One More Down For Stewart
May 9, 2008 by Tim Zaegel
Filed under Racing
Image details: Diamond Hill Plywood 200 served by picapp.com
Tony Stewart came into the 2008 season with only four tracks on the Sprint Cup Series schedule that he’d never won either a Cup race or a Nationwide race at in his career, but he won the Nationwide Series races at Fontana and Talladega, and now he can go ahead and mark Darlington off his list as well.
Stewart started Friday night’s Diamond Hill Plywood 200 from the second row, but finished 0.815 seconds ahead of the series points leader, Clint Bowyer, to secure his fourth checkered flag in the six events he’s competed in the series this year. Stewart led the most laps on the day, but may not have actually been the car to beat. Matt Kenseth held more than a two-second lead over Tony when he came in for an unscheduled pit stop for four fresh tires on lap 121. Trying to catch the first car a lap down to be in position for the luck dog, Kenseth wrecked going through turn 4, ending his hopes for a victory.
With only three laps remaining, Stewart led Mark Martin to the green flag after the field came out of caution from a David Ragan spin. Martin stalled out on the restart, which set-off a six-car pileup and setup NASCAR’s notorious green-white-checkered finish. Stewart was able to pull away from Bowyer to get the win. The win gives Joe Gibbs Racing their sixth consecutive victory, and their 8th overall. David Reutimann, Todd Bodine, and Steve Wallace finished out the top-five.
Defending Nationwide Series champion, Carl Edwards, came into the race second in points, but blew a tire on lap 2 and smacked the wall. The wreck ended his day, and he finished dead last, dropping him down to third in the rankings. Kyle Busch leap-frogged Edwards in the points and took over the second position.
For more of this race coverage, please read Stewart Wins at Darlington over at the Finish Line.
Nationwide Series Standings (from nascar.com):
|
+/- |
BEHIND |
||||||||
| 1 | – | Clint Bowyer | 1740 | Leader | 12 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 9 |
| 2 | +1 | Kyle Busch | 1628 | -112 | 12 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 6 |
| 3 | -1 | Carl Edwards | 1590 | -150 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 7 |
| 4 | +2 | David Reutimann | 1572 | -168 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| 5 | – | Mike Bliss | 1545 | -195 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| 6 | -2 | David Ragan | 1521 | -219 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| 7 | – | Brad Keselowski | 1500 | -240 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| 8 | – | Jason Leffler | 1476 | -264 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 9 | – | Mike Wallace | 1391 | -349 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 10 | – | David Stremme | 1327 | -413 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 |
| 11 | +4 | Steve Wallace | 1299 | -441 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 12 | +2 | Jason Keller | 1296 | -444 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 13 | – | Kevin Harvick | 1276 | -464 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 |
| 14 | +2 | Marcos Ambrose | 1257 | -483 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 15 | -3 | Kelly Bires | 1256 | -484 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 16 | -5 | Bobby Hamilton Jr. | 1240 | -500 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 17 | – | Brad Coleman | 1147 | -593 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 18 | – | Kenny Wallace | 1054 | -686 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 19 | +4 | Tony Stewart | 1001 | -739 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 20 | – | Kevin Lepage | 932 | -808 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Let’s hope they can put another car under Tony Saturday night to match the on from Friday night!
Uggh. Well, that didn’t go so well for Tony, now did it? That’s too bad, cause he definitely had one of the better cars out there.
Hey, I was impressed that they got that car running like it was when the race started. I would have like to have seen one more caution before the ten to go mark, Saturday. That may have made things interesting.
Yeah, I didn’t really think that a caution that late in the race would give Smoke any kind of shot at the win, but it woulda been nice to see him at least competing for a top-ten … they had the car for it.