Like many who come to Las Vegas, Tony Stewart arrived optimistic. Count Stewart among the many who leave Las Vegas disappointed.
In his 17th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, Stewart struggled with an ill-handling racecar in the Kobalt 400. When the checkered flag dropped, Stewart was 33rd. Adding insult to injury was a NASCAR pit road penalty that went against Stewart and the No. 14 Mobil 1/Bass Pro Shops team during a caution period on lap 84.
NASCAR dinged the No. 14 team of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) for an uncontrolled tire, which sent Stewart to the back of the field for the lap-87 restart. Problem was, the tire was under the control of the front tire carrier until the No. 38 car of David Gilliland knocked the tire out of his hand. In the eyes of NASCAR, the reason wasn’t important, only the result.
The silver lining to the pit stop was the massive wedge adjustment made to the right-rear and left-rear corner of the Mobil 1/Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet finally helped the car’s handling.
“Don’t know what you did there,” said Stewart after a handful of green flag laps, “but it feels like we have four tires of a totally different compound. Much better.”
Unfortunately, it was a case of too little, too late. Stewart was already two laps down, a deficit that could not be overcome.
TSC PR
