John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR
I’m not quite ready to hand the Sprint Cup championship over to Tony Stewart just yet, but after his thrilling come-from-behind win Sunday at Pocono, I’m starting to think Jimmie Johnson’s chances for a record four consecutive championships may just have weakened significantly.
Stewart is the type of driver that once he gets on a roll – and that typically happens right around this time of year – he goes on one heck of a ride.
Remember 2005? After finishing runner-up at Michigan in mid-June, he went on the biggest tear of his Cup career, winning five of the next seven races, ultimately going on to win his second career Cup championship.
And then there was the following season, 2006. By a quirk of fate, Stewart fell short of qualifying for the Chase – and making a concerted effort to repeat his championship from the year before – by a mere 16 points.
So what did Stewart do when he failed to make the Chase? He went on to steal the thunder of the 10 drivers that made it by winning three of the 10 Chase races (and finishing runner-up and fourth in two other events).
Now we have this season to date. In the first 14 races, Stewart has one win, seven top-5 and 10 top-10 finishes. In fact, Stewart and his No. 14 Chevrolet have finished lower than third in just two of the last nine Cup races.
And teammate Ryan Newman, who struggled at the beginning of the season with his new team, has been on a tear of his own of late: of the five top-5 and eight top-10 finishes he’s earned in the first 14 races, all five of his top-5 finishes, plus a still-strong eighth-place finish, have come in the last six races.
I’ve been saying since Atlanta in March that Stewart was a win waiting to happen. Now that he has achieved that goal, Newman is the next win waiting to happen, in my mind.
Oh, and did I mention that Newman also has a tendency to get on a roll at times. Go back to the 2003 season: he won eight races overall, with six wins coming in the second half of the season.
I don’t know about you, but I’m really starting to wonder if both Joe Gibbs and Roger Penske, if they had it to do all over again, would have let Stewart and Newman go if they could have forecast the kind of season both drivers are having so far – and there’s still 22 races left for them to do oh, so much more!
Catch you Tuesday.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/08 at 03:20 AM
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