No. 14 Nature’s Bakery/Mobil 1 Chevrolet driver Tony Stewart finished 13th in Sunday’s Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway, but the strong run wasn’t enough to keep the three-time champion in contention for NASCAR’s 2016 Chase for the Sprint Cup.
“We gave it 110 percent today,” said Stewart, who told the team on the radio that missing the Chase shouldn’t change the way it looks at the 2016 season. “We’ve had a really good year, and we won’t let this get us down. There’s lots of racing left this season.”
Stewart entered Sunday’s race ranked 15th in the Round of 16, 11 points out of the final transfer position. The Dover finish bumped him up to 13th but still 11 points out of the all-important 12th place. Only the top 12 drivers advance to the three-race Round of 12 that begins this weekend at the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. Stewart, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray and Chris Buescher were the Chase drivers who failed to advance.
Stewart arrived in Dover for the third and final race of the Round of 16 knowing he had a tough task to qualify for the Round of 12. He started 15th on the high concrete banks after rain cancelled qualifying on Friday and NASCAR set Sunday’s field per the rulebook. It didn’t take long for the Monster Mile to rear its ugly head Sunday, as Stewart held his position in the running order but reported the track “felt like a skating rink.” At the 100-lap mark, racing in 19th, he told the crew “the back of the car is real good; we just need to figure out how to make this thing cut.”
Stewart restarted the race in 17th on lap 108 and began turning good lap times on the long, green-flag run. He climbed to 13th despite a brush with the wall on lap 170. A yellow flag a few laps later allowed the No. 14 crew to make minor body repairs under caution and return Stewart to the track still on the lead lap. Not only was he becoming a factor in the race by moving to 13th place, but Stewart was 13th in points, just eight points out of the Chase, at the race’s halfway mark.
Stewart raced around 13th but couldn’t keep up with the blistering pace set by leader Jimmie Johnson, who lapped the No. 14 on lap 270. Stewart made a green-flag stop a few laps later and remained in the hunt to earn the free pass. With 85 laps remaining, Stewart began turning better laps times, even posting the fastest lap on the track on lap 321. At the time, as Stewart raced in 13th, only nine cars ran on the lead lap.
With 44 laps to go and only five cars on the lead lap, the No. 14 team pitted Stewart early in the hope he would be able to take advantage of faster tires and a timely caution in the closing laps. But the caution never came, and Stewart took the checkered in 13th place.
“I’m pretty excited about our day,” Stewart said. “We were much better than we were yesterday. Really proud of our team. We kept making it better all day. That is as good as we had.”
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