Stewart Holds Off Kenseth, Edwards To End 20-Race Winless Streak

JOLIET, Ill. — Tony Stewart finally climbed a fence Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway.
Stewart, winless in his last 20 NASCAR Nextel Cup starts, held off Roush Fenway Racing teammates Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards for his first victory of the season.
“I’m overjoyed, more than anything, to get that monkey off our back, at least for one week,” Stewart said of his second Chicagoland victory and his first since Texas last November.
Stewart credited a recollection of the effectiveness of two-tire pit stops from Saturday’s Busch race with getting him the track position he needed.
Stewart, who qualified 19th in the Home Depot Chevrolet, moved into the top three shortly after the day’s first caution period on lap 60 and dominated the race from there to the end.

SHOWER: Tony Stewart endures a shower of champagne after taking Sunday's USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. It was Stewart's 30th-career victory and first in 2007. (Harold Hinson/HHP Photo)

“We knew track position was very important, and we knew that track position was more important than new tires,” he said. “We needed that at the start of the race because we were too tight. We made a change and the car really was good from there on.”
Stewart led 108 of the 267 laps, including 105 of the final 112 in collecting his 30th-career victory.
It was, in Stewart’s view, all he needed to make the winless streak history.
“Once I got into the top three, I felt in my head that we had a shot to win the race,” he said.
Late in the race, with caution periods having removed the possibility of a fuel-mileage battle, Stewart had Kenseth to contend with, a matter of no little concern.
“Matt was really good on restarts with cooler tires,” Stewart said. Those short runs really hurt us and gave him the opportunity to close in on us.”
Stewart confessed some concern that, had Kenseth passed him on one of the late restarts, he could have held off the Home Depot car and won the race.
“He could very easily have done that,” Stewart said. “As long as I didn’t give him the outside, I was in good shape. It very easily could have been a different outcome had he cleared us on that first restart.”
Greg Zipadelli, crew chief on the Home Depot Chevrolet, was glad to see the victory for a number of reasons.
“It came at the right time for the team,” he said. “We have a weekend off, so we can enjoy it a little more than we normally do leading up to three good race tracks for us — Indy, Pocono and Watkins Glen.”
Kenseth agreed with Stewart’s assessment of the late-race scenario.
“I had a really good restart that time and had a huge run off turn two on the outside, and it was very close,” he said. “I had to get off of it because he closed the door, and I still got a good run down the backstretch — almost cleared him getting into turn three, I had such a huge run.

CRUNCH TIME: Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet sits in the garage after a hard hit during Sunday's USG Sheetrock 400. Johnson finished 37th and dropped to seventh in points. (Harold Hinson/HHP Photo)

“I wish I could have finished the pass and seen how much better the car would’ve been in clean air and at least try to hold him off.”
Edwards had another run of slow pit stops but managed to salvage a third-place finish, passing Kevin Harvick late in the race.
“I have a great group of guys in the pits and they can have good pit stops,” he said. “But for some reason we keep having bad ones, too. But if we keep running like this, we can have an awesome season.
“We took four tires there at the end, which was our strategy anyway. We thought that four tires at that point would be enough to win the race. Tony was dominant, and I thought he had a faster car than we did, but we had better tires.”
Point-leader Jeff Gordon finished ninth in the DuPont Chevrolet. Jimmie Johnson, who led 82 laps on Sunday,  crashed heavily on lap 223 and wound up 37th.
Gordon remains atop the standings, 303 points ahead of Denny Hamlin.