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Sprint Cup
CUP: Stewart And Martinsville Magic
Martinsville Chase run ignited Tony Stewart’s championship dash last year…
Tony Stewart celebrates with a victory lap after winning at Martinsville last fall. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Defending Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart has been a non-entity in this year’s Chase, with mostly mediocre finishes and no victories.
Entering Sunday’s Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Stewart is seventh in points, 47 behind leader Brad Keselowski, and retains only a glimmer of a chance to repeat last year’s championship.
A return to Martinsville, however, will certainly stir memories of the dynamic end-of-season charge that won the title for Stewart last season. He won at Martinsville by outgunning Jimmie Johnson in a last-lap scramble, scored again the next week at Texas, then won the season’s curtain-closer at Homestead to win the championship in a tie-breaker over Carl Edwards.
It was one of the most remarkable late-season victory parades in NASCAR history.
Stewart said his late-race pass of Johnson – on the outside – to win at Martinsville was memorable.
“There are two places where when you take the lead, you absolutely know it,” he said. “It’s Bristol and Martinsville. To pass Jimmie Johnson on the outside with two laps to go and to watch the crowd on the backstretch, then watch them on the frontstretch when we cleared him, you swear people are going to fall onto the racetrack.
“You feel that energy. You sense that. It’s not that you need extra motivation, but it’s cool to know you have that kind of support. It’s just that extra drive that gets you the rest of the way that last lap. It’s cool.”
Stewart rebounded from a deficit to win last fall’s race at Martinsville after almost being lapped by perennial Martinsville standout Denny Hamlin. It was a wild race day in which Stewart could have been sidelined by any number of encounters.
“I was reminded by my crew chief that morning, I was reminded by my spotter that morning, and I was reminded before the race by many crew members to not be so nice, which I know sounds odd of me,” Stewart said. “But that still meant racing guys with respect. You race these guys with respect and they’re going to race you back with respect.
“Could Jimmie (Johnson) just hauled it off in the corner, blown the corner to try to take us down? Absolutely. He could have done that to anybody. He didn’t do that to us. We have that level of respect.
“At one point in the race, I messed up and got underneath the 43 car (AJ Allmendinger), probably the big bonehead move of my race. I got underneath him in a spot where he was already coming down. I screwed up, he got sideways.
“I just checked up and let him have his spot back. I never saw anybody give anybody a spot back in a situation like that. It wasn’t his fault. I think later after that I got back by the 43 car, and, instead of dumping me like the other guys were doing to each other, I think he knew I gave him that spot back because he knew I made a mistake. It just shows the respect that some guys did have for each other even though there was a lot of disrespect amongst a lot of guys out there.”
Stewart said there always is temptation to spin drivers at Martinsville, where the practice is fall-over easy.
“I used to be as guilty of it and as bad as anybody about taking a cheap shot at guys early,” he said. “But you realize that it’s not about the two guys driving the cars out there as much as there’s a bunch of crew guys who spend a lot of hours and put a lot of heart and soul into what we have as a product each week with these race cars, and there’s a car owner who spends a lot of money. I think at times we all forget about that. You let a guy get his butt kicked once or twice, he’ll quit doing stupid stuff like that.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
Entering Sunday’s Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Stewart is seventh in points, 47 behind leader Brad Keselowski, and retains only a glimmer of a chance to repeat last year’s championship.
A return to Martinsville, however, will certainly stir memories of the dynamic end-of-season charge that won the title for Stewart last season. He won at Martinsville by outgunning Jimmie Johnson in a last-lap scramble, scored again the next week at Texas, then won the season’s curtain-closer at Homestead to win the championship in a tie-breaker over Carl Edwards.
It was one of the most remarkable late-season victory parades in NASCAR history.
Stewart said his late-race pass of Johnson – on the outside – to win at Martinsville was memorable.
“There are two places where when you take the lead, you absolutely know it,” he said. “It’s Bristol and Martinsville. To pass Jimmie Johnson on the outside with two laps to go and to watch the crowd on the backstretch, then watch them on the frontstretch when we cleared him, you swear people are going to fall onto the racetrack.
“You feel that energy. You sense that. It’s not that you need extra motivation, but it’s cool to know you have that kind of support. It’s just that extra drive that gets you the rest of the way that last lap. It’s cool.”
Stewart rebounded from a deficit to win last fall’s race at Martinsville after almost being lapped by perennial Martinsville standout Denny Hamlin. It was a wild race day in which Stewart could have been sidelined by any number of encounters.
“I was reminded by my crew chief that morning, I was reminded by my spotter that morning, and I was reminded before the race by many crew members to not be so nice, which I know sounds odd of me,” Stewart said. “But that still meant racing guys with respect. You race these guys with respect and they’re going to race you back with respect.
“Could Jimmie (Johnson) just hauled it off in the corner, blown the corner to try to take us down? Absolutely. He could have done that to anybody. He didn’t do that to us. We have that level of respect.
“At one point in the race, I messed up and got underneath the 43 car (AJ Allmendinger), probably the big bonehead move of my race. I got underneath him in a spot where he was already coming down. I screwed up, he got sideways.
“I just checked up and let him have his spot back. I never saw anybody give anybody a spot back in a situation like that. It wasn’t his fault. I think later after that I got back by the 43 car, and, instead of dumping me like the other guys were doing to each other, I think he knew I gave him that spot back because he knew I made a mistake. It just shows the respect that some guys did have for each other even though there was a lot of disrespect amongst a lot of guys out there.”
Stewart said there always is temptation to spin drivers at Martinsville, where the practice is fall-over easy.
“I used to be as guilty of it and as bad as anybody about taking a cheap shot at guys early,” he said. “But you realize that it’s not about the two guys driving the cars out there as much as there’s a bunch of crew guys who spend a lot of hours and put a lot of heart and soul into what we have as a product each week with these race cars, and there’s a car owner who spends a lot of money. I think at times we all forget about that. You let a guy get his butt kicked once or twice, he’ll quit doing stupid stuff like that.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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