Full Throttle

Tony Stewart ended a ten year run Sunday in the famous, but now obsolete, Home Depot color orange.

Stewart’s decade-long run in what became his signature No. 20 Home Depot machine first started with a five-race NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule for Joe Gibbs Racing in 1997. While wrapping up the IRL IndyCar Series championship, Stewart went stock car racing with Gibbs at Indianapolis, Richmond (Va.), Rockingham (N.C.), Charlotte (N.C.) and Homestead, finishing in the top-10 twice and once in the top-five with a third-place run at Charlotte.

A slate of 22 Nationwide Series races with Joe Gibbs Racing in 1998 prepared Stewart for his full-on assault on the Cup circuit in 1999.

Home depot paid a fitting and last tribute Sunday with a banner stretching from the top to the bottom of the main grandstands that read: Thanks Tony for Ten Great Years.

But that’s a horse of a different color, in more ways than one.

He’s leaving Home Depot and Gibbs Racing to run and race for his own Stewart-Haas team in 2009, and via the Tony Stewart Foundation he’s contributing to many horses, of many colors.

The Tony Stewart Foundation has awarded a $20,000 grant to Indianapolis-based Friends of Ferdinand, a non-profit volunteer organization that works with owners and trainers at the state’s two race tracks to identify and obtain Thoroughbreds that are nearing the end of their racing careers. FFI evaluates and retrains the horses, and finds new homes with devoted, caring owners. Its motto is “Retired from Racing, Not from Life.”

Six to seven Thoroughbreds, the first horses to be christened “Tony’s Ex-Racers,” will be brought into the FFI program today during the annual end-of-season paddock sale at Hoosier Park Racing & Casino in Anderson, Indiana.

“We are thrilled beyond words that the Tony Stewart Foundation has selected our program to receive its support,” said Friends of Ferdinand president Sara Busbice. “A grant this size is significant and enables us not only to continue, but to expand the work we do with our Indiana Thoroughbreds. Especially now, with the economy in such turmoil, support of this magnitude is simply incredible.

“We sincerely thank Tony Stewart, foundation executive director Joni Thompson, and everyone involved in giving the nod to this grant,” Busbice continued. “It means the world to those of us involved with Friends of Ferdinand, but, more importantly, it literally means the world to the horses.”