Tony Stewart to award $1M prize at Eldora

Tony Stewart went to bed at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday after pulling an all-nighter at Eldora Speedway.

Stewart had $1 million to give away Thursday night and was determined that his track in Rossburg, Ohio, would be in the best condition possible for the return of The Eldora Million.

“I’m just thrashing,” Stewart told The Associated Press on Wednesday afternoon by phone, the sound of him moving from various trucks and tractors in the background. “We’ve only had two events so far this year because of weather, and we’ve got to get the track ready to give this money away.”

About 130 cars were expected in the preliminaries. The feature will pay a whopping $1,002,022 to the winner – the second-largest purse in motor sports behind the Indianapolis 500.

Marcus Ericsson collected $3.1 million from a record-breaking total purse of $16 million for winning the Indianapolis 500 on May 29; Ryan Blaney won $1 million for winning NASCAR’s All-Star race one week earlier.

The Eldora Million is a 101-lap dirttrack late model race run on a half-mile clay oval in western Ohio. On a permile basis, Stewart’s event will pay more than any other race in the USA.

The winner will earn $19,842 per mile, more than three times what Ericsson earned at $6,200 per mile. Blaney earned $5,333.33 per mile.

Eldora paid out $1 million once before, in 2001 when Earl Baltes owned the track.

Since purchasing the speedway in 2004, Stewart has aimed to match the prize. “I said from the first day I took ownership of Eldora that we wanted to make Earl proud by continuing to push the limits of race promotion,” Stewart said. “I can’t think of a better way to honor their legacy than by bringing back The Eldora Million one more time for both our longtime drivers and fans, as well as a whole new generation who have only heard about it.”