While Tony Stewart has done a little bit of everything when it comes to motorsports, drag racing was still uncharted territory for the semi-retired racer. At least, that was the case before he rectified that deficiency during his recent trip to the Frank Hawley School of Drag Racing. In the company of his girlfriend and NHRA Top Fuel racer Leah Pruett, Stewart did some runs.

Stewart’s Girlfriend and Drag Racer Leah Pruett Gave Instructions

With his girlfriend giving him instructions, Tony Steward became familiar with the process and mounted an automatic transmission dragster. A camera crew managed to document his first steps into drag racing and posted a video on Stewart’s YouTube channel. Before going down the drag strip, he had to get used to the “Christmas tree” lighting system which racers currently use to start each run down the strip.

Stewart used a Super Comp car for his first drag racing experience and then he moved into one of Frank Hawley’s Alcohol Dragsters, using an automatic transmission. Hawley, who is the founder of the school, said that they would use such a setup to let new drivers get used to driving an Alcohol or Top Fuel dragster. According to him, this allows drivers to quickly learn what they can and cannot do with the vehicle. Hawley also said that Stewart had experience with fast cars and this was not an issue to him at all.

Frank Hawley Is a World Champion Who Has Been Teaching Drag Racing for Decades

A two-time NHRA Funny Car world champion himself, Frank Hawley has taught both pros and amateurs how to navigate a dragster. Regarding Stewart’s performance, he said that Tony was world-class at everything he had ever done and unsurprisingly had no problems with a drag race car. He added that Stewart was a great and neat guy who was very humble and easy to talk to.

Stewart made around a dozen runs in the two cars, earning a Top Dragster license. Despite the whole event, he has not indicated to have any intention to enter the professional drag racing scene.

27-year-old Paige Spiranac is a tremendous golf player, social media personality, as well as an online influencer who’s on a mission to show everyone just how much fun playing golf can be. Here are some of our favorite photos of Paige Spiranac!

Paige Spiranac has made a name for herself as one of the game’s biggest stars and now has over two million followers on her Instagram account. Paige just wants to be taken seriously as a professional golfer and sports ambassador.

As a child, Paige Spiranac was an exceptional gymnast. She was training daily with her sights set firmly on future Olympics, but she suffered a knee injury that eventually forced her out of the sport. So how good was she exactly in gymnastics? In spite of her young age, it was her talent and ability that allowed her to skip from level six to the Elites, earning an invitation from Karolyi Ranch – the training center for the USA’s Olympic gymnastics feeder system.

It was while she was recovering from her injury at the age of 12, that Paige decided it was time to retire from gymnastics, but she still wanted to try her hand at professional sports. After experimenting in different sports, she eventually fell in love with the game of golf. Even in the early years of her golf career, it became apparent that she had a knack for it, as she won five tournaments out of seven on Colorado’s junior golf circuit, including the 2010 CWGA Junior Stroke Play.

This was the beginning of her journey to become one of the top-20 junior players in the world, a top-five college recruit, two-time West Region Player of the Year as well as first-team All-American as a member of the Future Collegians World Tour. Paige Spiranac continued to play golf while studying at San Diego State University. While in University, she won the All-Mountain West Conference honors during the 2012-2014 seasons and led the Aztecs to their first Mountain West Conference Championship.

Paige Spiranac believes that there are very few golfers who will draw people to television screens to watch live golf once Tiger Woods retires from the sport. “Golf has been great since Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship, and he won The Masters, and his coming back into the spotlight,” said Spiranac. “More people are now coming to tournaments, and it’s picking up again, but what’s going to happen when he is done playing? Who are people going to want to watch on TV?”

Paige is still fresh on the golf scene, and because of her good looks, she has caught the attention of many – whether it’s because of her talent or her appearance, we’re not sure; maybe it’s a combination of the two. Many of her critics have suggested that her appearance is tokenistic. She originally started her Instagram account to post trick shot videos, but now she’s got a much bigger audience. More recently, Paige announced she’s joining GOLF magazine and GOLF.com as a contributor.

To express her position on golf, Spiranac describes herself as, “A rising golf talent, media personality, and online influencer who’s on a mission to show the world how much fun golf can be.” She really seems to be enjoying herself. One of the things she has done is make golf seem at least slightly more exciting to a whole new crowd of people who never thought about it at all. With her rise to fame across different media platforms, it seems that her reach and popularity is undeniable.

