Drivers start preparing for retirement early in career

If Tony Stewart was to walk away from racing tomorrow, the NASCAR star would not be without job options. Depending on his mood that day, he could wake up and do a number of things.

Without so much as submitting a resume, he could spend days in test kitchens perfecting barbeque sauce and beef jerky recipes, drive a semi-truck if he could obey the speed limit or perhaps fine tune RC cars.

And that is just a short list.

Tony Stewart loves the fact he will be in racing after he retires thanks to Eldora Speedway.

Since becoming a professional race car driver more than a decade ago, the driver has acquired several business entities. Stewart has created a diverse enterprise that will have him financial healthy and content for years to come after he retires from racing.

Call it future planning, a nest egg, or a racers' IRA. Most drivers early in their careers insulate themselves with a variety of business ventures and various investments. Knowing that retirement is inevitable, though iron man Mark Martin is setting a higher standard of longevity these days, drivers are aware of their career's expiration date.

Stewart's laundry list of side jobs and interests is vast to say the least.

In addition to the aforementioned projects and typical NASCAR driver merchandising, Stewart also owns his own public relations company, a storied race track in Ohio, a championship winning sprint car operation located in his home state of Indiana as well as part ownership in his Cup Series team, Stewart-Haas Racing, and two other race tracks, one in Kentucky and the other in Illinois.

"The trucking company, RC company and race tracks and teams are the biggest part f it, but right here is where I will spend most of my time," said Stewart, competing in a recent sprint car race at his track, Eldora Speedway. "I hope to have my Cup teams a long time so I'd like to be here Saturday nights and at the Cup race on Sundays."

Determining where to invest drivers' earnings and what to acquire depends on a variety of factors. Some are personality driven while others depend on experts for guidance.

For Stewart, part was, and continues to be, based on personal interest, but most of the decisions are made according to good business sense.

"In our situation we've always had Brett Fruit from Harvard Business School, so we've got somebody that has a good business mind and we are not just making decisions off passion or interest," Stewart said. "It has to make sense from the business perspective."

Because drivers understand that when it comes to the race track, nothing for the future is guaranteed.

"The day is going to come when I want to do something different or I'm going to be forced into doing something different," Stewart said. "We want to be able to have or be partners in things we are interested in, but also things that makes sense after our driving careers are over."

Carl Edwards turned his love of music into an investment with Back 40 Records.

Jeff Gordon's choice investment has always been car dealerships, Hendrick dealerships that he has worked in as part of his contract negotiations with his team owner Rick Hendrick.

"But the biggest investment I have is in my race team, in the No.24 and No.48 teams at Hendrick Motorsports and a smaller percentage of Hendrick Motorsports as a whole," Gordon explained.

And like Stewart, Gordon has a business mind -- stepfather John Bickford, who helps run his affairs which also include real estate properties around the country.

That said, Gordon, one of the most in-demand drivers of the sport, said he doesn't have a lot of time to be hands on with his side jobs because he is a husband, a father and a racer.

"Yeah, so I feel like those are things for my future. And those are things that I really look forward to in that next chapter in my life to really get involved in, while there's going to be a day that I'm going to retire as a race car driver. I feel like it's going to be a time to start a whole other adventure and I'm not going to be near as good at any of those things, I know, because I've been spending all my time driving the race car."

Then again, sometimes the unbelievably fruitful present doesn't always allow drivers to prepare for the future.

"You never realize that being a race car driver and having the success that I've had at this level would ever even happen. If I did, it is kind of hard to plan ahead," Gordon said. "But I have done the best that I could in that sense and got myself certainly aligned with a great organization, a great person in Rick Hendrick. And I feel like there's a great opportunity there for me whenever [retirement] comes, hopefully not any time soon."

The four-time champion hopes retirement isn't nearing because when you're having the season Gordon is having, the thought of stepping away from the car rarely enters your mind.

"We are so competitive and a shot at the championship only inspires me to keep driving longer and longer," he said.

"But one of my last contract negotiations, which was a while ago because I signed a lifetime contract, in that I was able to get equity in not only my team, the 48 team and a small percentage of Hendrick. So that certainly is where I'm banking my future, is in Hendrick Motorsports," Gordon said. "And when I'm not a driver, I hope that I can add value to the organization with my experience to only keep the great success going at Hendrick Motorsports."

