Had you told Tony Stewart that he would score a top-five finish in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he would’ve thought you were crazy. After all, the driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) had struggled with his car’s handling in the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday that led up to the 160-lap race.

Yet, when the checkered flag dropped on the 17th running of the Brickyard 400, there was Stewart on pit road chatting with the assembled media about his impressive fifth-place finish.

“If somebody would’ve said we were going to finish in the top-five, I would’ve told them they were crazy,” said Stewart, who started 15th in the 43-car field. “I’m so proud of Darian Grubb (crew chief) and all the guys on this Old Spice/Office Depot team. We were not a top-five car last night. We were probably about a 20th-place racecar last night after Happy Hour, and to get a top-five today feels like a win. Darian stayed up late last night and was working through different simulations trying to figure out what combinations we could use to make this thing better, and the results showed it today.

“I’m glad we had a great weekend for Old Spice. This is a home race for them with Procter and Gamble being in Cincinnati. We’re going to lose them at the end of the year, but I’ve had a great run with them for 11 years now and I’m just really appreciative of everything that Old Spice has done and everything Office Depot does for us, too. It was a good weekend for us.”

The good end to the weekend came in large part to a smart, two-tire pit call by Grubb during a caution period on lap 139. Stewart had already rallied his way to fifth-place on the heels of a lightning-quick pit stop on lap 118 that vaulted him from 11th to eighth. Running up front with the leaders allowed Stewart to race in clean air, and when Grubb made the split-second call for two tires while most of the competition took four, Stewart again rocketed up the leaderboard, this time to second behind race-leader Jamie McMurray.

“The guys had great pit stops,” said Stewart, who wears the dual hat of driver and owner at SHR. “The pit crew really stepped up and had two awesome pit stops at the end that were very, very critical in getting us some track position where we could at least fight for a top-five. We got some breaks there on one of the restarts that got us about three spots, so that got us the best track position we had all day. Once we got up there and got with the guys we were going to be racing with at the end – the two tires weren’t necessarily the hot ticket, but it got us some track position and we probably finished better taking that gamble than we if we would’ve taken four.

“Feels almost like a win to be honest. When we finished Happy Hour yesterday, I was in a doom-and-gloom mood. It’s just been a hot three days and I’ve been dehydrated because I’ve been sick. I’m proud of how good I feel right now, to be honest. That’s due to the Clarian Medical Center here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They’ve worked with me the last two nights trying to get me feeling better and because of that, it got us where we are today.”

The effort nabbed Stewart his sixth top-five finish in 12 career Sprint Cup starts at Indianapolis and his fifth top-five of 2010. It was also his seventh top-10 in the last nine Sprint Cup races.

“I wish I could say we’re where we need to be, but I’m proud of our organization,” said Stewart, who is still winless thus far in 2010. “All of our guys at Stewart-Haas Racing who don’t get to come to the racetrack on the weekend – they’ve really been working hard. The engineers have been working long hours and staying afterward each day, trying to make us better, and that’s all a driver and, especially as a car owner, can ask for, is the hard effort these guys are putting forth.”

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala for SHR, finished 17th after battling back from two early flat tires that had him two laps down and in 39th-place just 20 laps into the race.

McMurray went on to win the Brickyard 400, scoring his fifth career Sprint Cup victory, his second of the season and his first at Indianapolis. McMurray also won the 2010 Daytona 500, making him just the third driver in NASCAR history to win the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 in the same season. Dale Jarrett first accomplished the feat in 1996, while Jimmie Johnson won both races in 2006.

Championship point leader Kevin Harvick finished 1.391 seconds behind race-winner McMurray, while Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer and Stewart rounded out the top-five. Jeff Burton, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and Kurt Busch comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were six caution periods for 25 laps, with 10 drivers failing to finish.

With round 20 of 36 complete, Stewart remains ninth in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He has 2,544 points, 376 markers behind series leader Harvick and 160 points ahead of 13th-place Mark Martin. Newman gained one spot and is now 15th. He has 2,299 points and is 147 points back of 12th-place Bowyer, who holds the final spot in the 12-driver Chase for the Championship with six races remaining before the Chase begins.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Aug. 1 Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway. The race starts at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with its pre-race show at noon on ESPN2.

Tony Stewart drove his No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice “Back-to-School” Chevrolet Impala to a solid ninth-place finish in Saturday night’s LifeLock.com 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill. It was Stewart’s ninth top-10 finish of 2010 and his eighth top-10 in 10 career Sprint Cup starts at Chicagoland.

“Throughout the night, we didn’t totally miss it, but we didn’t totally hit it either,” said Stewart, referring to a new chassis setup he and crew chief Darian Grubb elected to try out on the 1.5-mile Chicagoland oval. “I think there were some positives to it, but I’m not sure it was exactly what we wanted, but we’ll keep working at it. We’ll try to figure out where we missed it and what we can do to make it better. We’ve got some data from this package and we’ll just keep working forward.”

The package worked extremely well in the race’s opening laps, where from his third-place starting spot, Stewart advanced to second and ran lap times nearly identical to those of race-leader Jimmie Johnson.

A slight hiccup came during the race’s first round of pit stops when the caution flag waved at lap 38. In what should’ve been a routine, four-tire stop, it went awry when the rear wheels of the jack caught in the seam on pit road that separates the concrete pit boxes from the asphalt. The fluke event stole precious seconds, as jackman Mike Casto had to force the jack out of the seam and underneath the right side of the Office Depot/Old Spice Chevy. He was finally successful, and upon an unhindered change of the left-side tires, Stewart was on his way, albeit in 17th-place.

No problem, for after the lap-44 restart, Stewart was back in the top-10 as the race hit the 50-lap mark. It’s there where Stewart would stay for the remainder of the 267-lap race, as his car was good, but not quite good enough to get back to mixing it up with the leaders. Nonetheless, Stewart and Grubb’s collaborative efforts yielded the team’s sixth top-10 finish in the last eight races.

Stewart’s teammate, Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing, finished 22nd.

David Reutimann won the LifeLock.com 400 to score his second career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his first at Chicagoland. Reutimann’s only other victory came in the 2009 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, which was rain-shortened, with only 227 of the 400 scheduled laps completed.

Carl Edwards finished .727 of a second behind race-winner Reutimann, while Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and pole-sitter Jamie McMurray rounded out the top-five. Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Stewart and Paul Menard comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were four caution periods for 21 laps, with eight drivers failing to finish.

With round 19 of 36 complete, Stewart remained ninth in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He has 2,389 points, 356 markers behind series leader Kevin Harvick and 118 points ahead of 13th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. Newman fell one spot to 16th. He has 2,187 points and is 99 points back of 12th-place Bowyer, who holds the final spot in the 12-driver Chase for the Championship with seven races remaining before the Chase begins.

The Sprint Cup Series takes a rare weekend off before heading to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the July 25 Brickyard 400. The race begins at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

Tony Stewart snared an impressive second-place finish the hard way in Sunday’s Lenox Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.

The driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) had to come from as far back as 33rd in the 43-car field because he was off-sequence from the rest of his competitors on pit stops.

It all stemmed from the team’s first stop of the day on lap 36 when the leaders came down pit road under the race’s first caution. Stewart’s stop appeared to be a routine four-tire change with a top-off of fuel, that is until the fuel can dropped to the ground and only two of the can’s 11 gallons of fuel made it into the car.

While still early in the 301-lap race around the 1.058-mile oval, the miscue would dog the Old Spice/Office Depot team until two late-race cautions allowed Stewart to catch back up to the leaders and finally regain his lost track position.

But getting there took the entire race, as Stewart fell all the way back to 33rd when he finally had to pit for fuel on lap 85 while the race stayed under green.

Stewart had a fast car and could run his way to the front, but he stayed off-sequence on his pit stops because the race stayed green for an incredible 201 laps. Despite climbing into the top-five on two occasions, Stewart had to relinquish the precious track position to pit for fuel and tires.

There was, however, a silver lining. Because the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet was so strong, it forced other teams to shorten their pit windows. And because Stewart was so fast, he could chase down the leaders, especially when he had fresh tires. The competition couldn’t afford to stay on the racetrack and watch Stewart eat into their respective leads. They were forced to pit for tires to simply maintain their collective advantage over Stewart. As result, Stewart and crew chief Darian Grubb were able to shorten the pit windows of their competitors by as many as 20 laps.

All, however, seemed lost, when the caution did finally come out on lap 240 for oil on the racetrack. That’s because Stewart had pitted earlier on lap 234 and was now a lap down to the leaders.

But where some saw a dead end, others – namely Grubb – saw opportunity. He ordered Stewart to stay out and be the first wave-around car, where by not pitting under caution, he earned his lap back as all the other cars on the lead lap did pit.

When the race restarted on lap 246, Stewart was 14th – the last car on the lead lap. And just as he had been yearning for cautions all race long, cautions again were needed in order for Stewart to make up ground on the leaders.

Thanks to a dust-up between Reed Sorenson and Juan Pablo Montoya on lap 282, Stewart got his much-needed caution, for he was finally able to pit at the same time with the leaders.

Stewart took right-side tires only and emerged in 10th-place when the race restarted on lap 288.

The next and final caution on lap 290 helped in two ways – it allowed Stewart to catch back up to the leaders, and more importantly, the caution involved the two drivers vying for the lead. When Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch, who had been running 1-2, tangled in between turns three and four, it allowed everyone else to move up two spots.

Thanks to their demise and Stewart’s ability to pick off cars in the two laps that were run under green, he restarted in sixth when the race went green for the final time on lap 294.

In the next five laps, Stewart moved past SHR teammate Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon to grab third. And in the final three laps, Stewart ran down second-place Kurt Busch and nudged him out of the way on the penultimate lap. Had a few more laps been available, Stewart might’ve been able to chase down eventual winner Jimmie Johnson, but on lap 301 the checkered flag waved and Stewart’s run to the front was officially over.

“I’m proud of these guys and this Old Spice/Office Depot team,” said Stewart, who began the race in 25th. “We started in the back, worked our way to the front, and on the first stop, didn’t get fuel in the car, so we had to keep short-pitting on the long, greens there. We gained some track position and then we’d lose it when the guys on fresh tires would run us down and get by. We got caught out there toward the end and had to take the wave-around, and then you start behind all the lapped cars and everything. It was a long fight there at the end, but we got a top-two out of it. That was pretty cool.”

It was Stewart’s 12th top-five finish in 23 career Sprint Cup starts at New Hampshire and his fourth of 2010. It was also his fifth top-10 finish in the last six races – three of which have been top-five results – June 6 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway (third), June 13 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn (fifth) and Sunday at New Hampshire.

“I’d like to win, obviously, but we’re gaining ground every week,” Stewart said. “To be caught out there a lap down and have to take the wave-around and fight our way through all those cars, I was pretty happy about finishing second.”

Dulling the happiness somewhat was Stewart knowing that his contact with Busch was something he would’ve rather avoided.

“It was my fault sliding into Kurt. That cost him second, but we just both sailed it off in there and neither one of us were going to let the other one have an advantage going into (turn) one on the last lap,” Stewart said. “We both went as deep as we knew we could make it in there, and it’s my responsibility as the driver on the inside to keep control of my car, and I lost it, and luckily, I hit him flat and it didn’t knock him out or spin him out or anything like that, but it was definitely 100 percent my fault for losing control of my car.”

Busch shrugged off the contact and chalked it up to hard-fought racing on a tight-and-fast New Hampshire oval.

“I had a fifth- to 10th-place car and I’m running second,” Busch said. “It’s not that I didn’t deserve to be running there, but my lap time wasn’t as competitive as it needed to be. So when you’re in that position, you have to know that something is going to come, and you’ve got to be ready for it. I think it’s fun.”

Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet for SHR, finished sixth to score his second top-five result of 2010 and his fifth in 17 career Sprint Cup starts at New Hampshire.

The last time both SHR cars finished in the top-10 was Oct. 25, 2009 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway when Newman finished seventh and Stewart was ninth.

Johnson’s win in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 was his 52nd career Sprint Cup victory, his fifth of the season and his third at New Hampshire.

Stewart finished .753 of a second behind Johnson, while Busch, Gordon and Harvick rounded out the top-five. Newman, Clint Bowyer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Joey Logano and A.J. Allmendinger comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were four caution periods for 19 laps, with nine drivers failing to finish the 301-lap race.

With round 17 of 36 complete, Stewart is ninth in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He gained one spot and now has 2,158 points, 331 markers behind series leader Harvick and 141 points ahead of 13th-place Earnhardt. Newman moved up one spot to 14th. He has 2,005 points and is 15 points back of 12th-place Carl Edwards, who holds the final spot in the 12-driver Chase for the Championship with nine races remaining before the Chase begins.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the July 3 Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. The race begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by TNT beginning with its pre-race show at 6:30 p.m.

Tony Stewart and the Office Depot/Old Spice team fought their way to a solid ninth-place finish in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350k NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.

It was the third consecutive top-10 result for Stewart and his fifth straight top-15 finish dating back to the May race at Dover (Del.) International Speedway.

While the effort moved Stewart into the top-10 in points, it was a frustrating day for the driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet and crew chief Darian Grubb as they struggled with the car’s handling throughout much of the 110-lap event around the 10-turn, 1.99-mile road course.

“We just struggled getting forward bite all weekend,” Grubb said. “The car was actually really good with balance left versus right, compared to what we had last year, so we thought we had a pretty good setup. When the track got slicker, we thought it was our strong point, but it went away pretty quick.”

