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Sprinting to victory Stewart wins two-lap shootout for first win in 2001
Updated: Friday May 18, 2001 10:09 PM
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com RICHMOND, Va. -- The reports of Tony Stewart's demise? Greatly exaggerated. On a cool, cloudy Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway, Stewart dotted the "I's" and crossed the "T's" of one hell of a good run, a month of Sundays (almost) that has taken him from a distant 17th in the Winston Cup standings to his current, more customary perch, seventh. Jeff Gordon finished second and closed to within 14 points of Winston Cup leader Dale Jarrett. Rusty Wallace finished third and moved into third in the points race, pushing Johnny Benson to fourth. By winning the Pontiac Excitement 400 in reasonably dominant fashion -- his Pontiac led 91 laps to Wallace's Ford, which led 276 -- Stewart not only once and for all put to rest any questions about what ails him and the No. 20 team, but he capped what has undoubtedly been the best month of his short career.
In winning his 10th race in his 79th career start, Stewart put the finishing touches on a month in which he had four consecutive top 10s, a level of consistency he'd never managed (in the previous three races before Saturday, Stewart finished seventh, second and fourth). Perhaps even more important, he and his team got a sizable jump on last year, when they didn't win their first race until almost a month later.
"It's always good to get your first win of the year," Stewart said. "It always seems like it takes us a long time to get that first one, but once we get it, they seem to come a little more frequently." Stewart's rediscovered mojo came at the expense of Wallace, who for the second consecutive year, led far and away the majority of the laps only to come up short. "The car was just perfect all night long," Wallace said. "I had a hot rod, I guess I led [the most] laps tonight and it's a crying shame to lose it right there at the end." In fact, Wallace relinquished his last lead to Stewart with 38 laps remaining. Still, Wallace was correct in asserting that Stewart's win was in doubt until the end. When Dave Blaney hit the wall with five laps to go, it brought out the eighth and last caution of the night and initiated a confusing sequence in which the race was red-flagged for almost four minutes. More importantly, Stewart's yawning 1.5-second lead was pared to nothing and brought Wallace and Gordon back into the mix for the final, two-lap sprint.
But Stewart got a good jump on the final restart and when Wallace and Gordon began their own duel for track position, the race was Stewart's to lose. "With as much as the car slipped around on those last two laps," Stewart said. "I was surprised those guys never made a run. I never did make a good corner in the last lap and a half and I guess those guys didn't, either."
Well, whatever he did, it was good enough, and perhaps the last word on what, exactly, Stewart's "problem" is. "It's a lot of trial and error and educated guesses," Stewart said when he was asked about what has led to his recent resurgence. "We work really hard at those educated guesses, but it always seems like we stumble onto the answers. Fortunately, we seem to have learned a few things here in the last few weeks. "I don't have a crystal ball to see the rest of the season, unfortunately," Stewart continued. "But if history repeats itself, we have a lot to look forward to." Everyone else, on the other hand ..."
Points leader Dale Jarrett, who finished 15th, saw his lead over Gordon shrink to just 14 points. Wallace is third, 62 points back. Stewart moved into seventh place, 172 points behind Jarrett.
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