Listening to Gordon and Stewart discuss retirement plans is natural, both are approaching the big 4-0, but Denny Hamlin? He's only 28. Nevertheless, he is just as concerned with financial security and future planning.

Stewart certainly has fun with Tony Stewart Original, his food line, and Gordon even dabbled in men's fragrances, but Hamlin recently opened a car wash near his hometown in Virginia and is in the process of designing a nightclub in Charlotte, N.C., proving that not all drivers' side jobs have to be serious in nature or require or an army-sized staff and Ivy League managers to make them a success.

Denny Hamlin owns two car wash locations around his hometown in Virginia.

"I have a few projects I'm working on. I have a restaurant and club opening in three to four months," Hamlin said. "So I'm excited about that. It's called Butter and it's going to be at the N.C. Music Factory so that's going to be an exciting project for us. Hopefully it will challenge Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. in that rank."

Earnhardt may have set the trend last year when the driver opened Whisky River -- his night club in Charlotte's Downtown that has a western yet hip-hop atmosphere.

Hamlin's idea came from an existing New York club.

"The owner approached me with an investment opportunity and I've always aspired to be a restaurant club owner. I've never wanted to be the guy that people call all the time saying they need to get in, but I've always wanted to be involved in the inside look," Hamlin said. "The stereo system to how it's run to the table service -- I've always been kind of into that and now it's my opportunity to get ownership into it."

And washing cars?

"I wasn't interested until I went there for the first time," he said referring to his two locations: Denny Hamlin's Speed Wash located in the Richmond, Va.'s, suburb of Midlothian, and his second location 68 miles north in the town of Fredericksburg. "I went to the car wash [in Midlothian] for the first time before I owned it. I liked the place, it was right there in my hometown and I always used it. I just thought it would be a good, unique opportunity to put my name on something in the community."

Drivers like Carl Edwards form their mini-empires through advice from mentors and industry experts. Some of the counseling is super sophisticated while others choose to keep it fairly simple.

"Someone once told me it's the three g's: guns, ground and gold. Those are the best investments," Edwards said. "I don't have any gold, but I've got some farm land in Missouri and that's been a lot of fun. Missouri is a beautiful place and I don't know how many acres total I've got, but I've got a few places that add up to quite a bit."

In addition to that, Edwards has his own record label company, Back 40 Records.

"And somehow I keep acquiring airplanes, but those just use money -- they don't make any money. I'm just trying to save all I can and still have a little bit of fun," Edwards said.

Sounds like wise advice, but what about the timid investors looking for the sure thing or fearful of parting with their money though to some it may seem they have a dollar tree growing in their backyard.

"I'm probably more conservative than most," said three-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson. "I feel that I take a lot of risk in my day-to-day job in life. There is not really a need to risk the financial aspect of it."

Johnson's preferred investment deals are in real estate.

The smile says it all. Tony Stewart has all kinds of off-the-track business ventures.

"I'm not a big fan of the stock market and getting caught up in that," he said. "There are ways you can generate a lot of wealth, but at the same time a lot of people are beat up pretty bad from what's gone on the last six or eight months. I'm really conservative. I have a great team of people who work with me that evaluate the opportunities that come in.

"We've made some moves on things. They primarily seem to be real-estate based. That's just really the safest. I like to have something that I own and if everything goes bad, I can go over there and there's my piece of dirt and a building. There's something there."

At the end of the day, Stewart said it just depends on what you want to do when you retire. Do you want to be mixing martinis behind a bar on a Saturday night or atop a backhoe digging earth for a new motorsports park in Alabama like Earnhardt?

"Well, it's still on paper. I don't think they've hit earth yet," Earnhardt said. "I guess they're still trying to pull together investments and investors, and that has obviously slowed down for everybody. So it's still on a rail, just taking a little longer to get there, I guess."

For Stewart, he has ownership in a tavern and is said to own nearly a half block of homes in his boyhood neighborhood in Columbus, Ind., but a race track is still where you'll find him when he's old and grey, still trying to give the youngsters hell.

"Being a part of racing has been a huge part of how I've got to where I am," Stewart said. "When opportunities like owning Eldora Speedway came along, you cherish that opportunity and realize 'hey I don't ever have to get away from racing now. I own one of the greatest facilities in the country.' I'm fortunate to have that. It's very gratifying knowing I have that facility when my racing career is over."