Tony Stewart: Delaware Destroyer - Speedway Digest

Back in the day, Tony Stewart gave George Thorogood a run for his money as the real Delaware Destroyer.

Wilmington, Del., native Thorogood, and his band, the Delaware Destroyers, pumped out such hits as “Bad to the Bone” and a resounding cover of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” en route to 16 studio albums, two of which went Platinum while six more went Gold.

But in the early 2000s, it was Stewart who seemed to be the real Delaware Destroyer, as he was bad to the bone at Dover (Del.) International Speedway.

From the time Stewart rolled around the high-banked, 1-mile oval as a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie in 1999 and then on through the 2004 season, his worst finish was 11^th. And during that span, Stewart scored two wins – back-to-back, no less, in 2000 – and notched eight top-fives and 11 top-10s in 12 starts, all while leading a whopping 1,066 laps, or 22.2 percent of the 4,800 laps available. If Stewart were asked the question, “Who Do You Love?” his answer would be “Dover.”

Then, like Austin Powers, he somehow lost his mojo at Dover, for since 2005, Stewart has only led six laps and has just three top-10s with a best finish of second in June 2009.

Now “Delaware Destroyer” takes on new meaning, for the aptly named “Monster Mile” could potentially destroy Stewart’s championship chances if he has a run like he did when the series last visited Dover in June, where he started 29^th and finished 69 laps down in 25^th after getting caught up in a 12-car accident on lap 10 of the 400-lap race.

But if there ever was a team that could rally from such a performance, it’s Stewart and the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 squad of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), for they’ve been rallying all season.

After enduring four straight late-summer finishes of 19^th or worse, Stewart has rattled off three straight top-10s. A strong fourth-place finish at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway secured Stewart’s spot in the top-10 and seeded him third in the 12-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Stewart earned a sixth-place finish in the Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., and followed it up with a solid seventh-place finish last Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.

Now, Dover looms again. It’s the third race of the Chase, and Stewart enters it with a good bit of trepidation. But his team’s uncanny ability to rally, as demonstrated in recent weeks and last year when they won the Sprint Cup championship from the ninth Chase seed, has made them battle-tested in the face of adversity.

As the three-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion (2002, 2005 and 2011), Stewart knows that titles are hard-earned, and with 14 years of Sprint Cup experience in his pocket, he fully expects Dover to test the resolve of him and his race team. But for a team that’s been tested all season long, it’s just another performance review.

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