Tony Stewart wins Nationwide race at Daytona
February 14th 2010 07:51
It was Tony Stewart's good fortune to lead much of Saturday's Drive4COPD 300 Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway -- because all hell kept breaking loose behind him.
In a race widely trumpeted as Danica Patrick's NASCAR debut, Stewart took the checkered flag .309 seconds ahead of 2008 series champion Carl Edwards.
In winning the season opener, Stewart achieved several milestones: he won the February Nationwide race at Daytona for the third consecutive time and fifth overall, and he claimed his sixth victory in the series on restrictor-plate superspeedways, tying Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the career lead in that category.
"There were some really good cars that got mangled up [Saturday]," Stewart said, referring to crashes that damaged the cars of Earnhardt, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski, among others. "We were just lucky to be in front when it happened."
Stewart led the final 20 laps under green after a restart on Lap 101.
Kevin Harvick, who owns the No. 4 Chevrolet that Stewart was driving in his only scheduled Nationwide appearance of the year, finished third in his own No. 33 Chevy. Justin Allgaier came home fourth and Brian Vickers fifth.
Stewart and Harvick clearly had the best cars from the moment they hit the track this week, making Harvick convinced he'd get a KHI win as either a driver or owner by the end of the race.
"They have always given us great race car, every time," Stewart said.
"Tony and I talked right before the race, and I said I didn't think they could beat both cars, as good as they were in practice," Harvick said. "Best car I've ever had here, and I think we worked a long time, a lot of hours in our speedway program, and it all paid off [Saturday]."
Patrick lasted a little more than half the race. Just as she appeared to be getting comfortable while running with the lead draft, her No. 7 Chevrolet was damaged beyond repair on Lap 68 of 120 in a 12-car wreck off Turn 4 that began with contact between the No. 16 Ford of Colin Braun and the No. 61 Ford of Josh Wise.
"There's nothing you can do -- you can't see anything," Patrick radioed to crew chief Tony Eury Jr. after sliding into a pack of cars turned sideways in front of her. "I was just starting to get it, too, man."
Patrick regained control and drove to the pits. Her crew pushed the car back to the garage with heavy damage to the front.
"I wish I would have run up there at the beginning and felt more comfortable, but I just didn't," Patrick said. "And that just proves how hard it is out here, and how much there is to learn and how good all these drivers really are."
Patrick was credited with a 35th-place finish.
Patrick was hoping to learn as much as she could about a new style of racing. She ended up going to the school of hard knocks.
"It's important to have realistic expectations," Patrick said. "There's going to be spikes in performance, I don't doubt that. But there's also going to be tough days. And [Saturday], I would say, was more of a tough day."
Earnhardt said the fact that she wasn't running near the front Saturday doesn't mean she can't be competitive in NASCAR right away.
"This is such a different kind of racing than she'll do the rest of the season," Earnhardt said. "I think that everybody should just take Daytona for what it is."
Stewart said the experience Patrick gained was more important than the result.
"She got a lot of laps in [Saturday], and that's what needed to happen," Stewart said. "It would have been a disaster if she had been taken out on the second lap and didn't get a chance to learn anything."
Earnhardt had a strong car, but his No. 88 Chevrolet was an innocent victim of a backstretch wreck on Lap 92, which started when Edwards tried to squeeze into a small space in the outside lane. Contact between Edwards' Ford and Keselowski's Dodge sent Keselowski's car spinning into Earnhardt's Chevrolet, which turned upside-down and slid on its roof before righting itself in the infield.
"We were having a real good run, and I felt good about our chances," said Earnhardt, whose company, JR Motorsports, also owns the car Patrick will drive in selected races this season. "I'll have to go back and balance the books -- it was an expensive day for JR Motorsports."
JR Motorsports is short on sponsorship money but committed to running a full season.
"You don't want to flip one upside down and it not be spectacular. You don't want to waste your opportunity, right?" Earnhardt joked after the mandatory ambulance ride to the care center.
"It's good to flip upside down every once in a while, but it's just too expensive for me. We do our books by the month pretty much, and kind of know where we are financially. We were looking for about $400,000 between now and the end of the season, trying to work that in somehow and find that or cut that somewhere.
"We just knocked ourselves back a few steps."
After an 11-minute red flag for Earnhardt's accident, Stewart took command for his 15th win in a stock car at Daytona, moving him into a tie with Cale Yarborough for third all time at the storied track. He now trails only Earnhardt (34 wins) and Bobby Allison (16) for most at Daytona.
"I would trade a couple of them just for a win in a Sunday race here," said Stewart, who is 0-for-11 in the Daytona 500. He'll start sixth in Sunday's main event.
Among his 15 victories are wins in the exhibition Budweiser Shootout, the Daytona 500 qualifying races and the July Sprint Cup Series race.
"Doesn't matter what kind of car it is, it's always an honor to win at Daytona," he said. "After 15 of 'em now, there's one I haven't won, and that's the Sunday show. So, you know, I would trade a couple of races, I'd let anybody pick which ones they want to trade out, I'd trade any one of 'em for a Sunday race for sure."
Patrick's scheduled to run the next two Nationwide races, at Fontana and Las Vegas.
"We'll go to these other tracks where she'll literally be driving the car, it'll be handling good or bad," Earnhardt said. "Then people can start forming their opinions on what kind of learning curve she has. But I feel pretty confident. She's been in a tough situation with the media and the pressure and the attention, I couldn't have done it."
This story was written by By Sporting News Wire Service, NASCAR
February 13, 2010
05:44 PM EST
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