Stewart ran in the top-10 for much of the race and led once for two laps, but after what was scheduled to be his final pit stop of the day on lap 75, he reported his car’s handling was going away. Even though the No. 14 Chevrolet had enough fuel to go to the end of the race, Stewart and Grubb decided to pit under caution on lap 86 as they were in 16th position and having difficulty passing cars.

“The position we were in, we weren’t fast enough to pass cars, but the guys around us had tires and we didn’t, so we were at a point where we had to try it just to see what we could maintain for position,” said Grubb, who called for four tires and a splash of Sunoco fuel and returned Stewart to the track in 24th-place.

The strategy worked, for in the final 24 laps, Stewart was able to move from 24th to an impressive and hard-fought ninth-place finish.

“Top-10 is not exactly what we came here to do,” Grubb said. “We came here to win the race. But, getting a top-10 and moving into the top-10 in points – that’s what we needed to do.”

Stewart’s teammate, Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing, finished 16th.

Jimmie Johnson won the Toyota/Save Mart 350k to score his 51st career Sprint Cup victory, his fourth of the season and his first at Sonoma. It was Johnson’s first road course win in 17 career starts.

Robby Gordon finished 3.105 seconds behind race winner Johnson, while Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top-five. Marcos Ambrose, Greg Biffle, Boris Said, Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were seven caution periods for 14 laps, with six drivers failing to finish.

With round 16 of 36 complete, Stewart is 10th in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He gained one spot and now has 1,983 points, 351 markers behind series leader Harvick and 108 points ahead of 13th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. Newman maintained his 15th place in the standings. He has 1,850 points and is 82 points back of 12th-place Carl Edwards, who holds the final spot in the 12-driver Chase for the Championship with 10 races remaining before the Chase begins.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the June 27 Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon. The race begins at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by TNT beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

Tony Stewart and the Old Spice/Office Depot team of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) finished a solid fifth in Sunday’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.

It was the second consecutive top-five result for Stewart as he finished third last week at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway. More importantly, it moved the driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala from 13th in the championship standings to 11th, putting him inside the elite 12-driver Chase for the championship by 57 points over 13th- place Clint Bowyer, which will be finalized in 11 more Sprint Cup races.

“I’m pretty excited about it,” said Stewart, who now has 15 top-10 finishes in 23 career Sprint Cup starts at Michigan. “That’s the best car we’ve had in a long time, so I’m really proud of our guys. We’re definitely gaining on it. I felt racy today. It was a pretty good day for the Old Spice/Office Depot Chevy.”

Stewart started 17th in the 43-car field and quickly found his way into the top-10, where he remained for most of the race. Perhaps the only hiccup of the day came while Stewart pitted under caution on lap 49 while in seventh place.

During the stop, when the pit crew was changing the right-rear tire, one of the lugnuts that was being taken off the old set of tires flew threw one of the openings in the wheel and landed on the wheel hub. It was a one-in-a-million chance and it cost the team precious seconds as they had to remove the lugnut before attaching the new tire.

While Stewart restarted 11th, it didn’t take him long to move back into the top-10 and, ultimately, his final finishing position of fifth.

“I’m really proud of Darian (Grubb, crew chief) and everybody on the Old Spice/Office Depot team,” Stewart said. “They did a great job this week. I feel like we’re starting to gain on it. Two good runs in a row and two top-fives in a row is exactly what this team needs right now.

“We just keep plugging away and doing what we do. I’m not as panicked about the top-12 right now as I think some of the guys that are close to that bubble. If we keep riffling off top-fives like this, we won’t have to worry about it. We’ll be there. We may not have been the best car out there today, but we were definitely a top-six or -seven car all day long. I’m really proud of the effort. I feel like we’re starting to make some ground. There’s no reason to panic. It’s not going to make us go faster. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out what we’ve got to do to get what we’re missing, and I feel like we’ve made some steps in that direction today.”

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala for SHR, finished 32nd after debris damaged the splitter of his racecar and severely affected the car’s aerodynamics.

Denny Hamlin won the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 to score his 13th career Sprint Cup victory, his series-high fifth of the season and his first at Michigan.

Kasey Kahne finished 1.246 seconds behind Hamlin in the runner-up spot, while pole-sitter Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon and Stewart rounded out the top-five. Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Greg Biffle and Joey Logano comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were four caution periods for 14 laps, with eight drivers failing to finish the 200-lap race.

With round 15 of 36 complete, Stewart has 1,840 points, 329 markers behind series leader Kevin Harvick. Newman lost one position to fall to 15th in the standings. He has 1,735 points and is 91 points back of 12th-place Mark Martin.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the June 20 Toyota SaveMart 350k at the Infineon Raceway road course in Sonoma, Calif. The race starts at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by TNT beginning with its pre-race show at 2 p.m.

Wednesday, June 9 Live on HBO Pay-Per-View®

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – On Wednesday, June 9, the most celebrated dirt track in all of motorsports will host the Gillette Fusion ProGlide Prelude to the Dream. Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, will once again be the site of the all-star dirt Late Model race featuring more than 25 world renowned drivers as they battle for dirt supremacy on the half-mile clay oval, all of which will be presented live to the entire nation on HBO Pay-Per-View® with proceeds from the telecast supporting four of the nation’s top children’s hospitals:

• Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis: www.RileyChildrensHospital.com
• Cincinnati Children’s: www.CincinnatiChildrens.org
• Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, N.C.: www.LevineChildrensHospital.org
• St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.: www.StJude.org

The sixth annual event will be headlined by the Gillette Young Guns: Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Joey Logano. All will join Stewart and many others, including fellow Sprint Cup champions Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte and Bill Elliott. Action sports legends Travis Pastrana and Ricky Carmichael, along with 2004 IZOD IndyCar Series champion Tony Kanaan, will also participate. All will pilot 2,300-pound dirt Late Model stock cars capable of putting out more than 800 horsepower.

The live, commercial-free broadcast will begin at 7 p.m. EDT (4 p.m. PDT) with an immediate replay. HBO Pay-Per-View’s racing telecast has a suggested retail price of $24.95 and is available to more than 71 million pay-per-view homes. HBO Pay-Per-View is the leading supplier of event programming in the pay-per-view industry. Ordering information and up-to-the minute racing information is available at either www.PreludeToTheDream.org or www.HBO.com.

And beyond the new charity element, this year’s Gillette Fusion ProGlide Prelude to the Dream will be a team event. There will still be an individual race winner, but there will now be a race within the race, with the field broken up into four teams, each representing a children’s hospital:

• Team Riley: Bowyer (captain), Ryan Newman, Gordon, A.J. Allmendinger, Justin, Allgaier, Kenny Wallace and Ron Capps.
• Team Cincinnati: Kahne (captain), Logano, Stewart, Labonte, Elliott and Cruz Pedregon.
• Team Levine: Busch (captain), Johnson, Kenseth, David Reutimann, Dave Blaney, Marcos Ambrose and Pastrana.
• Team St. Jude: Hamlin (captain), Edwards, Schrader, Aric Almirola, Carmichael, Kanaan and Ray Evernham.

