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CUP: Stewart Is California Dreamin’
Written by: Tom Jensen   
10/08/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
Tony Stewart scored his fourth win of the season and his second at Kansas Speedway last Sunday. (Photo: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

In case you missed it last Sunday, Tony Stewart sent a rather convincing message to the NASCAR Sprint Cup field with his victory in the Price Chopper 400. And that message was about as basic as it gets: “I’m back.”

Stewart dominated NASCAR’s regular season, leading the Sprint Cup points for the entire second half of the 26-race stretch. But once he had secured a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the performance of his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Chevrolet tailed off noticeably.

He ended NASCAR’s regular season with four straight finishes outside the top 10, the same number of non-top-10s he posted in the first 22 races. And when he began the Chase with finishes of 14th and ninth, the whispers started that maybe Stewart had peaked too soon.

Two races into the Chase, and Stewart was already 106 points back of leader Mark Martin and 96 points behind three-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson. Had his first title run with SHR already fallen hopelessly behind almost before it began?

Not after Kansas.

Stewart’s victory at Kansas moved him to fourth in points, now just 67 behind Martin and 49 back of Johnson. It also was his
37th Sprint Cup victory, tying him with 1970 Sprint Cup champion Bobby Isaac for 18th on the all-time victory list in NASCAR’s top division.

The challenge this weekend at Auto Club Speedway is simple: Keep the points moving in the right direction against a very tough and closely matched field. And he has to do it at a track where he has never won a Sprint Cup race, one of only three in that category with Las Vegas and Darlington.

With three races already in the books for the 2009 Chase, each ensuing race becomes a little more critical. Right now, six drivers are within 100 points of the lead, which means Stewart has the potential to keep moving up — or quickly fall back — in any given race.

“It just shows that you’re going to have to be on for 10 weeks to win this thing,” said Stewart, who finished eighth here in February. “And if you have a bad day, there’s going to be guys that are going to capitalize on it.”

Avoiding bad days, of course, will be critical for the Chasers, especially with so many drivers so close in points. To that end, Stewart said his mini-slump might actually have been helpful
for the team, because they got battle-hardened in the art and science of coming back from in-race adversity.

“They weren’t days that we wanted, but at the end of the day, no matter what the circumstance that got us behind, we were able to rebound from it,” said Stewart. “We weren’t able to get all the way up to where we wanted, but we were able to make gains on it at the end and salvage a better finish than where we were. Whatever the scenarios were, we were able to overcome part of it. Obviously the outcomes weren’t what we wanted, but the fact is, it just shows this team doesn’t have any quit in them, and that’s what it’s going to take to get back on top.”

And so it’s off to Southern California to do it all again and hope to keep gaining on the leaders.

“Darian (Grubb, crew chief) and I were still just learning each other going into California in the spring,” said Stewart. “So going around this time, we obviously know each other better. We’ve had time to make mistakes and make decisions that worked for me, and we’ve learned the feel that I like together, and that’s something that will definitely help us for this week. I’m anticipating California a lot more this time than in the spring.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of ?Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,? and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to



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