Tony Stewart won the Tums Fast Relief 500 today at Martinsville, VA (thanks saucy girl, I love you!) This is Tony's third win in the Chase, yet due to NASCAR's arcane scoring system, he is still 8 points behind Carl Edwards who has yet to win a race during the championship finals.
I am not a fan of short track racing per se, but I have to admit this was quite an entertaining race to watch. And watching Tony fight back three times from over 20 places down was a treat. His brawl with Denny Hamlin to keep from being lapped at one point, was some of the toughest door-to-door racing I've seen in years.
In the post race interviews, Jimmie Johnson, who Stewart passed for the win, tried to take the high road, saying he wasn't going to try and push Tony out of the way or bang and bump for the win. Like he "let" Stewart have the win out of gentlemanly honor or some such.
B.S.! Tony simply out gutted him for the win, daring Johnson to get physical for the win. Jimmie backed down, Tony won. It was a matter of who had the biggest pair, and at that moment, it was Smoke.
Three races left -- Texas, Phoenix, and Homestead, all places Tony runs well at. There's a solid possibility that Tony Stewart could be the first owner/driver to win a Championship in heaven only knows how long. If it has ever happened.
I'll be rooting for him.
Other bits of interest to me:
Dale Jr. talking about how if they raced more short tracks, he might get a rep as a "dirty" driver, because he liked the banging and bumping on the track. He also made a late race comment over the team radio about having "no mercy" for whoever was in front of him. Heh
Unmentioned by the announcers specifically, was Brian Vickers coming across the track to wreck Matt Kenseth in retaliation for an earlier bump/wreck in the race.
A pre-race interview with Brad Keselowski, who I've admired since he came into Cup racing, admitting that a lot of drivers, like Tony Stewart (surprisingly), refuse to interact with him in the garage area. Kid's got a chip on his shoulder, but he's winning races and looking a lot more racey than grumpy teammate Kurt Busch.
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