-more-
2010 Gillette Fusion ProGlide Prelude to the Dream Page Two

Each hospital will receive a donation, with the payout breakdown as follows:

• Winning team receives 45 percent of net money raised.
• Second-place team receives 25 percent of net money raised.
• Third- and fourth-place teams each receive 15 percent of net money raised.

The lowest team score wins, and only the top-five drivers from each team will be scored. For example, if Team Riley has finishes of first, fourth, seventh, 11th and 18th, respectively, from its top-five drivers, its score will be 41. In the event of a tie, the sixth driver will be scored.

“We wanted to shake things up a little bit this year,” said Stewart, who has won the Prelude to the Dream three times since its inception in 2005. “The team concept adds another level of excitement because there’s now a race within the race. As individual drivers, we all want the big trophy at the end of the night. But it’s cool knowing that battles for fourth and fifth and even 11th and 12th will make a big difference for what children’s hospital ends up with the big check.

“We plan to raise a lot of money for all of these hospitals, no matter where their teams finish. Since HBO Pay-Per-View began televising the Prelude in 2007, we’ve been able to help a lot of deserving charities, and helping children has always been a part of that mission. With this format, we feel we can raise more money than ever before. We’ve always set a goal to raise $1 million. We haven’t been able to reach that goal yet, but with this year’s Prelude where we have a race within a race, I think we have our best shot yet to reach that magic number.”

The four charities – Riley Hospital for Children, Cincinnati Children’s, Levine Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – all cater to the medical needs of children.

The five previous Prelude to the Dreams have collectively raised more than $2.5 million. With each year’s event gaining significant stature and mainstream interest, Stewart’s goal is to have the Gillette Fusion ProGlide Prelude to the Dream raise $1 million, with the proceeds impacting the four charities.

“It’s an ambitious goal, especially in this economy,” admits Stewart. “But if we don’t shoot for a number that is a true difference-maker, we’re not ever going to reach it. That’s our goal, and me and everybody else associated with this event is going to do everything we can to meet that goal. Now, we just need everyone out there to purchase the event, enjoy all the action going on at Eldora, and know that their dollars are going to a very worthy cause.”

“We are pleased to return this season as the entitlement sponsor of this unique race,” said Michelle Potorski, associate marketing director, Gillette North America. “This year we are launching the new Gillette Fusion ProGlide and we and all the Gillette Young Guns look forward to doing our part to help raise funds and awareness for all the charities involved and making this year’s event a success.”

Drivers from all types of disciplines, some with lots of dirt track experience and others with hardly any, will participate in hot laps, qualifying, heat races and a 30-lap feature, all of which will be televised live on HBO Pay-Per-View.

“This is the fourth year in a row we’ve been able to bring live action from Eldora into living rooms across the country,” said Tammy Ross, vice president and general manager, HBO Pay-Per-View & Sports. “This year’s addition of drivers competing on teams brings a whole new dimension to the broadcast, with the big winners being the hospitals they’re representing and the fans at home.”

With no points and no pressure, the Gillette Fusion ProGlide Prelude to the Dream is a throwback race, allowing drivers to step back in time and compete for the reasons they all went racing in the first place – pride and a trophy. And they’ll do it on the same surface that racing legends A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti competed on nearly 50 years ago.

Tony Stewart and the Office Depot/Old Spice team of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) took a step in the right direction Sunday by finishing ninth in the Autism Speaks 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Dover (Del.) International Speedway.

It was Stewart’s 15th top-10 finish in 23 career Sprint Cup starts at the 1-mile oval and his fourth top-10 of 2010. More importantly, it was Stewart’s first top-10 finish since placing second in March at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, ending the longest top-10 drought of his 12-year Sprint Cup career.

“Well, it’s slowed the bleeding down a little bit,” said Stewart, now in his second year as a driver/owner. “But we still had one run in the race there when we came into the pits third or fourth on a caution, put four (tires) on and all of a sudden we go back out and we go to the last car on the lead lap. We raised the track bar an eighth of an inch and that doesn’t make it that bad. But it’s definitely a step in the right direction with our run today. It’s not a perfect run, by any means, be we’re going in the right direction.”

Stewart started 16th in the 400-lap event and quickly moved into the top-10 while informing crew chief Darian Grubb that his car was good on entry and exit and only slightly tight in the center of the corner. Grubb worked on the car throughout the next three pits stops by making small tire pressure and chassis adjustments to the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala.

Unfortunately, after the third pit stop of the day, Stewart’s car began to handle erratically and the red and black No. 14 machine fell back to 16th by lap 224 and was in danger of going one lap down to the leaders.

A caution saved Stewart from losing the lap, whereupon he and Grubb set out to fix the handling issues. The decision was made to put the car’s setup back to how it had been at the start of the race. The call provided immediate dividends, for during the final 120 laps – of which the last 109 were conducted under green – Stewart managed to move from 15th to his respectable ninth-place finish.

With Stewart’s effort at Dover, he gained four spots in the championship standings. He is now 14th with 1,397 points, 37 markers behind 12th-place Martin Truex Jr.

Teammate Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala, came home 13th. The finish allowed Newman to gain one position in the point standings. He’s now one spot ahead of Stewart in 13th with 1,404 points, 30 digits out of the top-12.

Kyle Busch won the Autism Speaks 400 to score his 18th career Sprint Cup victory, his second of the season and his second at Dover. Busch now has 69 career victories across NASCAR’s top three divisions (Sprint Cup – 18, Nationwide – 34, Camping World Truck 17).

Jeff Burton finished 7.551 seconds behind Busch in the runner-up slot, while Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin and David Reutimann rounded out the top-five. Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, Stewart and Joey Logano comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were five caution periods for 24 laps, with nine drivers failing to finish.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the May 22 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. The non-point-paying event begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by SPEED beginning with its pre-race show at 7 p.m. (SPEED’s “RaceDay” will begin at 4 p.m.)

The track “Too Tough to Tame” lived up to its billing in Saturday night’s Showtime Southern 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, at least for Tony Stewart. The driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing dealt with a myriad of issues en route to a 23rd-place finish at the venerable 1.366-mile oval.

From the start of the 367-lap race, Stewart had a racecar that was loose back to the gas each time he came off the track’s corners. Track bar, wedge and air pressure adjustments were used throughout the race to alleviate the car’s ill-handling ways, but adding to the team’s headaches was a slew of problems that only compounded their original difficulty in navigating the track’s tight confines.

There were the typical bumps and scrapes that come with racing at NASCAR’s oldest circuit, with the first being a chain-reaction crash that saw Stewart get into the back of Paul Menard’s Ford on lap 63, when traffic stacked up in between turns one and two. While Menard spun to the apron, Stewart received some cosmetic damage to the nose of his Old Spice/Office Depot machine.

Then, on what was supposed to be the team’s third pit stop on lap 85, Stewart missed his stall when traffic clogged pit road and prevented him from angling into his box. The non-stop did have one benefit as it put Stewart into the lead when the race restarted on lap 89.

