July 30, 2007
By Ron Felix

Stewart Heads For Home * CIA Stock Photo

36 year-old Tony Stewart made it look easy on Sunday, at times fiddling with his water bottle while holding the steering wheel with his knees and another time calling out to Kevin Harvick, who he was trailing at the time, "here kitty, kitty, kitty".

On a final restart with 20 laps to go Harvick was the leader with Stewart in second. The two drivers are close friends off the track but on this day Harvick and Stewart battled for position, trading sheet metal several times. With 10 laps remaining Stewart fought his way past Harvick and pulled away for the win. Harvick showed his displeasure by bumping Stewart after the race, just to make him aware that he wasn't happy with the turn of events.

"We were about the only guy who could stay with anybody who was leading. This thing was pretty good in traffic all day. I just went down into (Turn) 1 on the restart and we got really, really tight for some reason," said Stewart. "Kevin (Harvick) got by us and then once we got going again we could stay right with him. I knew then for about 15 laps we could get a run on him. I was just trying to be patient. We gave him a good run off of (Turn) 1 and got by. He's a hard guy to race with. He's a clean guy. That's one of my best friends and I can't think of another guy I'd want to race to the lead."

The victory in the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was the 31st of Stewart's 304 race career. It was the second win for Stewart at Indianapolis, he also won the Brickyard 400 in 2005. It also was the second consecutive victory in the series, he won the last race at Chicagoland Speedway two weeks ago.

Stewart led the most laps, 65 of 160 and after he calmed himself with a reverse lap and a cool drink, he and his entire crew climbed the frontstretch fence.

"It's sweet for all these people in the stands who have got to listen each week to the guys who don't like us," Stewart said as though he was just looking for trouble. "Our fans are one-of-a-kind breed race fan for sure. And people who are race fans have got to put up with a lot of crap. So this is for them."

It was a great day also for rookie Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya started in the second spot and finished second, driving with lessons learned from his open wheel victory in 2000.

"At the start, I was just happy to run in the top five. That was the idea, stay in the top five, try to make the car better every stop. And we kept working on it," said Montoya. "I was lucky, I lost the right front tire coming into the pits, I was coming down the pit lane, it blew up. That's why I came up behind Jeff and Junior. It was pretty loose."

Montoya took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the ninth time this season.

Jeff Gordon battled to the third position and Kyle Busch finished fourth. Pole sitter Reed Sorenson managed a fifth place run followed by Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Dave Blaney and Matt Kenseth.

"I was happy to get to third," said Gordon. You know, Tony was the guy to beat. I mean, I don't think anybody had anything for him. Juan, you know, was definitely strong there at the end."

There were 14 lead changes among different six drivers and the race was slowed by nine caution periods for a total of forty-three laps.

The Nextel Cup Series moves to Pocono Raceway next Sunday for the Pennsylvania 500. The race is scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m.

For full final race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)