Zipadelli said Ty Dillon, an Xfinity Series regular who drove the No. 14 Chevrolet for three races, is on standby this weekend, but the competition director anticipates Stewart handling 400 miles on the.75-mile oval without problems.
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Stewart missed the first eight races of the season after sustaining a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra in a January 31, all-terrain vehicle accident.
Meanwhile, Stewart’s peers will pay the $35,000 fine NASCAR levied against him for criticizing the series about a potential safety hazard during races. He sipped his Coca-Cola and reflected on his long-awaited, highly anticipated return to the NASCAR driving seat with the kind of positive vibes equal to that of a race victor.
“I love the job”, Stewart replied.
Q. Do you feel it has been unsafe to the point that you guys were anxious about it?
Harvick ran only nine laps in practice before the rain came. We haven’t lost (expletive).
It was exactly the kind of confidence, high expectation and bravado that has characterized Stewart’s storied racing career. He is the 2014 Sprint Cup Series champion and a three-time Richmond victor. Or at least making a darn good run at it.
He fell to 28 as a result, and no longer was in the Lucky Dog position to get back on the lead lap as the first auto one lap down.
Harvick is a three-time victor in the Cup Series at RIR, the most recent in the fall 2013 race in one of his last starts for Richard Childress Racing.
Tony would finally break through at Richmond in the Exide NASCAR Select Batteries 400, dominating the race by starting second as leading 333 laps. Stewart, he said, has learned his lesson. “I was thinking during that, what a heck of a first run back in the driver’s suit – a 160-lap (green-flag) run and he was wheeling the heck out of it”. “But I was told that is not part of the show. There will be a bunch of these guys falling out of the seat if they had to run 800 more laps, but I will not be one of them”.
Joey Logano: “We are glad to have him back”. “I don’t know whether everyone agrees with the opinion (Stewart) had or not, but it doesn’t matter”.
I think that was the biggest thing for us. “It’s so chaotic on the re-starts and I had a plan and I would try to execute my plan, but I zigged when I should have zagged every time for about four straight re-starts”.
“It wasn’t one of those scenarios when you just turn and jump on the gas wide-open”. Race distance: 300 miles, 400 laps. “When you preach about safety, why would you sit there and have cars that are running 200 miles per hour at the end of a straightaway that don’t have all the lug nuts on the wheel that should be on it?” “Safety… that’s the most important thing we have to achieve, and we’re going to continue to do that”.Under section 12.8.1.b, NASCAR can fine members for disparaging the sport and/or NASCAR’s leadership, or verbal abuse of a NASCAR Official, media members, fans, and so on. “We get this vehicle a little better and we’re going to have a lot of fun with it”.
Asked by FOX Sports immediately afterward what he would remember most about his comeback race, Stewart smiled and replied: “How much fun I had in it”. And he proved Sunday that he is not only back, but very glad to be back.
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“I’m not sure there has been that much forethought into it”, Johnson said of the group expanding its role.