Stewart hung tough on the restart, holding the point for five laps before his worn tires became no match to the cars with fresher tires that were in pursuit. Slowly, Stewart dropped back, but maintained a presence in the top-10 through the lap-100 mark.

That top-10 stead was short-lived, however, for Stewart was at least 20 laps off the pit cycle of his competitors. He had to pit on lap 122 for fuel and tires and, in doing so, dropped all the way to 28th. With his car still not handling the way it needed to, Stewart pushed as hard as he could without pushing his car over the edge.

Unfortunately, Stewart found that edge on lap 196 when his car stepped out on him and the right-rear slapped the turn-four wall. The Old Spice/Office Depot Chevy had gone from being too tight to being too loose, and that loose condition reared its ugly head again when Stewart spun off turn four to bring out the caution on lap 201.

On the subsequent trip to pit road, the damage from the previous incident where Stewart slapped the wall was attended to, and after a second trip to pit road, Stewart was back in action in 23rd when the race restarted on lap 205.

Now, the car was back to being tight, even as the two-time Sprint Cup champion was catching the drivers in front of him. But while Stewart was running down those directly ahead of him, he was being run down by the leaders.

On lap 336, Stewart lost a lap to eventual race-winner Denny Hamlin, and it was a deficit he could not overcome. When the checkered flag mercifully dropped, Stewart was 23rd.

Also dropping was Stewart’s position in the championship standings. He fell three spots to 18th, where he now has 1,259 points and is 59 markers outside the top-12.

Teammate Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing, came out of Darlington with a solid ninth-place finish. It was Newman’s fourth top-10 in the last six races and it bumped him up two spots in the championship standings to 14th, 38 points back of 12th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Hamlin’s win in the Showtime Southern 500 was his 11th career Sprint Cup victory, his third of the season and his first at Darlington. Jamie McMurray finished 1.908 seconds behind Hamlin in the runner-up slot, while Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya rounded out the top-five. Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton, Newman and Brian Vickers comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 11 caution periods for 56 laps, with 11 drivers failing to finish.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the May 16 Autism Speaks 400 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. The race starts at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

Tony Stewart has enjoyed far more good days than bad at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway, as his five wins – three in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and two in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series – attest. The bad days are atypical, for in addition to the three Sprint Cup wins, Stewart has four second-place finishes, seven top-threes, nine top-fives and 15 top-10s. There’s little wonder why he considers Richmond his favorite racetrack.

Nonetheless, bad days happen, and one of them came in Saturday night’s Crown Royal Heath Calhoun 400 when he finished an uncharacteristic 23rd.

Stewart’s No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala was a handful throughout the 400-lap race around the .75-mile oval. After starting 18th in the 43-car field, Stewart slowly drifted backward, and with a ferocious pace being set by the leaders, he quickly found himself a lap down on lap 86.

A timely caution flag on lap 155 allowed Stewart to get his lap back, but the constant problem of his car being tight into the corners and loose off eventually put him back down a lap on the 256th circuit.

With 300 laps remaining, Stewart was 28th, sandwiched between Casey Mears and David Gilliland. It was unfamiliar territory for the two-time Sprint Cup champion – especially at Richmond, where he’s led a total of 815 laps in 22 previous starts.

With the race staying green, crew chief Darian Grubb made a strategy call to bring Stewart to pit road early. A four-tire stop with a right-rear wedge adjustment on lap 350 put Stewart on the front end of the pit cycle, and if the race stayed green for the final 50 laps, he would gain considerable ground on those who had been running ahead of him.

The strategy worked, at least a little. Stewart gained one of his laps back to be only one lap down to the leaders when the caution flag waved on lap 368. When the race restarted on lap 378, only 16 cars were on the lead lap, and Stewart was 25th.

Stewart picked up two more spots to climb to 23rd, and held onto those spots when the race’s final restart came with five laps to go after a caution period for Sam Hornish’s crash on the backstretch.

“We’re just not where we need to be right now,” said Stewart, who now finds himself 15th in the championship standings with 1,160 points, a loss of one position that puts him 307 markers behind new series leader Kevin Harvick.

Teammate Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Army Medicine Chevrolet, carried the flag for Stewart-Haas Racing by finishing eighth. It was his third top-10 of the 2010 season and it allowed Newman to gain two positions in the point standings. He’s now 16th and has 1,142 points, 325 points back of Harvick.

Kyle Busch won the Crown Royal Heath Calhoun 400 to score his 17th career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his second at Richmond. It was also the first Sprint Cup win for Busch’s crew chief, Dave Rogers. From 1999 to 2004, Rogers was Stewart’s engineer on the No. 20 Sprint Cup team of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Jeff Gordon finished .755 of a second behind Busch, while Harvick, Jeff Burton and Carl Edwards rounded out the top-five. Juan Pablo Montoya, Martin Truex Jr., Newman, Marcos Ambrose and Jimmie Johnson comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were six caution periods for 37 laps, with six drivers failing to finish.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the May 8 Showtime Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. The race starts at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 7 p.m.

It was far from an official win, but in a garage area surrounded by damaged racecars from a crash-marred Aaron’s 499, Tony Stewart’s 16th-place finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway was a victory, nonetheless. Crew chief Darian Grubb said it best: “We survived Talladega.”

In a race that saw eight caution periods for 32 laps – four of which came in the race’s last 24 laps – survival was the name of the game. Yet, Stewart’s No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot “Matterhorn” Chevrolet still showed some game as it led one lap early in the 200-lap event and was a part of a handful of charges to the front, the last of which put him second on lap 180 thanks to some helpful pushing from Dale Earnhardt Jr.

But when three separate multi-car accidents conspired to force the race deep into overtime, as the maximum three attempts were made at a green-white-checker finish, the constant restarts kept dropping Stewart further down the running order. His car, which sported a special paint scheme promoting the “Matterhorn” scent from the Old Spice Fresh Collection, needed momentum to keep it moving toward the front. It was as if the car needed to get wound up before it could get going, and each time the yellow caution flag waved, that momentum was lost. It all resulted in a 16th-place finish.

“Not what we were looking for, by any means,” said Stewart, who started 13th after Saturday’s qualifying session was rained out and the field was set by car owner points. “But we’ve also left here a lot worse. So, I guess we’ll take what we can and go on to Richmond.”

Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation/Office Depot Chevrolet, finished a disappointing 35th after being involved in the second-to-last multi-car accident of the event.

Kevin Harvick won the Aaron’s 499 to score his 12th career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his first at Talladega.

Jamie McMurray finished .011 of a second behind Harvick, while Juan Pablo Montoya, Denny Hamlin and Mark Martin rounded out the top-five. David Ragan, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch and Mike Bliss comprised the remainder of the top-10.

