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 "Something happened to the motor. I just don't know what happened." |
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Tony Stewart
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By Mike Fish, CNNSI.com
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Imagine stepping on the field for the Super Bowl and tearing a hamstring before you work up a sweat.
That's about where Tony Stewart found himself.
Stewart came into the 44th Daytona 500 a solid favorite, but two laps into the race the engine let out on his No. 20 Home Depot racer. None of Stewart's skills could overcome bad fortune. Instead, he ended up Sunday afternoon watching the race inside his comfortable motor coach.
"Something happened to the motor," said Stewart, climbing out of car. "I just don't know what happened. It laid down on the start a little bit. Then as the lap went on it laid down even more.
"I'm glad I didn't cause a wreck trying to get off the track. The hard part was that it laid down going into the banking and there was nowhere to really go other than around the bottom of the track."
Stewart had every reason to assume he'd be a factor in the race. During Speed Weeks, he'd won the Budweiser Shootout, the IROC race and finished second in one of the Twin 125-mile races.
As his car was being worked over in the garage area, a stone-faced Stewart stayed around long enough to hug several crew members before walking briskly to his motor coach. He brushed off further questions from a trailing media.
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