Tony Stewart Richmond Race Report

Richmond, May 1, 2011: It was far from glamorous, but the ninth-place finish Tony Stewart earned in Saturday night’s Crown Royal 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway was perhaps one of the hardest earned top-10s of his 13-year Sprint Cup career.

The driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) started deep in the 43-car field after qualifying only 31st. He struggled with an ill-handling car from the onset of the 400-lap contest around the .75-mile oval, so much so that he went a lap down on lap 76. Stewart stayed in that spot, hovering in the mid-20s, until finally earning the “lucky dog” when a timely caution came out on lap 257 for an accident in turn two. As the first car one lap down when the yellow caution flag waved, Stewart got his lap back, which allowed him to finally stretch the legs of his Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevy, which crew chief Darian Grubb had tuned to be a much more efficient machine in the second half of the race.

Methodically, Stewart worked his way toward the front, cracking the top-20 on lap 264 and the top-10 on lap 289. Stewart rose to as high as sixth with 25 laps remaining before succumbing to the stronger cars behind him. Nonetheless, the two-time Sprint Cup champion held on to grab his 16th top-10 finish at Richmond and his third top-10 finish this season.

“We couldn’t make our car turn for anything. I mean, we have a lot of work to do right now,” said Stewart, who has three Sprint Cup wins and two NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victories at Richmond.