Thirteen drivers failed to finish the 200-lap race, which was extended 12 laps past the scheduled distance due to three attempts at a green-white-checker finish. It made Sunday’s race the longest in Talladega history at 532 miles, and it set an all-time NASCAR record for leaders (29) and lead changes (88).

With round nine of 36 complete, Stewart is 14th in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He fell from a tie for 12th and now has 1,061 points. He is 262 markers behind series leader Jimmie Johnson. Newman lost two positions to fall to 18th in the standings. He has 995 points and is 328 points back of Johnson.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the May 1 Crown Royal 400 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway. The race starts at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 7 p.m.

A day that began with a lot of promise and a start from the pole ended with a wrecked Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala and a disappointing 32nd-place finish for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) driver/owner Tony Stewart.

The Columbus, Ind., native led five times for 74 laps in Monday’s rain-postponed Samsung Mobile 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, but Stewart’s 400th career Sprint Cup start ended badly when he was involved in a late-race multi-car accident that left him with his first DNF (Did Not Finish) of 2010.

Stewart, who started from the pole and led the race’s first 15 laps, was in sixth place on lap 312 of the 334-lap race when a caution came out for David Reutimann’s blown engine. When the lead lap cars pitted one lap later, Stewart and crew chief Darian Grubb elected to take only two tires along with the teams of Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Greg Biffle and Kyle Busch. Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth elected to take four tires, which put them behind the six drivers who opted only for right-side tires.

The race restarted on lap 317 with Burton leading, Stewart in second and Hamlin in third. Stewart fell back slightly and as he entered turn four, he and four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon, who had restarted eighth, made contact and set off a wild, nine-car accident on the frontstretch. In addition to Stewart and Gordon, the wreck collected Joey Logano, Jamie McMurray, Clint Bowyer, Juan Pablo Montoya, A.J. Allmendinger, Paul Menard and Carl Edwards.

The No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet suffered heavy damage all the way around and was unable to continue, forcing Stewart to take his only finish outside the top-30 this season.

The two-time Sprint Cup champion was checked and released from the Texas Motor Speedway infield medical center without injury.

“I came off of (turn) four there and bounced off of Jeff’s (Gordon) right rear,” Stewart said. “It was just a pendulum and I lost it and got into his right rear, and then I got us to where neither one of us could get away from it. Somebody put me three-wide in (turns) one and two and that got me up to where I got a lot of junk on my tires and that started it. It was my fault. I feel bad about it, about doing something stupid like that. I didn’t plan on getting loose, but it is 100 percent my fault.”

Following the accident, Stewart and Gordon spoke to each other after exiting their damaged racecars.

“I think he (Gordon) was worried that I was going to be upset about it on his side,” Stewart said. “It wasn’t his fault, obviously. I got a chance to see it in the infield care center, it is definitely my fault. I apologize to all the teams and drivers that got caught up and their fans for it. We had a really good car there and just a shame that it happened.”

Hamlin won the Samsung Mobile 500 to score his 10th career Sprint Cup victory, his second of the season and his first at Texas. Four-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion Johnson finished .152 of a second behind Hamlin, while Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne rounded out the top-five. Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick, Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr., and Greg Biffle comprised the remainder of the top-10. Ryan Newman, Stewart’s teammate at SHR, finished 11th.

There were seven caution periods for 32 laps, with 14 drivers failing to finish the 501-mile race.

With round eight of 36 complete, Stewart and Joey Logano are tied for 12th in the Sprint Cup championship standings. Stewart fell four spots and now has 941 points, 307 markers behind series leader Johnson. Newman remained 16th in the standings. He has 932 points and is 316 points back of Johnson.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the April 25 Aaron’s 499 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The race starts at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

Tony Stewart won Saturday night at Phoenix International Raceway, but not in the traditional way that most view the driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet. In fact, Stewart the driver finished 23rd in the Subway Fresh Fit 600k NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at the 1-mile oval. Stewart the owner, however, got to stop in victory lane to congratulate his Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) teammate Ryan Newman on his first win as a member of SHR.

“As a driver, I hate the way I ran tonight. But as an owner, I’m very happy for Ryan, Tony Gibson (crew chief) and everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing for getting that ‘39’ car into victory lane,” said Stewart, who co-owns SHR with Haas Automation, the largest CNC machine tool builder in the western world. “They’ve worked so hard. They certainly earned this win. Just a really good win for all of our partners, especially Tornados, the U.S. Army and Haas Automation.”

Newman led the final two laps of the 378-lap contest, which was extended three laps past its originally scheduled distance via a green-white-checkered finish. The driver of the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet Impala took the lead from four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon on the race’s final restart and held the point until the checkered flag waved. It was Newman’s 14th career Sprint Cup victory and his first since winning the 50th running of the Daytona 500 in 2008, a span of 77 races.

You wouldn’t know it from the result, but Stewart began his race the way Newman finished it. Stewart drove from his 11th-place starting spot to take the lead on lap 23, a position he held for 15 circuits around the desert mile. But changing track conditions derailed Stewart’s time up front, and as day slipped into night, the handling of his No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet went away and left him with a 23rd-place finish.

Finishing .130 of a second behind Newman was Gordon, while Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Juan Pablo Montoya rounded out the top-five. Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were nine caution periods for 59 laps, with six drivers failing to finish.

With round seven of 36 complete, Stewart is ninth in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He fell one spot and now has 869 points, 204 markers behind series leader Johnson. Newman vaulted six positions to climb to 16th in the standings. He has 802 points and is 271 points back of Johnson.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the April 18 Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. The race starts at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 2 p.m.

For the first 65 laps of Monday’s rain-postponed Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, it appeared as though Tony Stewart had a great chance for his third career victory at the .526-mile oval. Unfortunately, the handling on Stewart’s No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala became problematic, making for a long day for Stewart and crew chief Darian Grubb and relegating them to a disappointing 26th-place finish.

Rain was a problem for much of the weekend at Martinsville, as Friday’s qualifying session was canceled due to the wet conditions and Stewart was assigned the fifth starting spot after NASCAR set the line-up by current car owner points. More rain in southern Virginia pushed the race from Sunday to Monday.

Once the race started, Stewart quickly began a charge to the front and was second by lap 34, while telling Grubb his car was tight in the center. Still, the No. 14 machine was good on entry and exit in the turns. However, after the first pit stop of the day on lap 43, the handling of Stewart’s Chevy began to go away.

Even as he managed to stay among the top-10, Stewart informed Grubb that he needed the car to bite and turn better in the corners, so Grubb called for four tires, fuel and adjustments to the tire pressure, wedge and track bar when Stewart pitted again on lap 65. Because of all the adjustments, the stop was lengthy, and Stewart has to restart outside the top-20. From there, the day-long battle between crew and car was never resolved.

Throughout the next 443 laps, Grubb threw everything he had at the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevy, but it was to no avail. The Floyd, Va., native tinkered with track bar, wedge, shock and tire pressure adjustments, some big and some small, in hopes of getting the car to Stewart’s liking.

