NASCAR Nextel - Stewart Wins Dodge/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma

SONOMA, Calif. June 26, 2005; Mike Harris writing for the AP reported that Tony Stewart found his way back to Victory Lane with the help of some right-hand turns. The former series champion took over the lead when pole winner and race favorite Jeff Gordon faltered with transmission trouble and went on to win Sunday's NASCAR Nextel Cup Dodge/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway, his first win since last August at Watkins Glen International, the only other road circuit on the Cup schedule.

It wasn't a romp, though.

Several cars, including those driven by veterans Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd, had pitted only a handful of laps before and stayed on track when Stewart made his final stop under the seventh of eight cautions in the race. Stewart restarted 14th on lap 73 of the 110-lap event.

As Rudd, whose last Cup win came here in June 2002, caught and passed Wallace for the lead on lap 83, Stewart steadily shot toward the leaders. He moved into second place on lap 85, still trailing the leader by 2.7 seconds -- about half the main straightaway.

It was only a matter of time, though, as Stewart, who had three second-place finishes this season before finally breaking into the win column on Sunday, closed in. His No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet finally got past Rudd's No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford with an inside move on the final turn -- a slow, hairpin right-hander -- on lap 100.

Rudd got one more shot at the leader when the caution flag waved on lap 103 because of debris on the track. But Stewart shot away on the restart on lap 106 and went on to win by 2.266-seconds, about 20 car-lengths.

Rudd barely held off reigning Cup champion Kurt Busch for second before running out of gas just past the finish line. Wallace finished fourth, followed by Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler.

The victory was the 20th of Stewart's career, his fourth in 13 starts on road courses and his second on Infineon's picturesque 1.99-mile, 11-turn circuit.

Transmission problems spoiled the day for three of the four Hendrick Motorsports entries Sunday, with Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, who started alongside Gordon in the front row, and Brian Vickers all slowed by linkage troubles.

Johnson wound up 36th in the points and, combined with Greg Biffle's 14th-place finish, his bad day cost him the series lead that he had held since the fourth race of the season at Atlanta. Biffle now leads by 22 points heading into next Saturday night's race at Daytona.

Gordon, NASCAR's career leader on road courses with eight victories, appeared on the way to his fifth win at Infineon, leading the first 32 laps before slowing suddenly and giving up the top spot to Stewart.

The four-time series champion had hoped getting to a road course would end his recent problems that had seen him finish 30th or worse in four of the last five races, but the broken transmission relegated Gordon to 32nd place on Sunday.

Stewart, who started seventh, had worked his way up to second and was pushing Gordon hard before the leader slowed. From that point to the end, the 2002 Cup champion was easily the fastest car on the track.