Tony Stewart Starts Daytona Speedweeks Strong with Runner-Up Finish in Budweiser Shootout
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Feb. 28, 2012) – In a wild dash to the checkered flag for the win in Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway, defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) champion Tony Stewart led Team Chevy across the stripe in second position.
With 12 of the 25-car field sidelined in four multi-car crashes that forced a green-white-checkered finish which extended the race seven laps beyond the scheduled 75, Stewart pushed his No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet to its limits in a drag race that delivered the closest finish in the 34-year history of the Shootout. The three-time NSCS champion had to settle for the runner-up spot by a mere 0.013 seconds to the race winner, Kyle Busch.
Stewart’s teammate, Ryan Newman, finished seventh in the No. 39 WIX Filters Chevrolet, with Juan Pablo Montoya crossing the line in 10th position behind the wheel of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet.
For the first time in his 20th year career of NSCS competition, four-time champion Jeff Gordon took a wild ride in his No. 24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet. Caught up in a multi-car accident on lap 74, Gordon’s car rolled three times before coming to rest on its roof. Gordon was easily extracted from the badly damaged race car and after examination in the infield care center, emerged uninjured from the accident. He was scored 15th in the final finishing order.
Other Team Chevy finishers were: Jeff Burton, No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet, finished 11th and Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet, finished 13th. Along with Gordon, the following Team Chevy drivers were sidelined in multi-car accidents: Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet – 14th; Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet – 15th; Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 National Guard/Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet – 20th; Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet – 22nd and Paul Menard, No. 27 Menards/Peak Chevrolet – 23rd.
Rounding out the top-five finishers were Marcos Ambrose (Ford), Brad Keselowski (Dodge) and Denny Hamlin (Toyota).
Next on track will be qualifying for the Daytona 500 beginning at 1:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 19, 2012.
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 MOBIL 1/OFFICE DEPOT CHEVROLET FINISHED 2ND
KERRY THARP: Let’s roll into tonight’s post-race of the Budweiser Shootout. We’re joined at the podium by three time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart.
Tony, talk about the way the race unfolded and your thoughts about how things went out there tonight.
TONY STEWART: We took the first 25 lap segment easy and tried to watch guys, more to pay attention to what they were doing than really what was going on with our car, just kind of watch the trial and error process and see what guys could get away with and what they couldn’t, then after the break go back after it.
We got kind of separated at the point that Kyle (Busch) got sideways. An unbelievable save, just a great save. We tried running that pack down. They had that big wreck in front of us and that got us up to where we needed to be to make a charge at the end.
It was definitely a lot more fun and you felt a lot more eager to be engaged in the race this way than in the two car deal. I actually had fun racing at Daytona again which I haven’t had for a while, so I’m really, really appreciative to the work that NASCAR has done in the off season and the test session and even after the test of the changes that they made to try to make it better for us out there.
I don’t know what the consensus is from everybody else, but I had more fun as a driver tonight than what we’ve had in the past.
KERRY THARP: We’ll open it up for questions.
Q. Tony, unless I’m remembering wrong, in years past, the pack racing at Daytona, you weren’t that big a fan about it. Tonight you’re speaking glowingly of it. What’s different?
TONY STEWART: You’re kidding, right? Do you remember what we did here six months ago?
This is a lot more fun than the two car stuff was. I still like the open motor races better where we can literally control our own destiny, but this is by far a lot better than what we had with the two car stuff.
Q. Better than the two by two but not better than before?
TONY STEWART: C’mon, work with me, dude. I’m just happier.
Q. How much of the style of tonight’s race will be tempered a bit next Sunday? You have 500 miles, more strategy. Tonight there was a lot of aggression, shorter race. How much are you going to sit down and formulate what you can and can’t do?
TONY STEWART: Historically you’ve always seen this race be a scenario where everybody sees what they can get away with and they use it for a practice session. You do try to see what you can, get away with what you can. Everybody, no matter what their outcome was tonight, learned something they’re going to take into the qualifying races and we’ll take into Sunday.
You can always push harder in this race than the 500 because we always run this at night and it’s a lot cooler. We’ll have most likely a lot warmer conditions a week from tomorrow. That will eliminate some of the stuff that guys were really trying to push the envelope on.
Q. Don’t get mad. It was fun for you, but three cars out of the whole field are the only ones that didn’t sustain damage. A lot of accidents. Jeff Gordon ended up on his roof. It was fun for us to watch when you were battling, but none of us want to see the carnage we saw out there tonight. What are we expecting for the Daytona 500? Are you going to temper it back a little bit? These new rule changes, it’s fun, but how do you think next Sunday is going to be?
TONY STEWART: Do you have any better ideas? I think everybody’s always open. NASCAR asked the teams and the drivers what we could do to make it better.
My point is this is better than having to sit there and stare at the back of a spoiler for 500 miles and not be able to see where you’re going half the race. We had control of what lane we got to run in. We got to move whenever we wanted. You didn’t have to not move because you had a guy behind you that you had to rely on making your decision on what he had to do also. We had more control as drivers today.
Look at the history of this race. They always crash here. Go to Talladega, they crash cars there. It’s a yard sale every time we go to a restrictor plate track. I don’t know what you guys want. Everybody complained about the two car stuff. Now we got this today, and it’s better. We’re telling you it’s better. You guys are like, Is it going to be that bad next week?
It’s not that bad. It’s the Bud Shootout. Everybody pushes the envelope. Everybody tries to see what that limit is, what that boundary is. When it comes to Sunday, you have to race 500 miles, you have to make it last till the end. It’s not that they’re not conscious of the fact you have to make it to lap 75 tonight, but you have the flexibility of not worrying about points standings and not worrying about the 500 title, losing it if you make a mistake tonight.