One of the fantastic things she has accomplished with her influence is to establish herself as an anti-bullying personality. She references being bullied often as a youth and how it has shaped her current career and lifestyle. Paige is passionate about making a change when it comes to stopping bullying, primarily online and cyberbullying. She has become an official ambassador for The Cybersmile Foundation. She often speaks openly about her personal experiences when it comes to being bullied throughout her childhood, college, and golf career.

On top of her Instagram account, Paige maintains an active blog where she explains her rise to success. It was after her successful junior career when Paige attended San Diego State University that she began to gain influence, she served as the captain of the women’s golf team in addition to being on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. This was also when her Instagram account started blowing up. After she graduated, she knew she had to give professional golf some serious effort.

On her blog and Instagram page, she dishes out physical fitness and health tips as well as golf strategy and swing tips. When people have criticized her for being so active on social media, she responded, “When it comes to the golf world, I know that there are people that might see me as a publicity gimmick,” she says. “I don’t think I am, and I know that If I was a guy and I had the same social following, people wouldn’t call it a gimmick. They’d say it was great.”

It was at the Dubai Desert Classic Golf Tournament in 2015 when promoters broke with convention by hiring her as the first woman to introduce the players and start the tournament. She was only 24 years old at the time, and no one seemed upset or concerned that she was the first woman to take the microphone in place of the usual European Tour man. It seemed like things were progressing in the golf industry and it was after this appearance, people started to take notice of her.

Her coming into view in Dubai has been the core of Spiranac’s story. As a player of humble status in the United States, invitations and the request to play in the Ladies European Tour events in 2015 and 2016 triggered global headlines. While she isn’t a consistent player on the LPGA or other professional circuits, she has played in professional golf tournaments and does so somewhat regularly. She partners with brands like Callaway, Descente, Topgolf, Golf Digest, and TheCHIVE on media projects.

She was proclaimed as a kind of social media sensation. An executive at the Emirates Golf Club commented, “The game must open up to ‘savvy, social-media types’ to attract new talent to the sport.” Paige isn’t afraid of the limelight, and by now, she’s having fun in front of millions. From hosting fun golf clinics to partnering with companies like Barstool Sports, Topgolf, and 18Birdies on exciting, innovative events, Paige is always looking for ways to add a little more spice to what some consider a boring sport.

Paige is also an outspoken proponent of women’s empowerment. She’s encouraging women to be themselves, fight for what they believe, and to embrace their true calling in life. As she plays in a male-dominated sport, these values are fundamental to Paige. One of the ways that Spiranac empowers women is by hosting events and workshops, supporting other incredible young women, and posting inspirational messages. Paige hopes to help women not only to discover the game of golf but also to feel empowered to achieve their wildest dreams.

Paige often has to defend her position in the sport, explaining, “People like to think I got where I am because of how I look or the clothes that I wear. That’s unfair to all of my accomplishments and me. I don’t know any other professional golfer that does as much community service as me. For people to comment: ‘You only show some cleavage, that’s why you have what you have,’ is uncalled for. That’s the treatment that we as women have to face every day, and I see it a lot in golf.”

Paige’s experience playing in Dubai proved only to be a sign of more difficulties and obstacles as her public profile and personal life overlapped. She was targeted and threatened on the very social media platforms that had given her popularity and celebrity. “I was harassed, and even my family was harassed,” Spiranac said. “I was receiving death threats, and people were invading my privacy, I was being blackmailed. This was going on while I was trying to be play golf.”

Why all the furor over her Instagram feed? “Because I look different than the average golfer, maybe? I dress differently than most golfers, and I don’t follow convention when it comes to what golf is supposed to be. I think it is a fantastic sport, but I believe there is a specific point of view that needs to change. I think it needs to become more inclusive, more forward-thinking. For me to speak out about that, it does bring on more hate, but it also starts a conversation, and I can create change.”

Paige has been interviewed about her thoughts on being a woman in professional golf and added, “I’m just trying to get others to feel more comfortable because I know for a long time I wasn’t alone feeling that way. That’s why people are not getting into golf. It’s such a male-dominated game, it has been around for so long. There are traditions, and people want their traditions to change. When a woman comes in wearing leggings instead of trousers, it is like the world is ending.”

