Tony Stewart to miss Daytona 500, start of NASCAR season

NASCAR driver Tony Stewart will miss the start of his final season in NASCAR due to a back injury, Stewart-Hass Racing announced on Thursday.

According to the Associated Press, Stewart suffered a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra when he crashed while driving an ATV in California on Sunday. After the crash, he was awake, alert and could move all of his extremities. Stewart was taken to a local hospital and flew to Charlotte on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he had surgery in Charlotte. He is expected to make a full recovery.

This is the third time in four years that Stewart will miss races. In 2013, he missed the final 15 races of the season after breaking his right leg in a sprint car crash in Iowa. In 2014, he missed three races after he was involved in a sprint car incident that killed 20-year-old driver Kevin Ward Jr.

Stewart announced last October that the 2016 season will be his final season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He will miss what is expected to be his final Daytona 500, which he has not won. He is 0-17 in the Daytona 500.

"If it's a terrible year, I'm not going to sit there and go, 'Wow, that defined my career,' because the stats will show what we did over 18 years," Stewart said last month at the NASCAR media tour. "I think no matter how the season goes, I'm going to be able to say I had a successful run in the Sprint Cup Series. We want to have fun this year. My performance hasn't been on par the last two years, and if we can just make improvements this year, I think we're going to consider that a great season. I'm just ready to do different things."

Stewart has struggled on the track in recent years. He hasn’t won a race since June 2013 at Dover. Last year, he had just three top-tens and finished 28th in points with a career-worst average finish of 24.8, NASCAR.com notes. He has 48 NASCAR Sprint Cup series wins and has won three Sprint Cup series championships, according to ESPN.

No interim driver has been named and it is unknown when Stewart will return.NASCAR heads to Daytona next week to begin preparations for the Daytona 500. NASCAR opens the 2016 season on February 21 with the Daytona 500.

{"code":"internal_server_error","message":"

There has been a critical error on your website.<\/p>

Learn more about debugging in WordPress.<\/a><\/p>","data":{"status":500},"additional_errors":[]}