When asked what stood out about today’s race, Tony Stewart said, “How much fun I had in it.”
The driver of the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet brought his car home 19th in his first Sprint Cup Series race since Homestead of last season.
“This place is so cool anyway,” Stewart said of Richmond International Raceway. “It’s always been my favorite race track. Like we predicted, a day race we’d be all over the race track. That’s what made it fun. The drivers got to dictate it today as far as…. You weren’t just stuck in one line. You had the ability to move around and change lines. We got in a spot there with a group of five cars racing for position once and it was fun because the five of us totally ran the track totally different. So, it made it a lot of fun. We got the lap down there. I got a lap down and almost drove back by and got my lap back.”
“But Carl (Edwards) was strong. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hang on long, but I was going to hold on as long as I could and hope we got a caution. It just seemed like we would get really close to being able to get that Lucky Dog spot back, and something would happen and we’d miss it by one. So, magic cautions coming out at wrong times for us. But it was fun. I had a good time and I’m looking forward to running the rest of this year with these guys.”
His day wasn’t without mishaps as he made contact with Joey Logano shortly after the lap 258 restart and this cut down his left-front tire. Other than that, it was a typical day for Stewart as had been the case the last two years. He ran in the 20s for much of the race and made it as high as 14th before falling back to 19th.
Even still, he loves to race at Richmond.
“That is Richmond,” he added about racing at Richmond. “That is part of racing at your favorite race track and running a day race here where it gets slippery and you have to use all of the track. That is what made it fun and that’s what I miss, that is the stuff I dearly miss with this series is having days like today where you get on track and you are sliding around and the drivers get to make the difference.”
Next week, he heads to Talladega where he plans to start the race before giving way to a replacement driver.
