Stone Cold Steve Austin was the “toughest SOB” in WWE back in his day, but now he has a surprising new career.

The Hall of Famer, 59, has swapped the squared circle for side-by-side racing (SXS), and competes in the Valley Off Road Racing Association (VORRA).

Steve Austin was famous for his rivalry with The Rock but now has a new careerWWE

SXS racing sees drivers go head-to-head in off-road competition, using UTVs across different terrain.

From racing on dirt tracks to racing through muddy forests or even on sandy terrain, championships take advantage of the wide off-road capabilities of the vehicles.

Few competitions, then, would be more suited to a man nicknamed the “Texas Rattlesnake” during his esteemed professional wrestling career.

He races in his home state of Nevada, and was named VORRA’s rookie of the year after impressing from the get-go.

“I found racing side-by-side, and I’ve been doing it for about a year and a half. I’ve absolutely fallen in love with it,” Stone Cold revealed during a recent appearance on the Too Much Access series.

“It’s just so different from anything I’ve ever done because I’ve been driving recreationally, but when you start racing and pushing the machine to its limits and pushing yourself to your limits – which you don’t know that you have yet because you’ve never driven at 100 per cent – it takes a while to learn how to do that.”

There’s no doubt that SXS racing has fuelled Stone Cold’s competitive juices once more. So much so, that he even compared learning to drive competitively to learning to wrestle.

“I equate it with when I first started wrestling, I sucked, and when I first started driving these things, I won’t say I sucked, but I had a lot to learn, and the biggest mistake you make in pro wrestling is trying to do everything too fast,” he said.

“In racing, they’ll tell you, and it didn’t make sense to me until I ran a few races, in order to drive fast, you must first learn to drive slow, and I couldn’t believe it took me this long to find the sport that I found.”

Back in his heyday, Stone Cold shared great rivalries with The Rock, Triple H and The Undertaker.

Stone Cold had a famous rivalry with The Rock in WWEWWE.com

Now, he finds himself in competition with other drivers from across the US and his arch-rivals on the track are not Hollywood megastars or hooded demons, as they were in the ring.

One, in fact, is a 14-year-old girl.

“At 58 last year, I was the rookie of the year in the federation. I was also the rookie of the year when I started my wrestling career in 1990. So I think I was the oldest f***ing rookie to ever win that award,” said Austin, laughing.

“I’m competing against, there’s people my age, but there’s also people that are half my age.

“One of my arch rivals last year was a 14-year-old girl. She can drive her a** off. So when you’re born out there and you get that DNA in you, them kids are fast. It’s fun, it’s competitive, it gives me something to do.”

These days, Stone Cold sounds far more at home behind the wheel of his UTV, rather than in the wrestling ring.

But he has recently addressed the idea of an appearance at WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, Nevada – which happens to be his home state.

Steve Austin’s surprising new career sees him compete in SXS racingA&E

“I said something about it this year just because it’s 400 miles down the road. I do spend several trips a year in Las Vegas,” he admitted.

“So, to think that WWE’s biggest signature pay-per-view event is 400 miles away, in a state that I live in, that I’m going to be there, make a couple of appearances, I’ll be promoting my beer if they reached out and said, ‘Hey, maybe you want to do something?’ I’d be happy to do it as long as it makes sense.”