Monday, June 3, 2013

Tony Stewart wins at Dover


Tony Stewart won the FedEx 400 yesterday at Dover. It's Stewart's first win of the season and frankly, the only time he's come close to sniffing a win all season.

With Jimmie Johnson jumping the last re-start and being penalized by NASCAR, it was Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya going for the win on the last couple of laps. Heading into the turn the guys were door to door and in that circumstance, with the win on the line, you knew the one guy who wouldn't lift.

Always nice to see Montoya doing well. I've got a soft spot for the open wheel guys who come into NASCAR. It would be nice to see him and Chip Ganassi do well this season.

When this race started, I was thinking about writing something about what was wrong at Stewart-Haas racing this year. With the exception of Ryan Newman, who quietly creeps up towards the top ten each race, the guys and Danica have been dead slow all season. They simply do not seem to have these Gen 6 cars figured out.

You know it's got to be frustrating for them all. You saw that in the race when Newman got tired of Gilleland blocking him and basically pushed him out of the way and ended up wrecking them both. You also saw Danica pounding her steering wheel in the garage after she finally got racey enough to get into the top ten a few weeks back only to get collected in a wreck. That's a driven (no pun intended) group and the lack of results on the track has got to be aggravating.

I wouldn't suspect that Rick Hendrick is giving Stewart-Haas anything less than the best equipment to work with, but still . . . after watching Tony beat them with his own stuff, you've got to wonder. I've played enough city league ball to know that when you're going to forfeit because you don't have enough guys, the other team doesn't loan you their biggest and baddest player to fill out your roster. You get the guy who only comes in for the bottom of the inning to stand in right field when the game is going to get 10 runned.

Just sayin' . . .

I also saw in the post race news that Kesolewski's car got impounded after the race for failing inspection. Again?! Paul Wolfe's first race back and this happens?! I know these guys push the envelope every race, but I cannot imagine they were trying to sneak something by. Have to wait and see.

But for now, it's congrats Tony! And hopefully it is the start of these guys getting things together over there.

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