Among her successes, Paige was selected to appear in the 2018 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, a huge honor for any athlete or model! Despite her triumphs, she still faces a lot of criticism, “I always felt like I never belonged and it is tough because I am a good player, I know what to do, but I still don’t like going to new clubs because I am worried someone will comment and say my skirt is too short or I don’t have a collar. Why should that matter?”

The feeling among her fellow and former pro golfers seems to be that she was given opportunities inconsistent with her talent. Spiranac is well aware of dismissive attitudes towards her in the upper ranks of women’s golf. “Life is great for them on tour, and that’s awesome, but we need to think about everyday golfers.” Paige’s passion for growing the game and stamping out discrimination and bullying is impressive. Whether she can prompt any transformation, she believes fundamental changes remain to be seen.

Paige grew up in an athletic and competitive family. Her father, Dan, was a member of the 1976 Pittsburgh Panthers national championship college football team, and her mother, Annette, was a professional ballerina. Her older sister Lexie also received a college athletic scholarship, competing on Stanford’s track team. Since she was little, Paige’s parents encouraged her to participate in sports. Paige was a sheltered child, as her parents decided to homeschool her from fourth grade, she didn’t have many friends her age growing up.

Paige loves her parents but confessed that there was a time that she was intimidated by them. From a young age, they instilled in Paige the notion of always aspiring to be your absolute best, and she took that advice to heart as she pushed herself to the limit instead of enjoying typical childhood experiences. The pressure of being a child gymnast exacerbated Paige’s self-esteem issues. Admittedly, it was this same pressure from her parents that gave her the drive and motivation to succeed and eventually become a professional golfer.

She is considered the “Kournikova of golf,” apart from this, she revealed another dark side of being too bold in the spotlight. She revealed that her ex-boyfriend shared some of her intimate photos with his friends. She received messages about her nude photos which spiraled Paige into a depression and made a statement through her podcast, Playing A Round:”People always warn you not to take this type of photos. The idea might sound fun and spontaneous, but is it worth the risk?”

Paige also has a YouTube channel, she posts weekly videos discussing anything from golf tips to popular culture, or even her personal goals in golf. It’s an inspiring and entertaining look into the world around professional golf. Her golf tips range from in-depth, professional lessons where she is aiming to help consistent golfers fine-tune individual parts of their game. Her video playlists go as far back as the introductory basics to golf, designed to be watched by beginners just getting into the game.

In her early golf career, Paige won five tournaments in seven tries on Colorado’s junior golf circuit, including the 2010 CWGA Junior Stroke Play. She earned a spot in the top-20 junior player rankings in the world, a top-5 college recruit, and a two-time West Region Player of the Year and first-team All-American as a member of the Future Collegians World Tour. Her efforts as a junior earned her a scholarship to the University of Arizona. If we remember correctly, she graduated from San Diego State University…so what happened?

After her freshman year she decided to leave the University of Arizona, so Paige transferred to San Diego State for her sophomore year, seeking a change of environment. Paige only competed in three events for the Arizona Wildcats during her time there, this was in the season of 2011-2012. The events included the Northwestern University Women’s Tournament and the Wildcat Invitational. Her best score of that season was a 73, which she reached twice during the women’s tournament.

It seems that her move was a change for the better as in her sophomore year, her game saw significant improvement. In the 2012–2013 season, she earned First-Team All-Mountain West honors, finished in fifth-place at the Cal Classic, at sixth at the Mountain West Championship, and nineteenth at the NCAA Central Regional Championships. At this time, we can already see Paige’s steady rise to prominence as a professional athlete, and her rapid social media fame soon garnered her a few endorsements with sponsors, like Callaway Golf.

Following her sophomore year, exciting things were expected for Paige and the Aztecs – but it was hard to top the fantastic success she had in her sophomore year. Her junior season in 2013–2014 resulted in Second-Team All-Mountain West Honors, together with a top ten finish at the Mountain West Championship. Her senior season with the Aztecs’ first Mountain West Conference Championship saw her ending her time at college, which she described as “one of the best times of my life.”

It was in her senior year, a website by the name of Total Frat Move, encouraged fans to check out Spiranac’s trick shot golf videos. Her following went up from 10,000 to over 100,000 in a matter of days. It was this explosion on social media that led to her being invited to play in the Omega Dubai Ladies Classic in 2015. She may have missed the cut, but the online attention resulted in many sponsorship deals. Golf Digest said that most of Spiranac’s fans are males in the age range of 15 to 30.

