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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: SHR Hoping To Smoke Field
Tony Stewart heads to Bristol eighth in points...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted March 18, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Tony Stewart has one victory in 22 starts at Bristol and has led 1,352 laps, second among active drivers. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
On balance, it’s been a good but not great season for driver Tony Stewart and only an OK one for team co-owner Tony Stewart so far in 2010. But the start of short-track season might just be the ticket for the two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion and the entire Stewart-Haas Racing organization to elevate its game.

This weekend, the Sprint Cup traveling circus heads to Bristol Motor Speedway for Sunday’s Food City 500, and the SHR gang is feeling pretty good about their chances for a couple of strong finishes by Stewart and teammate Ryan Newman.

Although Stewart has just one victory in 22 starts at the high-banked, 0.533-mile Bristol oval, he almost always runs well here, as witnessed by his 1,352 laps led. That’s second among active drivers to only Jeff Gordon. So Stewart has legitimate cause for optimism this weekend.

That is, if he can stay out of trouble, which often is easier said than done.

“Bristol is one of those places where you’ve got to have everything kind of go your way,” said Stewart. “If you have one hiccup, it’s hard to recover from it. We’ve only won one race there and we’ve kind of been all over the board. It’s been feast or famine for us. It’s like if you have one problem in the first half of the day, it’s hard to recover from it. It makes for a very long day. We’ve had more long days than good days.”

The spring Bristol race has been particularly vexing for Stewart. In 2006, he led 245 laps, but fell to 12th when the handling went away at the end. The following March, Stewart led 257 of the first 289 laps before a fuel pump cable broke, dropping him to 35th. And just two years ago, he led 267 laps of the Food City 500 before a late-race crash with Kevin Harvick dropped him to 14th.

Still, none of those misfortunes has damped Stewart’s enthusiasm for racing at Bristol, especially since the track was repaved in 2007 and the graduated banking was installed in the corners.

“Ever since they repaved the place and added to two true grooves, it’s made it racier. We have true side-by-side racing, now,” said Stewart. “Drivers can make their way through the pack without having to wreck each other while they’re doing it.”

And that’s a dramatic change from the Bristol of old.

“Before, guys got wrecked who weren’t even involved in what was going on, a lot of times, because you’d go to get stopped and somebody behind you wouldn’t get slowed down enough, and you’d get picked up and turned around and your day was ruined,” said Stewart. “Now, you’ve got a lot more cars finishing the race. You’ve got a lot more cars finishing on the lead lap. And it’s more exciting because of that. The drivers can pass, now. It’s not just sit there and follow the leader and when you finally run out of patience, you nudge the guy out of the way. You still can do that, but at least you can nudge a guy without wrecking him.”

As for Stewart’s teammate Newman, the Purdue engineering grad brought his No. 39 SHR Chevrolet home in the top 10 in both Bristol races last year, and figures to do likewise this time around.

“I don’t know if it was Bristol or if it was just short tracks, in general, for the No. 39 team last year, but that was where we really seemed to excel,” said Newman, who finished seventh or better in four of the last five Bristol races. “We had a really good short-track program from the get-go, and when we finished seventh at Bristol last March, I think that gave us some momentum that we really needed. I really like Bristol, and I always have. Then, you add the fact that Bristol is one of (crew chief) Tony Gibson’s favorite racetracks, and I think you saw that my driving style and the package Gibson put underneath me really worked well for us.”

Way back in 2003, in just his second year as a Cup driver, Newman lapped the Bristol track in just 14.908 seconds, an average speed of 128.709 miles per hour. To this day, he’s the only Cup driver to break the 15-second barrier at Bristol.

No wonder he’s looking forward to going back.

“Last year, when we went to Bristol in March, it was our first time together there as a team,” Newman said. “With the notes we have now from a year ago, I’m even more excited to be going back. We’ve seen improvements in our race cars and in our race packages each race this year, although our results don’t reflect that. So, I’m looking forward to seeing how we have improved our already good short-track program.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEEDtv.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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