SC&M: Well, Donny has clearly set the standard for quite a few years. It sounds like you‘ve learned a lot by competing against him and watching what he‘s doing.
SWEET: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you always wanna be the man. And to be the man you‘ve got to beat the man. And, obviously, getting beat by him, and him stealing wins away with 12 laps to go, 10 laps to go, two laps to go, it makes you go back and work harder, for sure. So, I have a lot of respect for Donny. I think to be at the level he‘s been at for so long, for me just doing it one year and just barely being able to beat him, it‘s pretty impressive. It‘s high stress, there‘s a lot of sacrifices that go on behind the scenes that people don‘t realize.
You know, it seems like we just get in the car and drive, but there‘s a lot of traveling going on, a lot of time away from your family. You only get so many of these opportunities to win the big races, there‘s only a couple every year, then obviously win a championship, you just don‘t know if you‘ll ever be in that situation again.
So, I‘m pretty proud of that, but obviously, like I said, it‘s one of those things. Now I can understand why he‘s so driven, because once you know the feeling it‘s hard to ever be satisfied without having that feeling. You know, you‘re always gonna want it. You even want it more than you‘d think you would. You‘d think you‘d win a championship and be like, OK, whew, now I can just cruise. Well no, now it‘s can we do it again? We need to do it again! If we don‘t win the points again, we‘re not gonna be happy! It compounds the…it‘s what we do, it‘s how we make our living and we love it.
SC&M: It was an incredibly close point battle last season. Did you have any fun at the World Finals or was that just kind of a living hell?
SWEET: Well, actually I‘ve explained that to a few different people. It‘s not … it‘s one of those things where it wasn‘t as enjoyable or as exciting for me until it was over. I really just wanted to know the outcome. I wanted it to be over. You know, we were obviously very focused and wanted to win, but there was just so much pressure at that point and you kinda just wanna know what the outcome‘s gonna be. So, once I took the checkered flag it was just more of a relief. And I know it‘s hard to explain that feeling but, honestly, I thought I would be way more excited. I was excited, but it just was really like woe, like the pressure‘s off. I really just felt relaxed for a second.
It‘s kind of like, I think Tony Stewart said it to me once, but you‘re just climbing that mountain, climbing that mountain, and you finally get to the top and it‘s like, ha. You don‘t have the energy to scream and yell and celebrate; you‘re basically just kind of more relieved than anything.
SC&M: You said that you feel like your life would have been different, and not necessarily for the better, if things had worked out for you in NASCAR. I‘m assuming that one of the things that may have been different is that you might not have ended up with your wife Rachel.
SWEET: Yeah, I mean I knew Rachel. We were just…I mean, long-distance relationship and, you know, I felt like being in Charlotte … I love Charlotte, but California was more of my home, and racing with the Outlaws just kind of allowed me to be more of who I want to be. The stock car stuff just wasn‘t as enjoyable to me. And, I have quite a few friends that are in it and, just as an outsider looking in, I know they have fun lives and things, but they don‘t love it. Their passion‘s in the dirt racing, and they‘re envious of what we get to do week in and week out.
Obviously, I didn‘t have the choice. I didn‘t get the millions in my bank account, so I didn‘t have to make those decisions. And kind of why I say that is, I feel like I basically get to do exactly what I set out to do, which is drive winged sprint cars and do it at the absolute highest level, which is to me the most exciting, greatest grassroots racing there is. I mean, here the driver‘s heavily, heavily involved in every aspect of it. To me, it‘s right where you‘d want to be if everybody got to choose just based off of following your passion.
Luckily, we‘re at a high enough level here with what we‘re doing that we‘re still making great money and still get to have everything that we could possibly want in the world. So, to me, I think it‘s just a better spot to be for me.
To continue reading, advance to the next page.