The Colorado Golf Association hosted its annual Colorado Women’s Golf Association Match Play Championship In July 2015. In a 35-hole title match against Brittany Fan of the University of Colorado Boulder, Paige finished nine holes under par. Her 2016 golfing season saw her finishing the season with $8,010 in winnings and another invitation to Dubai. Paige competed in the 2016 Colorado Women’s Open, placing ninth at one-under-par and earning $1,750. It’s interesting to think about winning that little in a professional sports tournament, but this was just the start of her career.

When we think of pro sports or amateur sports, we’re thinking either no prize money or several thousands of dollars. But Paige has currently signed deals with 18Birdies, Mizzen + Main, and Philip Stein Watches. She has also been featured in magazines such as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition as well as Golf Digest. Nowadays, she’s writing a monthly column in Golf magazine. Her golf career is still evolving, but we likely won’t see her on a golf tour again…

Paige Spiranac was recently speaking on her own podcast Playing A Round when she opened up about her experience of dating and how she was so desperate to be liked, she used to be okay with it all. Spiranac discussed how men would ask her out and would then suggest going to a driving range to hit some balls. What seemed like an incidental date suggestion at first then led to her basically giving the ‘date’ an hour-long free lesson to make him become a better player.

Fortunately, she is now engaged, so her dating woes are in the past, but that hasn’t stopped her reflecting on what were truly unpleasant dates. “There was another guy who did the same thing, he also wanted golf lessons, and he would text me like every day, he was charming and flirty with me.” Paige isn’t the first female golfer to be known for her attractive appearance. Jan Stephenson became one of golf’s most talked-about women after she was on the cover of Sport magazine in 1977…

Paige continued, “But the only time we would actually go on ‘dates’ – and I put that in air quotes – because they were golf lessons. I would be there just to give him lessons, and this happened for six months, he led me on and didn’t bother to tell me he had a girlfriend! After six months and all of those lessons, nothing came of that. He would say, ‘I just want to take it slow, but can you help me with my takeaway?'”

Paige doesn’t apologize for what she does or how she presents herself, and she doesn’t have to. But for many, the question remains: is she innovating golf? When we scroll through her Instagram account, her posts contain trick shots, golf-swing videos, perfectly posed fitness photos as well as seductive selfies. Essentially, her looks become the focus, rather than her golf game and talent. None of that seems new or innovative in a world where image and perception are everything.

The pro golfer, Juli Inkster, who has 31 professional wins and last year victoriously captained the U.S. Solheim Cup team, said of Paige’s cover to the Golf Channel, “This is where our society is right now. I don’t agree with it, but it’s their magazine, and they have the liberty to do what they want.” Other LPGA players did complain about it, and Paige Spiranac fans called them “jealous” because none of them landed the cover. It’s not that LPGA players are jealous. They’re frustrated – and rightfully so.

Since its founding in 1950, Golf Digest has had 23 issues with women on the cover. Nine of those were shared with other male pros, and three had non-professionals on them, including model Kate Upton and social media starlet Paulina Gretzky. Only eleven female professional golfers have had their own cover. The female golf world needs those willing to promote themselves on all levels. However, if golf media only focus on female golfers for their looks, it could affect what fans think is most important.

At events in which Paige participates, the golfer seems to be one of the most requested by the public, but not always for her quality on the course. Taking steps towards achieving equal coverage can only help change the dialogue about women’s golf, no matter how small the step is. Fame is fleeting, and Paige’s lasting influence on golf remains to be seen. We hope she qualifies for the LPGA tour and defies the notion that she’s ‘just another pretty face.’

Paige is making a good income, with most of her fortune coming from her dramatic rise to fame and social media endorsements. Her social media accounts are filled with glamorous photos, but life for Paige has never been as breezy as we might think. The radiant images she posts on social media don’t show her lifelong struggle with anxiety and bullying. From a young age, she started neglecting her own interests. “I always seek people’s approval, and I’m always never good enough,” Paige said.

Paige has taken a break from pro golf, as she claims the sport is rife with hypocrisy, opening up about her love-hate relationship with the competition. More recently, she has focused more on her Instagram page, admitting that she doesn’t like the elitist circles within pro golf. Paige had a short career as a professional, almost reaching the highest level. But now, she slams golf for being too exclusive, and not a place where people who don’t fit the traditional mold can feel comfortable.