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Late, but not too late

Posted July 15, 2007 11:00 pm

JANE MILLER

True to form, Tony Stewart's Nextel Cup season is starting to come to life.

The two-time series champion, always a slow starter, waited even longer than usual this year to get his first victory of the season.

Sunday in the USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, Stewart held off Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards for his second victory at the 1.5-mile oval in Joliet and his first since the Texas race last November - a span of 20 races.

Kevin Harvick, also a two-time winner here, and polesitter Casey Mears rounded out the top five.

"I'm actually more overjoyed than anything," said Stewart, who picked up his 30th career victory. "I'm finally glad that we've got the monkey off our back, at least for one week.

"This should have been the fourth or fifth time (to have won) this year, but whether it's been fuel mileage or just bad luck, we haven't been able to close one off. So today was a very textbook day in all reality for us."

The week didn't start that way. The crash at Daytona with teammate Denny Hamlin and subsequent exchange of comments followed Stewart to Illinois. The conflict came to a head Saturday when team owner Joe Gibbs made a special trip to the track to have a serious sit-down with both parties, which took place during final practice.

"It was a good meeting," Stewart said. "That's one of Joe Gibbs' strengths - motivating people. Denny and I talked, and today we worked better as teammates than we ever have before."

Pit strategy and pit stops also played a major part in the victory. Stewart ran the Busch race here Saturday and noticed new tires didn't seem to make a great deal of difference.

So when Jeff Green crashed 59 laps in to the race, just a handful of laps after most teams had made their first pit stops, Stewart opted to take fuel only and moved from 10th place to fourth.

"(Crew chief Greg Zipadelli) and I really got on the same page as far as some ideas we wanted to do," Stewart said. "We both had seen the same thing from yesterday's race and knew that track position was real important and knew if we could get the car driving good that new tires weren't as important as track position. The car really was good for the rest of the day."

Once Stewart got into the top three, he never slipped lower.

"Once we got in the top three, I felt like in my heart and my head that we had a shot at winning the race," he said. "The guys had awesome pit stops and got us track position when we needed it, especially the last one."

Kenseth made Stewart work for the victory. The two battled side by side for two laps with 25 to go until Kenseth almost crashed.

"I ran as hard as I could under Tony and I couldn't clear him," Kenseth said. "If I would've run into the corner 2 feet farther, I probably would have wrecked us both. You can only go as fast as your car can carry you, and I feel we got everything out of it today."

Edwards overcame some poor pit stops to finish third.

"There at the end we needed about 20 more laps for the tires to really work," he said.

Jimmie Johnson led 82 laps, second only to Stewart's 108, but blew a right rear tire and crashed heavily in turn three as his day ended on lap 223. He finished 37th.

"I thought the drive shaft came out of it, it was so violent," Johnson said of the explosion. "(The crash) knocked the wind out of me for a second and I hit my elbow on the seat. But when I turned around, I knew how fast I was going and I expected the impact to be a lot worse. It says a lot for the car and a lot for the soft walls to get a bump on my elbow and that's all."

Last year's winner, Jeff Gordon, came in ninth, just behind 2003 winner Ryan Newman.

The Nextel Cup circuit heads into its final weekend off, then moves on to Indianapolis for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in two weeks.

That track is a favorite of Stewart's, but he wasn't thinking about that Sunday night.

"I'm taking this momentum on vacation with me," Stewart said.

Jane Miller of the Peoria Journal Star can be reached at (309) 686-3207 or jmiller@pjstar.com.

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