Just past the 300-lap mark, Grubb sent car chief Jeff Meendering over the wall to adjust the toe angle of the car’s front-end alignment in hopes that it would bring the No. 14 to life, but even that rare in-race adjustment failed to fix the handling.

Stewart ultimately went down two laps and finished outside the top-25 for only the fifth time in his 23 career Sprint Cup starts at Martinsville.

“The first 40 laps, we were the fastest car out there and got up to second,” Grubb said. “After that, I don’t have a clue what happened. We tried to make changes to make the car turn better and everything we did made the car tighter. We started undoing all of our adjustments and we got it a little better, but by that time we had already lost track position and were losing laps. I’ve never made that many adjustments on a racecar, so we were obviously way, way off.”

Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Ryan Newman enjoyed a much better outing by finishing a solid fourth.

Denny Hamlin led six times for a race-high 172 laps to win the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500. It was his ninth career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his third at Martinsville.

Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano finished .670 of a second behind in the runner-up slot. Jeff Gordon finished third, while Newman, Martin Truex Jr., Brian Vickers, Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 13 caution periods for 79 laps, with seven drivers failing to finish the race, which was extended eight laps past its originally scheduled 500-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.

With round six of 36 complete, Stewart is eighth in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He fell three spots and now has 770 points, 128 markers behind new series leader Johnson. Newman gained four positions to climb to 22nd in the standings. He has 612 points and is 286 points back of Johnson.

The Sprint Cup Series takes a weekend off in honor of Easter before heading to Phoenix International Raceway for the April 10 Subway Fresh Fit 600k. The race begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 7 p.m.

A late-race call for two tires put Tony Stewart in position to win Sunday’s Food City 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) drove from fourth to first in the race’s final 10 laps, but couldn’t hold off Jimmie Johnson and wound up second to the four-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion.

“It’s a gamble taking two tires, obviously,” said Stewart, who qualified 11th and ran in the top-10 throughout the 500-lap race. “Our car was really loose before that last pit stop, so we felt like we were in a position where we could take two (tires). Darian (Grubb, crew chief) made a great chassis adjustment that got the car tight enough for the last 10 laps to at least race the guys that I was on the same tires with. We had to do that to get some track position, and I felt like it was a risk worth taking. We just couldn’t hold off Jimmie.”

Johnson, who was strong all race long as evidenced by him leading three times for 84 laps, was one of only two drivers who took four tires instead of two. Johnson made his way past Stewart on lap 494, while Kurt Busch, the other driver who opted for four tires, rallied from fifth to third in the final laps, as Stewart was able to hold him off to notch his best finish this season and his first top-five of 2010.

“It was a 10-lap sprint to the end there,” said Stewart, who scored his lone victory at Bristol in August 2001. “Jimmie had one of the best cars all day, and we had a good racecar, too. We just never really got off on restarts to get going. That last one was probably one of the best restarts I had all day as far as getting moving and getting momentum and getting locked in. I couldn’t make my car wide enough to keep Jimmie behind us. His car was good no matter where he needed to go. Congratulations to Jimmie. I couldn’t do anything with him.

“We got us a top-five there and I’m proud of our guys. It’s fun when you can get a car to drive well here. It’s feast or famine here at Bristol. If your car drives well, it’s a fun, great day. If something’s wrong or you have a problem and you get in the back, it’s a day to forget. Glad we ended up with a good day.”

The good day brought Stewart to fifth in the championship standings, a gain of three positions. He now has 685 points and is 89 markers behind series leader Kevin Harvick.

Stewart’s SHR teammate, Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet, finished 16th. Newman’s third straight top-20 result bumped him up three spots to 26th in the standings. He currently has 452 points, 322 arrears Harvick.

Johnson’s win in the Food City 500 was his 50th career Sprint Cup victory, his third of the season and his first at Bristol. Johnson is now in a three-way tie for 10th on the all-time Sprint Cup win list with Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson.

Stewart finished .894 of a second behind Johnson, while Kurt Busch, who led 10 times for a race-high 278 laps, finished third. Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jamie McMurray, Kyle Busch and Jeff Burton comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 10 caution periods for 103 laps, with eight drivers failing to finish.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the March 28 Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The race starts at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

A 13th-place finish has never been something Tony Stewart has crowed about, and his result in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway was no different. Yet achieving this 13th-place finish was different, for Stewart had to come from the back of the 43-car field while managing his tires and dodging numerous late-race accidents. In fact, so much was packed into this race that it needed nearly 25 extra miles to complete, as it took two attempts at a green-white-checkered finish to finally end what turned out to be a 341-lap race.

“Long day,” said Stewart, who despite qualifying 15th had to start at the back of the 43-car field after his team changed engines following final practice on Saturday. “The tire deal kind of made the racing old school. You had to take care of your tires at the front of a run to make sure you still had tires at the end of the run. You could never run 100 percent. You really had to manage your equipment.”

The driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) rallied his way into the top-10 less than 40 laps into the race. It was an impressive feat not only for the amount of positions gained in such a short time, but also because he did it with tires that quickly became worn thanks to the rigors of racing at Atlanta’s 1.54-mile oval.

Competitors were finding that their right-front tires would blister if they pushed them too hard, and hardly anyone had a set of tires that could last more than 40 laps, never mind a full fuel run. The tire wear Stewart encountered ran the gamut from mild to mashed, for if he had the opportunity to take care of his tires, the inside edge of his right-front would blister only slightly. But if the racing conditions forced him to really push, the loads placed on the tires, specifically the right-front, could not endure.

That was exactly the case on lap 190 when Stewart had to make an unscheduled pit stop for a flat right-front tire. He had been running seventh, but the stop, which happened under green, dropped him to 28th.

All was not lost, however, for as long as the race stayed green, everyone else would have to pit for tires. Even with the unscheduled pit stop, if all of Stewart’s competitors hit pit road eventually, everyone would cycle through, meaning that Stewart’s lost track position would be only temporary.

As luck would have it, that’s the way it played out. The yellow caution flag never waved, and as drivers ducked onto pit road, Stewart earned his lap back, and then methodically ticked his way up the leaderboard, rising to as high as third on lap 214.

“The balance wasn’t bad, but I just couldn’t run hard and keep the tires underneath it” said Stewart, who scored victories at Atlanta in March 2002 and October 2006.

As a result, Stewart slowly fell toward 10th, but he didn’t drop out of the top-10 until lap 288 when the caution flag waved and he was 12th. From there to the finish, a series of cautions meant a series of restarts, and, unfortunately, the Office Depot/Old Spice machine couldn’t take off as well as it counterparts. By lap 300, Stewart was in 14th. Seven laps later, though, he was a lot worse off.

A loose wheel sent Stewart to the pits for another unscheduled stop on lap 307. He emerged in 30th, and it seemed a dismal finish was all but guaranteed. Yet two separate multi-car accidents that collected a total of nine cars in the race’s final 17 laps allowed Stewart to claw his way to a respectable 13th-place finish.

