Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Burger King Chevrolet Impala SS, led the two-car Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) contingent at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway by winning Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.
Stewart, who led nine times for a race-high 86 laps in the 160-lap event, slipped past momentary race leader Kyle Busch several hundred yards from the finish line to score his second point-paying Sprint Cup victory of the season, his third career point-paying win at Daytona, and the 35th of his career in 374 Sprint Cup starts. Busch, who took the lead from Stewart coming to the white flag, slid up the track as Stewart made an outside move. The two cars touched, and Busch ended up spinning into the SAFER Barrier that lines the outside retaining wall. He was unhurt.
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army/Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala SS for SHR, finished 20th. Newman recovered from an early race, multi-car accident and several unscheduled pit stops for repair work to get back on the lead lap seven laps from the finish. He picked up nine spots before the checkered flag dropped.
Stewart remains atop the championship point standings, as his victory expanded his lead to 180 points over second-place Jeff Gordon. Newman remained seventh in the standings, 484 points out of first.
Jimmie Johnson finished .110 of a second behind Stewart in the runner-up slot, while Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch rounded out the top-five. Marcos Ambrose, Brian Vickers, Matt Kenseth, Juan Pablo Montoya and Elliott Sadler comprised the remainder of the top-10.
There were eight caution periods for 30 laps, with six drivers failing to finish the 400-mile race.
The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the July 11 LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill. The race begins at 8 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by TNT beginning with its pre-race show at 7:30 p.m.
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 8:13 am
WOW! WHAT A RACE!!!! I know Smoke didn’t like to see Bush hit the wall… but I have to say, I quite enjoyed it (since he wasn’t hurt) LOL!!!! What a season!!!! As always… looking forward to the Championship at Homestead/Miami! hee! GO SMOKE!