Tony Tony Stewart passed Jimmie Johnson on a restart with three laps left in Sunday’s Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway and held off Johnson’s desperate bid for the win on the final lap.
The victory was Stewart’s third in the Chase for the Sprint Cup and vaulted him into second place in the standings, eight points behind leader Carl Edwards. Stewart won for the 42nd time in his
“He’d better be worried,” Stewart said of Edwards after the race. “That’s all I can say. He’s not going to have an easy three weeks.”
There are three races left in the Cup season—at Texas, Phoenix and Homestead. Stewart has four Cup wins at those tracks, Edwards six. NASCAR.com
Stewart’s winning pass was a power move — on the outside lane at a track where the inside line is always preferred — on a five-time defending series champion who is a six-time winner at Martinsville.
But after leaping from fourth to second in the standings and climbing within eight points of first, Stewart saved his most memorable swagger for Edwards. “We’re going after him for three weeks,” Stewart said. “So I don’t care what he says, what anybody else says. We’re going to control our destiny, and we’re going to go for this championship.”
Edwards tried to slough off the mind games (“Tony’s wound up; he won the race”) but conceded he was worried about Stewart’s emergence.
“I thought he’d be a guy that you’d have to beat for the championship,” Edwards said. “He’s proving it right now. But, yeah, we’ll have fun. They’re going to have to race us, too. I’m excited about the next three races.” USA Today
Johnson, for much of the day, looked like he might be the one making a huge gain in the points race, especially as Edwards floundered in the mid-20s and wasn’t getting any better.
The cautions, which slowed things for 108 laps, also a season high, allowed Johnson to weather a call by crew chief Chad Knaus to stay out when all the leaders behind him pitted for fresh tires with just over 40 laps to go. But he couldn’t hold on with Stewart pressing him at the end.
“I just could not get away from him on the restart,” he said, adding that he tried to be cognizant of Stewart’s better position in the championship battle. “I thought about going in there and leaning on him, move him up, but that is just not the right thing to do.” ESPN
Jeff Gordon finished third, ahead of Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin. The top-10 was rounded out by Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr., Carl Edwards, and Ryan Newman.
Johnson, who started the day seventh in points, moved into sixth with his second-place run, but is still 43 points off the lead in search of his sixth consecutive championship.
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NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville - Race Results
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