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With a last-lap pass, in his final year of NASCAR Spint Cup racing, Tony Stewart won on Sunday.
And now, in his final Cup season, he gets a likely shot at a championship. The victory snapped an 84-race winless streak. This win was special for Tony Stewart because he just said 2 days ago ” I don’t enjoy racing in sprint cup anymore”. “Where has that race been for the last eight years we’ve been coming here?” I was sitting third, watching those two guys.
Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Gordon had the pompoms out when Stewart had the lead up through the last lap at Sonoma. It will likely get him into the Chase, NASCAR’s seven-race playoff system.
“I didn’t know if he would physically spin us out”, Hamlin said.
Because he had already taken his pit stop, Stewart was able to stay out on the track and improve his position while the leaders all headed to the pits.
And anyone who has followed his career know that’s Stewart is best when he’s in a bad mood, and Smoke was ornery all weekend in the picturesque wine country.
Well, he sure had fun on Sunday.
Hamlin had led a race-high 33 laps but said his tires were too hot for him to take the inside line he needed in the final turn.
Stewart hadn’t won a Sprint Cup Series race in over three years and, having already announced he was going to retire at the end of the season, opportunities to pick up another checkered flag were becoming fewer and fewer.
Stewart took the lead with 24 laps to go, but Denny Hamlin passed him on the seventh turn of the road course’s last lap.
Because of what was at stake, Denny Hamlin understood Tony Stewart would do whatever it took to win on Sunday.
Hamlin battled Stewart hard for the win, and the two drivers made contact on the final lap.
Stewart’s win won’t change any of that, of course, but for the first time in several seasons, one of the greatest of his generation had something to celebrate from the driver’s seat.
Whether Stewart can keep winning as Busch did remains to be seen. Hamlin left the bottom open for Stewart, who muscled his way past and stuffed Hamlin into the wall.
Before the win, Stewart was listed at 100-to-1 odds to win the 2016 Chase. Recognizing the circumstances, Hamlin braced for Stewart’s last-ditch attempt to wrestle away the victory by any means possible. After chugging a Coca-Cola, he slumped to the ground and sat alongside his auto. We can be 39 out by the time we leave Daytona, so there’s a lot that can happen still.
“When he went into 11, I was probably more surprised than anybody”, the victor said. “All is fair in love and war”.
In late January of this year, before Speedweeks kicked off in Daytona, Stewart suffered a broken back in a dune buggy accident in Southern California.
Allmendinger reeled in Edwards on the ninth lap – shortly after the day’s first caution – and held the advantage until both drivers made their first pit stop, 25 laps into the race.
So did Hamlin, a former teammate of Stewart’s who has become somewhat of a protector to his one-time mentor.
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Added six-time champion Jimmie Johnson: “Just stoked for him”.
