Saturday, February 18, 2006
He can't remember ever running three-wide at the front of the pack.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- As long as Tony Stewart has been racing, he has no recollection of running three-wide at the front of the pack -- until Saturday.
"I don't ever remember being part of something like that," Stewart said after eventually pulling away in the final laps to win the crash-filled Hershey's Kissables 300 NASCAR Busch Series race.
After wresting the lead from Dale Earnhardt Jr. with 13 laps to go, Stewart had to fight off several challenges, including simultaneous runs by pals Earnhardt and Michael Waltrip, who raced side-by-side with him for nearly two laps as the crowd of about 100,000 at Daytona International Speedway stood and cheered.
"I think that's the first time I've gotten lucky enough to be in the front, three-wide like that," said Stewart, one of the favorites to win today's Daytona 500. "I'm not real excited having to be in that situation tomorrow. But, if that's what it comes down to, trust me, I'm not backing out of it.
"I was extremely loose down there at times on the bottom, and I'm sure Junior was loose and I'm sure Michael was loose and tight up on top. The good thing is you have the confidence in those two guys.
"It didn't concern me that we were three-wide racing for the lead like that," he added. "It actually made that part even more fun, knowing you could trust those guys."
Won last year, too
It was the second year in a row Stewart, the two-time and reigning Nextel Cup champion, has won the 300-mile race at Daytona in a car fielded by fellow Cup star Kevin Harvick's Busch team. They are his only Busch wins in 54 tries.
Last year, it was Harvick who pushed Stewart to the win. This time, the help came from a much more unlikely source -- new teammate Burney Lamar, a rookie making only his third Busch start.
"He did an awesome job," Stewart said of Lamar, who battled with Clint Bowyer, a Cup rookie this year and last year's Busch series runner-up, to the finish line and was awarded second place after a review of the video by NASCAR.
Jon Wood was credited with fourth and Harvick fifth in a Richard Childress Racing car.
Stewart, who battled an ill-handling car in the early going Saturday, said he intended to stay behind Earnhardt for a while, but got so much momentum going that he had to make the pass for the lead when he did.
"I was going to stay with Junior there, but I had such a big run, there was no way to stop," Stewart said. "We would have both gotten blown by. So I just had to take it."