Tony Stewart announces he will retire from NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series after 2016 season

Three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart announced Wednesday that 2016 “will be my last year in the Sprint Cup Series.”

The 45-year-old added at the Stewart-Haas Racing shop in North Carolina that the decision was “100%” his.

“There wasn’t any pressure from anybody,” Stewart said of his decision. “If anything, it was the opposite. I know people were trying to talk me out of it. It’s a scenario where everybody in their career makes the decision that it’s time for a change.”

Clint Boyer will drive the No. 14 car for SHR after Stewart steps aside.

In 2014 Stewart struck and killed driver Kevin Ward Jr. while driving in a a sprint car race in New York. He also broke his leg in a sprint car crash in 2013 and missed the final third of that season.

However, Stewart said that those incidents had nothing to do with his decision. He hasn’t won a race in two years and told the Associated Press this summer that his confidence in and enthusiasm for driving in the series were dwindling.

But Stewart, who has 48 Cup victories, said Wednesday that he wants one last shot at winning the Daytona 500. And the avid dirt-track racer added he’s not just going to sit idle upon retirement.

“I am still going to race,” he said. “I am not retiring from racing, just the Sprint Cup Series.”