The competition is so tight, you have to try things tonight. If you don’t, somebody else is and they’re going to learn from it whether it’s right, wrong or indifferent. You had to be aggressive tonight and you had to see what you can get away with. You have to try things. It’s a great opportunity for trial and error.
As you saw tonight, it worked out sometimes and it didn’t work out a lot of times. The guys that crashed, it didn’t work out, there’s something they took away from it and said, That didn’t work out so well. Just like last night when I crashed Kurt, that wasn’t even close to what I had in mind for practice, but that’s what happened. It’s part of the trial and error process. You have to go through that.
43 cars can win this race a week from tomorrow. If you don’t push yourself into figuring out what you can or can’t do, I would rather do it with my Shootout car than I would with my 500 car.
Q. I don’t know if either one of you saw the two times Kyle nearly got sideways.
TONY STEWART: ‘Nearly got sideways’?
Q. How many drivers in the field might have saw that and how amazed were you?
TONY STEWART: I was right behind him when he had the deal in one and two. He had to catch it three times before he saved it. You get 3400 pounds moving like that, to catch it once was pretty big, to get away from it and catch it again was big, and the third time was big. That’s three big moments in one corner and he never quit driving. There’s a lot of guys that wouldn’t have caught that.
He did a fantastic job with that save. I’m sitting there and the green is still out. I’m like, Man, that’s the coolest save I’ve seen in a long time. It was big and it hurt us all at the time, but that was a pretty big moment. Pretty cool to see somebody that went through two big moments like that come out and win the race still.
Q. Let’s forget about the comparative degrees of craziness, it’s pretty rare when you go to the last lap and two guys are there and there’s not several nearby to worry about. Having seen that, this is a matter of a few feet. Who has the edge there? You said you had a little room and almost did it. Is that a pretty even thing or would you rather have been behind? Where would you rather be there?
TONY STEWART: First, I was just happy that I was in the pairing at the end, to be up there. But I think history shows that you want to be that second guy I think in all reality. Especially here, it just seems like for some reason you can make that move here. Talladega for some reason, it seems like you make the move, the start/finish line being further around the tri oval, almost seems like it’s too early when you make it. It just seems like that second spot is kind of the one you want to be in.
I’m not ruling out that you can’t win it from being that lead car. You got to plan ahead for it. As soon as we came off of turn two, I was already thinking about it. I knew how much of a gap we had, the third and fourth. Had that flexibility to do that without us getting freight-trained. You knew it was coming; it was just a matter of what to do to guard against it. Guys are figuring out what to do to get by, now you have to figure out what to do to not let them get by you.
Q. Tony, with what you saw for 78 laps, did you expect the end to come down to a two car tandem as it did?
TONY STEWART: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s realistic that that’s what you’ll have at the 500, that it will come down to that. The good news is we’re not going to have to do it for the entire day, all 500 miles. You’re not going to have to worry about, Man, if I don’t have a partner, you’re going to be in big trouble. I would say it’s a pretty safe bet. No guarantee it’s going to have to come down to that. Especially if it’s a lot warmer conditions, I think it will be harder to do that. But I think that’s a good possibility that that’s the way it will come down to it. Maybe even the qualifying races, that’s what it will come down to.
Q. Tony, the accidents tonight appeared to all have been caused by a guy in the back hitting a guy in the front. Is there anything NASCAR can do with the shark fin of the spoiler to alleviate it or is it up to the drivers?
TONY STEWART: I think it’s in the drivers’ hands. Everybody, people that didn’t even run the Shootout tonight, will watch and saw better than we did behind the wheel how the scenarios played out in each one of those accidents.
I think that’s kind of to a certain degree what NASCAR had in mind when they came up with this package, was to put the decision in our hands. You don’t want to make it obvious that we have that opportunity to do it. We’re all thinking twice of do we want to put ourselves in that position so it makes that guy that has that opportunity to push to think twice about is that the right time and do I want to take that risk at this point of the race.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I kind of like us having the decision of whether we want to put ourselves in that position or not. I think everybody will look at that and determine at what stage of the race that’s going to be an important decision for them to make.
Q. Tony, do drivers almost have to get acclimated to pack racing? Kevin Harvick said there was too much of guys hitting in the left front. Is there going to be an adjustment back to this style of racing because there was so little of it the last year?
TONY STEWART: I don’t think so. I think people, especially guys at this level, pick up on it pretty quick. Like I said, even the drivers that didn’t run tonight will have learned a lot even though they didn’t get to be in the race.
I think the fact that we got practice on Wednesday, then the qualifying race on Thursday, that is a lot of practice to sort it out and figure it out. I don’t think it will be that big of a drama for everybody to get used to it again.
It’s no different driving on the interstate and driving on city streets. Two different styles of driving, but you’re still driving. It’s not that big a deal.
Q. Tony, this is so dramatically different to last year. Is this a field like we had two, three years ago at Talladega or Daytona or is it still different because the packages are different?
TONY STEWART: No, I think it’s very similar to what we had two, three years ago. Probably three, four years ago in all reality because I think we already switched over. But I think it is very, very similar to that.
You still sit there and you try to figure out, like being on the freeway in rush hour, which lane is moving and whether you want to switch over. I was the best at switching over and that line stopping all of a sudden, switching over, seemed like that line stopped. It’s still kind of back to figuring out, like a chess match, sitting there, who can hang on and not get blocked when they’re pushing a two car deal through there again. It’s definitely a lot better deal.
KERRY THARP: Tony, thank you so much. Great show tonight. Can’t wait for the rest of Speedweeks.
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