NASCAR driver Tony Stewart on Thursday made the media rounds promoting Mobil 1's new "Smoke is the Bandit" web series, which featured Stewart and several other personalities from the sport recreating scenes from "Smokey and the Bandit." Stewart wears a cowboy hat and fake mustache to portray Burt Reynolds' character in the film. He said Mobil 1, which is a sponsor of Stewart-Haas Racing, approached him and asked him to name his favorite movie. After replying with "Smokey and the Bandit," Stewart said Mobil 1 officials "decided to do a spoof off of that" with a six-episode web series. Stewart: "We had fun doing this and we definitely didn't take it too serious." ESPN's Nicole Briscoe appears in the series playing Sally Field's character, and she told Stewart, "I'm not sure I'm ever going to live down what's about to be released. I will say this: That shooting 'Smoke is the Bandit' last May was probably the most embarrassingly fun day of my adult professional life." Stewart responded, "Did you see what I was wearing?" He said of the big, fake mustache he had to wear, "There's going to be a lot of references to adult films with me starring in them after that" ("NASCAR Now," ESPN2, 3/7). Stewart said Mobil 1 has been a "great partner for years with Stewart-Haas Racing and they always try to find ways to do stuff that's fun with us" ("NASCAR Race Hub," FS1, 3/6). He added some "of our buddies from the media side in NASCAR helped out" and made appearances in the series ("NASCAR America," NBCSN, 3/6).
