAR executive Steve Phelps was even more blunt, saying the series needed to be stopped.

O’Donnell later acknowledged under questioning that NASCAR had become concerned with SRX as the series began to resemble NASCAR more closely. He said the organization was worried about the “look and feel” of the series, while NASCAR had also blocked SRX from racing at Speedway Motorsports tracks by invoking an exclusivity clause.

For Stewart, those episodes remain part of the same unresolved problem. Yet there is an interesting contradiction in his current assessment of O’Donnell. Stewart does not believe O’Donnell is simply going through the motions as NASCAR’s leader. He said he genuinely believes O’Donnell is trying to make the sport better and credited him for helping move things in the right direction.

There is evidence of a different approach in 2026. NASCAR returned to The Chase, abandoned the elimination format and removed “win-and-you’re-in,” while putting greater emphasis on the full season. NASCAR also increased horsepower to 750 at short tracks and road courses, reduced aerodynamic stability and continued experimenting with softer tire compounds designed to increase fall-off and create more strategic variation.

Those changes address some of the same broad racing concerns Stewart has discussed for years, even if they do not erase what happened between him and O’Donnell. And that is where Stewart draws the line.

He can recognize that O’Donnell is trying to move NASCAR forward while still believing that the past deserves an acknowledgment before he is expected to help. The Christmas message apparently offered Stewart an opportunity to put that history behind him, but without the apology he wanted, Stewart had no interest in reopening the relationship.

That does not mean Stewart has walked away from NASCAR entirely. Earlier this year, he returned to the NASCAR national scene for the first time since 2016, driving Kaulig Racing’s No. 25 Ram at Daytona. He is scheduled to return to the same truck at Talladega on October 23, giving him another opportunity to compete in NASCAR while remaining outside its day-to-day leadership structure.

So Stewart’s position is not simply that everything NASCAR is doing today is wrong. In fact, he is willing to praise O’Donnell for some of it. He just isn’t willing to pretend the past never happened. And until that apology comes, Stewart appears perfectly comfortable keeping that particular door closed.