Stewart’s SHR teammate, Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet, finished 17th after enduring a similarly long day. He also had to start at the back, for his team made an engine change early Sunday morning, nullifying his seventh-place qualifying effort.

Kurt Busch won the Kobalt Tools 500 to score his 21st career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his third at Atlanta.

Matt Kenseth finished .482 of a second behind Busch, while Juan Pablo Montoya, Kasey Kahne and Paul Menard rounded out the top-five. A.J. Allmendinger, Brian Vickers, Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick and Scott Speed comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 11 caution periods for 53 laps, with eight drivers failing to finish the 341-lap race, which was extended 16 laps past its scheduled distance due to the green-white-checkered finish.

With round four of 36 complete, Stewart is eighth in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He gained three positions and now has 510 points, 134 markers behind series leader Harvick. Newman rose three spots to 29th in the standings. He has 337 points and is 307 points back of Harvick.

The Sprint Cup Series takes a rare weekend off before heading to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for the March 21 Food City 500. The race begins at 1 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

Tony Stewart knocked down his second straight top-10 finish with a solid seventh-place effort in Sunday’s Shelby American NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) led twice for seven laps in the 267-lap race.

“We ended up seventh, which is alright, but you always want more,” said Stewart, who finished ninth in last Sunday’s race in Fontana, Calif. “I struggled on restarts. It took a couple laps to get going, and when you lose so much time here on restarts like that, it makes for a long day.”

Stewart started ninth and never fell out of the top-10. By lap 13, he had risen to seventh, a spot he would hold for much of the race. Yet even with a car that was tight in the center of the track’s corners and loose on exit, Stewart would occasionally post a lap as fast, if not faster than, the leaders.

Crew chief Darian Grubb massaged the chassis through a series of wedge, track bar and tire pressure adjustments during the team’s regularly scheduled pit stops. And thanks to quick work by the Old Spice/Office Depot pit crew, Stewart was able to crack the top-five after 90 laps around the 1.5-mile oval.

But as Stewart alluded, restarts were his Achilles Heel. After starting fourth on lap 93, Stewart fell to seventh by lap 108. And when he started fourth for another restart on lap 114, he was back in seventh by lap 120.

Stewart’s time at the top of leaderboard came during two green flag runs where teams had to make scheduled pit stops. Stewart stayed out to lead laps 164-165 and laps 215-219 before making his requisite trips to pit road.

The two-time Sprint Cup champion was in fifth-place when the race’s final caution came out on lap 230. With only 11 drivers on the lead lap, the call was made to come to pit road for four tires and a splash of gas. Four tires, reasoned Stewart and Grubb, were better than two tires or no tires at all, as some opted for track position over a trip to pit road.

Those three strategies then played out in the race’s final 33 laps. Clint Bowyer, who had stayed out, led the field to green. Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Mark Martin took just two tires and restarted second, third and sixth, respectively. Everyone else took four tires, which included Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth, who lined up fourth and fifth, respectively, while Stewart slotted in at – you guessed it – seventh.

In theory, Stewart was in the driver’s seat to log a top-three finish, for his four-tire strategy was better than Bowyer’s no-tire strategy and the two-tire calls of those ahead of him. But since restarts had hampered Stewart all day long, the race’s final restart was no different. The Old Spice/Office Depot driver struggled to get going and dropped to ninth in just one lap. He had to use the remaining laps to simply get back what he lost. Stewart was successful in that endeavor, crossing the stripe in seventh when the checkered flag waved.

Stewart’s SHR teammate, Ryan Newman, finished 18th in his No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet.

Johnson ended up winning the Shelby American. The four-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion scored his 49th career Sprint Cup victory, his second of the season and his fourth at Las Vegas. Harvick finished 1.874 seconds behind Johnson, while Gordon, Martin and Kenseth rounded out the top-five. Joey Logano, Stewart, Bowyer, Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were seven caution periods for 29 laps, with five drivers failing to finish the 400-mile race.

With round 3 of 36 complete, Stewart is 11th in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He gained six positions and now has 386 points, 120 markers back of series leader Harvick. Newman rose four spots to 32nd in the standings. He has 225 points and is 281 points behind Harvick.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the March 7 Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The race starts at 1 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at noon.

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Tony Stewart put in a workmanlike performance in Sunday’s Auto Club 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., and the result was a solid ninth-place finish. It was Stewart’s third straight top-10 finish at the 2-mile oval and his first of the 2010 season.

“We got a top-10 out of it, but that was about it,” Stewart said. “We made gains on it all day, but we didn’t quite get exactly where we wanted to be. Still, we got better as the day went on.”

The driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) started the 250-lap race from 16th in the 43-car field, but Stewart soon dropped back with a car that lacked grip whenever he sailed his 3,500-pound racecar into the track’s corners. With less than 25 laps on the board, Stewart was outside the top-20.

Stewart didn’t panic, nor did crew chief Darian Grubb. Instead they went to work, and after two scheduled pit stops on laps 37 and 59, respectively, where track bar and wedge adjustments were made, the red No. 14 responded.

Stewart was back in the top-15 by lap 92, and on lap 99 cracked the top-10 with an authoritative pass of four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon. From there, Stewart was a top-10 mainstay, rising to as high as fifth when he passed Matt Kenseth on lap 119.

The handling of the Old Spice/Office Depot ride was much improved, but Stewart still needed help in getting his car to cut better through the center of the corner. A slight air pressure adjustment was made during a pit stop on lap 134, but a slow tire change dropped Stewart to 10th in the running order.

“No problem. We’ll get it back,” Stewart said. And by lap 155, he was proven correct, as Stewart was back in fifth.

With his car’s handling still not as good as the leaders, Stewart couldn’t hold onto to his slot among the top-five. He dropped back, but never outside the top-10. When the checkered flag waved after lap 250, Stewart was solidly in ninth.

“We just missed it on taking off on that last run. We got too free,” said Stewart, who now has 10 top-10 finishes in 18 career Sprint Cup starts at Fontana. “But it’s a top-10 and we’ll take it and go onto Las Vegas.”

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala and Stewart’s teammate at SHR, finished a disappointing 36th when his engine expired shortly after a restart on lap 146.

Jimmie Johnson won the Auto Club 500 to score his 48th career Sprint Cup victory, his first of the season and his fifth at Fontana. Johnson has won four of the last six Sprint Cup races at the Southern California track.

Kevin Harvick finished 1.523 seconds behind Johnson, while Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Joey Logano rounded out the top-five. Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Stewart and Greg Biffle comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were six caution periods for 30 laps, with 10 drivers failing to finish.

With round 2 of 36 complete, Stewart is 17th in the Sprint Cup championship standings. He has 235 points and is 96 markers back of series leader Harvick. Newman is 36th in the standings with 116 points, 215 points behind Harvick.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Feb. 28 Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The race starts at 3 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 2 p.m.