Stewart Is Too Sick To Finish, Gets Help From J.J. Yeley

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — At Daytona Int’l Speedway, you can be sure somebody’s going to run afoul of the NASCAR tech inspectors.
Thus, Martin Truex, Jr. was this year’s victim in the summer race. During inspection Thursday, NASCAR seized the No. 1 Bass Pro Shops Chevy after finding that the car did not fit the roof templates.
After pulling the car out of line in an effort to fix it, the team saw the car fail again and NASCAR took it, planning to send it back to Charlotte and the NASCAR R&D Center. The roof is a key component in aerodynamic performance on superspeedways.
Truex was furious, having to go to a backup car and getting zero practice after rain canceled the happy-hour session.
“I guess NASCAR wasn’t happy with the way it fit,” Truex said. “It’s their ballgame, it’s their call. They took the car. We’re trying to get our backup (car) ready. They had to put an engine in it and get everything ready.
“Somebody made a big mistake,” said Truex. “That shouldn’t happen at this level of auto racing, but people make mistakes. We’ll go on.”
Fines and suspensions are expected to be levied against the team prior to the next race at Chicagoland Speedway.

• Tony Stewart hates getting out of his No. 20 Home Depot Toyota for any reason, but he was forced to do just that Saturday night.
Suffering from flu-like symptoms that included weakness, headache and an upset stomach, Stewart called for relief on lap 72 and headed down pit road to turn his car over to former teammate J.J. Yeley.
Stewart was ninth at the time, and Yeley drove the car to 20th at the finish, getting caught up in the final-lap melee that began when David Ragan got loose in the middle of the pack and hit Yeley’s machine.

UNDER THE WEATHER: Tony Stewart sits on his pit box during Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona Int'l Speedway. Stewart, who was suffering from flu-like symptoms, called on former teammate J.J. Yeley as a relief driver. (Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images)

Stewart sat for a time behind the pit box before being taken to the infield care center, where he was placed on intravenous fluids for the remainder of the race.
“Tony is being treated for flu-like symptoms,” Stewart spokesperson Mike Arning said in a release distributed during the race. “He hasn’t been feeling all that well this weekend, but it really started to pick up earlier (Saturday), especially when we made our hospitality rounds. He came into the infield care center around 5:30 p.m. (Eastern time).
“He’s feeling weak, has an uneasy stomach and a bad headache. He thought he could get through it — did all he could, but obviously, he couldn’t. He went into this race fully expecting to finish it, but at the same time knowing that he might not be able to.”
Stewart fell three spots to 12th in the points after the race — just two points up on Kevin Harvick.

• Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates was forced to park the No. 40 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Dodge driven by Dario Franchitti prior to the Coke Zero 400.
“This is a difficult decision for Felix and I that did not come without its share of anguish,” said team owner Chip Ganassi. “In this tough business environment, continuing to run the car without proper funding has become increasingly difficult.”

• In Friday’s announcement of Mark Martin going to Hendrick Motorsports next season, there was the following statement by the 49-year-old Martin.
“I don’t know why it was such a badly kept secret unless people are snooping on our text messages,” Martin quipped. “I’d say 50 percent of this deal was done by text between Rick (Hendrick) and me. I think that’s pretty cool because I just learned how to text myself.”
To which Hendrick replied: “I did, too. Junior (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and Jimmie (Johnson) are the ones who taught me how to text. I had to learn to do that because they won’t return your phone call.”

• Traffic, for once, wasn’t a problem on race day. Even coming in late (around 2 p.m.) there was no line for the infield and no problem parking. Friday night’s crowd for the Winn-Dixie 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series event was…sparse, leading to speculation that there would be empty seats for Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 as well.

• DEI has long been associated with restrictor-plate success, but Paul Menard did something Friday that no other DEI driver, past or present, has ever done at Daytona: win the pole. It was also the first plate pole for any DEI driver.

• Published reports say that NASCAR will hold off on a change from the current Nationwide Series car to the new CoT chassis for one season, allowing cash-strapped NNS teams to race another year with their present equipment.
Building new cars in the current economy would likely kill the few remaining NNS privateers’ chances of making the switch, which the owners conveyed to NASCAR at a recent meeting.

• After spending two seasons sharing a car with veteran Mark Martin, 24-year-old Aric Almirola will take over the No. 8 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Chevrolet full time in 2009.