Tony Stewart primed for strong New Hampshire outing
Stewart-Haas Racing's Tony Stewart is leading the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings heading into Sunday's race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. // Jeff Robinson, NASCAR Scene
LOUDON, N.H. – Tony Stewart and his fledgling NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team continue to be tested, and each time they seemingly pass the test with flying colors – even if it helps to have a little luck on their side sometimes.
Look no further than Stewart’s fortunes this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The two-time Cup champion crashed his primary car in Friday’s lone practice, only for his Stewart-Haas Racing team to roll out a backup car that he and crew chief Darian Grubb say is equally fast.
Stewart then claimed the pole for today’s Lenox Industrial Tools 301 when rained washed out qualifying and the field was set according to the NASCAR rule book. And despite starting the race with a different engine and car that he began the weekend with, Stewart won’t have to drop to the rear of the field because teams are allowed to change an engine prior to qualifying in the event of a crash.
So Stewart, already the points leader and fresh off finishes of no worse than second in three of his last four starts, appears primed for another strong outing today. His team has certainly battled back from adversity before.
After all, his lone points win of the season came in a backup car at Pocono earlier this month. And in that race, Stewart did have to start from the rear. The Indiana native also finished eighth in a backup car and after dropping to the back for the season-opening Daytona 500.
“This team is very resilient,” Grubb said. “ … We’re a hard-working group. Everybody enjoys putting all their time and effort into it and now that we’ve done that and we’ve shown how strong we are, hopefully we can keep carrying that forward.”
So just how strong is Stewart’s No. 14 team? The group has only been in its present form since Stewart left Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of 2008 to become a co-owner and driver for the organization formerly known as Haas CNC Racing.
Does Stewart worry that more established teams, particularly that of defending three-time champion Jimmie Johnson, might hit their stride and be hard to handle come time for NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup?
“I look at it this way – how scary is it for them that a new team is sitting here leading the points?” said Stewart, who is two spots ahead of Johnson in the standings. “That’s no disrespect to them, but we feel like we’ve got room to gain each week, too. This is our first time around with each other through the first half of the season. We’re just now getting ready to go back and start working off the notes that we first established at the beginning of the year. I’m not that worried.
“ … Obviously, history shows you can never count Jimmie and that team out. I’m not sure that it scares all of us, but it doesn’t scare us because we never underestimated him to begin with.”
Looking at Stewart’s 2009 success – two wins counting his victory in the exhibition Sprint All-Star Race and only four finishes outside the top 10 in 16 points events – it’s easy to see why optimism abounds from within his group. But Grubb believes that for many observers, the jury is still out on what the team can do this season and down the road. And he admits that even he isn’t sure whether the team is yet at the level of Johnson’s or the likewise more experienced teams of Hendrick Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch and Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards.
But Grubb hopes to put any and all doubts to rest soon.
“Right now we’ve proved to everybody that we can run good, we can move up to the front, we can get better and better as far as we go,” he said. “I think we really do need to go out and still prove to everybody that we’re here and we’re here to stay; we didn’t just get a fly-by-night luck streak and get up to the lead in the points.
“We want to stay here, contend for wins every week and that’s what we’ve been doing. Now we’ve got to maintain that through a full season. Then everybody will know that we’re really here for the long haul.”
