Tony Stewart figured out the restarts just in time to win the Emory Healthcare 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series night race Sunday, holding off Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson for his third win at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Stewart spent most of the night on the radio with his crew, apologizing for spinning his tires and costing himself valuable track position each time the green flag waved. As the laps ticked down, he promised crew chief Darian Grubb that he had, “one more trick,” to try.
But when it came down to it, Stewart was too nervous to try the old dirt-tracking trick of dragging the brake pedal. What he did instead was nail the restart clean, powering himself to the front of the pack during restarts on both lap 301 and lap 308.
“I didn’t hit a restart all night ‘til the end there. I’m so proud of my crew, they put me in the position to be able to do this,” Stewart said, still winded from the four-hour, 500-mile marathon under the lights. “I’ve never been this happy to win a race in my life.”
Edwards, himself a three-time winner at Atlanta, was happy with his runner-up finish, admitting that he didn’t have anything for Stewart at the end.
“(Stewart’s) car was amazing,” Edwards said. “The place where he was driving on the race track, I couldn’t go there.”
Peachtree City’s Reed Sorenson was the highest finishing Georgia driver, ending the night 14th. Unadilla-native David Ragan finished 19th, Dawsonville’s Bill Elliott 23rd and former Alpharetta resident Joey Logano was 27th.
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 14 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 2 99 Carl Edwards Ford 3 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 4 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 5 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 6 2 Kurt Busch Dodge 7 33 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 8 39 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 9 42 Juan Montoya Chevrolet 10 47 Marcos Ambrose Toyota 11 17 Matt Kenseth Ford 12 56 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 13 24 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 14 83 Reed Sorenson Toyota 15 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 16 0 David Reutimann Toyota 17 78 Regan Smith Chevrolet 18 43 A.J. Allmendinger Ford 19 6 David Ragan Ford 20 37 David Gilliland Ford 21 5 Mark Martin Chevrolet 22 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 23 21 Bill Elliott Ford 24 38 Dave Blaney Ford 25 12 Brad Keselowski Dodge 26 13 Casey Mears Toyota 27 20 Joey Logano Toyota 28 26 Patrick Carpentier Ford 29 34 Travis Kvapil Ford 30 77 Sam Hornish Jr. Dodge 31 71 Bobby Labonte Chevrolet 32 9 Kasey Kahne Ford 33 29 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 34 82 Scott Speed Toyota 35 98 Paul Menard Ford 36 16 Greg Biffle Ford 37 7 Kevin Conway * Toyota 38 87 Joe Nemechek Toyota 39 46 Michael McDowell Chevrolet 40 36 J.J. Yeley Chevrolet 41 19 Elliott Sadler Ford 42 55 Mike Bliss Toyota 43 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota
| 
|