Stewart has some fun in fifth-place finish at Martinsville
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Tony Stewart didn’t lead a lap on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. But the Joe Gibbs Racing driver still had fun.
Wheeling a Toyota that was never the class of the field but always a top-10 piece, Stewart made the most of a mediocre day with a solid fifth-place finish.
“I went on the outside of Casey Mears and went by him but [Dale Earnhardt] Jr. raced me hard there at the end. It’s fun being around that group of guys there in the top-five because you trust them,” said the two-time Cup champion. “You race with them every week. That is what makes the races fun – when you get around guys like that because you know you can race hard like that.”
Starting ninth, Stewart didn’t drive straight to the front nor did he fade to the back. But he avoided major trouble on a day that featured a whopping 18 caution periods that slowed the race for 89 laps.
It was a caution, however, that proved to be Stewart's Achilles heel. Running inside the top-10, Stewart came to pit road under the race’s 15th yellow on lap 329 hoping other leaders would follow suit. Instead, only a handful of other lead lap cars pitted.
The decision proved costly.
“I screwed us today,” Stewart said. “I pitted and took a gamble when we had 40 laps on tires. I thought everybody would come in but if they didn’t I thought we might get a run and catch them out. It didn’t work out. I ended up losing 11 spots, I think, so it was a bad decision on my part.”
Bad move or not, Stewart still picked up a position in the Sprint Cup points standings. He is now sixth, just 104 points behind new standings leader, Richard Childress Racing’s Jeff Burton.
“I’m proud of Zippy [crew chief Greg Zipadelli] and everybody on my team,” Stewart said. “They did a good job of staying with it all day, but we never got it right.”
