Stewart Kicks Off Chase With Win In Geico 400

Tony Stewart picked a fine time to win his first race of the season Monday as he overcame gas mileage fears to win the Geico 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at the Chicagoland Speedway; a race delayed a day by rain.

Tony Stewart and his team celebrate in victory lane at Chicagoland Speedway after winning the opening race of the Chase for the Championship. [Russ Lake Photo]

Stewart, who recently said that he didn’t consider himself a contender for the Sprint Cup championship, nursed his Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet home ahead of a fast-closing Kevin Harvick as several leaders ran out of fuel on the final lap.

Stewart took the lead for the final time on lap 252 when leader Martin Truex Jr. stopped for fuel. Pole winner Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Harvick were in hot pursuit, but Kenseth and Johnson soon slowed their pace, knowing they would likely come up short at the end if they tried to catch Stewart, who almost gave up the lead to the more aggressive Harvick.

“We were putting in the clutch and lifting, trying to save fuel,” said Stewart who beat Harvick’s” Budweiser Chevrolet to the flag by 0.941 sec. “We had to take a chance. When you start 26th you don’t have anything to lose.”

Harvick got the green light from crew chief Gil Martin to try to catch Stewart near the end, but thought he might have been a bit too cautious in the final laps. “We saved enough fuel under caution to make a run at him. We could shut off the engine 5-6 times. But I should have listened to Gil when he said to go. I might have been able to catch him, but every point matters and second is better than running out. As it was I ran out coming onto pit road at the end.”

With the checkered flag in sight for Stewart, several leaders came up short of fuel and gave up top finishing positions. Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Kenseth, and five-time series’ champion Johnson, fell off the pace as their cars slowed, giving Dale Earnhardt Jr. third, Carl Edwards fourth and Brad Keselowski fifth.

Kenseth, who would have finished eighth, got a push from J J Yeley to help him to the checkered flag, but NASCAR rules prohibit assistance on the final circuit and Kenseth was dropped to 21st.

“The car was a bit of a struggle early in the race but changes we made late made it better, said Earnhardt Jr. “We made it farther than most. I knew we’d have a good finish if we didn’t run out.”

For Stewart, the delayed event was beneficial, as a painful headache would have made for a long day had the race been run as scheduled.

“I had a bad migraine yesterday. It’s been a long, tough year without a win,” said the Indiana native. “This was a good time to get our first win. I feel better about it now.”

Harvick now holds a seven point lead over Stewart in the Chase followed by Edwards, Kurt Busch and Earnhardt Jr.

The win gave Stewart a streak of at least one trip to Victory Lane in each of the past 13 seasons.

“This gets us off to the right start, but we have nine hard weeks to go,” noted Stewart, whose victory tied him with Mark Martin for 16th on the all-time list-each having 40 series’ wins.

The Chase for the Sprint Cup moves to New Hampshire Speedway next week.

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

racingnation.com

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