Tony Stewart: The Best Laid Plans…

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In: NASCAR Cup Series News

Tony Stewart hovered in and around the top-10 throughout much of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. But when a late-race bid for track position didn’t work out as planned, Stewart finished 20th.

The result was not indicative of the effort. Stewart qualified sixth on Friday in his No. 14 Code 3 Associates/Mobil 1 Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), and then Saturday saw two solid practice sessions that had Stewart and his racecar dialed in for 500 laps around Martinsville’s .526-mile oval on Sunday.

Stewart held steady in the top-10 through the race’s first 100 laps. He dropped to 15th as his car was tight early in a run, where it lacked the forward bite necessary to power off the track’s scant, 11 degrees of banking. But Stewart and crew chief Chad Johnston kept adjusting the car’s handling to where they were 10th by the race’s halfway mark.

Stewart again dipped in the running order, all the way to 16th, but with 60 laps to go he had clawed his way up to 11th and was within striking range of the top-10.  

But when the caution flag waved for debris on lap 461, Stewart and Johnston had a decision to make – stay out and pick up valuable track position or pit for four tires and fuel in a bid to make a late-race charge.

With only 19 laps of green-flag racing on their tires, Stewart and Johnston rolled the dice and stayed out. They gained track position, but everyone else on the lead lap pitted for tires. While Stewart restarted in first place, he had his work cut out holding off those behind him in the race’s final 34 laps.

But with 16 caution periods already on the day, Stewart and Johnston believed another caution was inevitable, which would force everyone back to pit road anyway. By that time, at least in theory, Stewart’s track position would be strong, and with another solid pit stop by the Code 3 Associates/Mobil 1 crew, Stewart would rejoin the field among the same drivers he had been racing.

Stewart led the field to green on the lap-467 restart and paced the field for a total of eight laps before those with fresher tires began motoring past him. Stewart gamely made each driver work for the position, but the caution Stewart and Johnston had been banking on never materialized. The race went green to the finish and Stewart dropped to 20th by the time the checkered flag waved.

TSC PR

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