August 11, 2009
By Ron Felix
Photo Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR
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Third Checkered Flag For Stewart
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On Monday, Tony Stewart held off Marcos Ambrose for his third victory of the 2009 season in a rain-delayed event at Watkins Glen International. Stewart led a race high 34 laps to win his fifth in the eight races that he has run at the Glen.
It also was Stewart's 36 victory in 378 career races.
"It's awesome, I mean, I think the bigger honor was last year when we got inducted into one of the drivers of the decade here, Said Stewart, "That's something that means a lot to me. This place has just been good to us. It's a track we've had a lot of success at. It's neat to be a guy that's won the most races here in the series.
"But there's something about this place that we've been really good. I know what fuel I need when we get here. That's a good thing. It's just a matter of how do you get to it and how do you get it right? That's where Darian (Crew Chief Grubb) comes in. He did an awesome job all weekend of not letting me get lax on where we were at. We were constantly pushing, tried a couple different packages. Having a crew chief like him that kept pushing it, that gave us the opportunity."
Stewart's lead in the NASCAR point standing is 260 over second place Jimmie Johnson and 342 over Jeff Gordon. Four races remain before the Chase for the Championship begins.
Stewart's victory was the 12th win for Team Chevy thus far this season and extended Chevrolet's lead in the Manufacturers' Cup standings.
Ambrose held onto the second spot and was not at all unhappy with the runnerup finish.
It was just a great weekend for us," said Ambrose. "We didn't quite have enough to get Tony (Stewart) there at the end. I threw everything I could at him. We got off strategy for some run the way the race rolled for us. We got stuck. We got stuck in the back of the pack and had to make a gamble. We came in and splashed off fuel -- didn't put tires on it.
"I think that was the difference between first and second here this afternoon, was just the extra laps I did on my tires, probably eight or 10 more laps than Tony. I could close in on him, I could see him starting to make a few little mistakes, locking tires, but not enough for me to catch him."
Carl Edwards finished in the third position.
Last year's winner,Kyle Busch, fought an ill-handling car all day but drove his Toyota into fourth place.
“That wore me out right there," said an exhausted Busch. "I could barely hang on to fourth. It was great for all the M&M’s team guys. They did a great job this weekend. We fought hard. It was three times harder than I had to drive here last year, and last year we spanked them.”
Greg Biffle had his best run at the Glen, finishing fifth followed by Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch, rookie Max Papis, Clint Bowyer and Denny Hamlin to round out the top ten.
There was a huge crash on lap 62. Kasey Kahne and Sam Hornish Jr. were running side-by-side through turns ten and eleven when Kahne got loose and clobbered Hornish. Hornish crashed hard into the tire barrier on the left side of the track. Hornish careened back onto the track directly in front of the oncoming Jeff Gordon. Gordon and Hornish collided and Jeff Burton, unable to miss the wreck, plowed into Hornish. It was a horrific site but all drivers involved were taken to the infield care center, checked and released.
"It's just not what I needed you know," said Gordon. "You take three or four steps forward up to this point, and you take a hit like that and you take a couple steps backwards. So yeah, it was a heavy impact. I'm just glad Sam (Hornish) is all right. I saw him get wide there off the carousel and I knew he was going to hit the tire barrier and ricochet off and I was just hoping I'd get by him before he got out to me and man, I nailed him and spun him around like a top and my car just came to a halt and it really took a toll on my back again. So I hate that.
“We didn't have a great weekend going and the car wasn't perfect, but we were playing out the strategy and got caught up in that first incident. It's just one of those days. But we were going to ride it out and make something out of it. I think Steve Letarte had some tricks up his sleeve with the pit strategy. Just wrong place, wrong time."
The race was red-flagged for 19 minutes and 36 seconds while the massive clean-up took place.
The Sprint Cup Series moves to Michigan International Speedway next Sunday, August 16, 2009 -- for the Carfax 400. The race is scheduled for 1:00 PM / Eastern time.
The race will also be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128 and MRN radio.
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