Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet Impala SS, led the two-car Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) contingent at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth by finishing sixth in Sunday’s Dickies 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.
It was Stewart’s 23rd top-10 finish of 2009 and his 10th in 16 career Sprint Cup starts at Texas.
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation/U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala SS for SHR, finished 12th to score his 16th top-12 finish of 2009.
Kurt Busch stretched his fuel mileage and beat Denny Hamlin by 25.686 seconds to win the Dickies 500 and score his 20th career Sprint Cup victory, his second of the season and his first at Texas.
Matt Kenseth finished third, while Mark Martin and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top-five. Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle, Jeff Burton and A.J. Allmendinger comprised the remainder of the top-10.
There were five caution periods for 26 laps, with six drivers failing to finish the 334-lap race.
Both SHR drivers are represented in this year’s Chase for the Championship. Stewart remained fifth in the standings and is now 178 points behind Chase leader Johnson, who was involved in a lap three accident and finished 38th. Newman fell one spot to ninth and is 324 markers out of first.
With only two races remaining before a champion is crowned following the season finale Nov. 22 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the top-12 drivers competing for the title rank as follows:
1. Jimmie Johnson (6,297 points) +/-0
2. Mark Martin (6,224 points, -73) +/-0
3. Jeff Gordon (6,185 points, -112) +/-0
4. Kurt Busch (6,126 points, -171) +2
5. Tony Stewart (6,119 points, -178) +/-0
6. Juan Pablo Montoya (6,061 points, -236) -2
7. Greg Biffle (6,050 points, -247) +/-0
8. Denny Hamlin (5,975 points, -322) +3
9. Ryan Newman (5,973 points, -324) -1
10. Kasey Kahne (5,898 points, -399) -1
11. Carl Edwards (5,857 points, -440) -1
12. Brian Vickers (5,777 points, -520) +/-0
The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Nov. 15 Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500k at Phoenix International Raceway. The season’s penultimate race starts at 3:15 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by ABC beginning with its pre-race show at 2:30 p.m.
0 Comments on “Stewart-Haas Racing Dickies 500 Race Report”
Leave a Comment