Race-car drivers get peek at Army life

Race-car drivers get peek at Army life
By Will Graves - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Mar 19, 2009 19:10:37 EDT

FORT KNOX, Ky. — You’d think since Tony Stewart doesn’t blink while going 180 mph at NASCAR tracks every weekend that he wouldn’t be impressed by a vehicle that tops out at 45 mph.

Then again, Stewart doesn’t drive an Army tank.

Stewart admits he got a little trigger happy while in a tank simulator during a visit Thursday to Fort Knox, firing shells at random targets in the western Kentucky base’s Close Combat Tactical Trainer Facility.

Stewart — who co-owns the No. 39 Sprint Cup car co-sponsored by the Army — and NHRA driver Tony Schumacher spent a few hours with soldiers, getting a taste of Army life that hardly resembled the battles Stewart would wage with green plastic Army men in his parent’s garden growing up.

The drivers took a glimpse at the cramped seat used by the tank drivers and marveled at how they can handle the massive machines without so much as a rearview mirror.
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