Watkins Glen, N.Y. – It’s time to bring out the thesaurus because Tony Stewart has gone beyond being merely hot.
Incandescent. Scorching. Sizzling. Torrid. Pick one to describe five wins in a stretch of seven NASCAR Nextel Cup races, the latest coming Sunday in the Sirius Satellite Radio at the Glen.
Stewart answered any question about a possible letdown a week after winning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, by turning in a dominant performance on the 11-turn, 2.45-mile Watkins Glen International road course.
He led a race-record 83-of-92 laps, the sixth time in the past eight races he has led the most. He started from the pole and surrendered first place only on pit stops.
And he was unruffled by a troublesome alternator and two late cautions that wiped out commanding leads as he easily drove away from his nearest pursuers on the restarts.
“We had an absolutely flawless day today, except for the alternator,” Stewart said. “We could run the pace we needed to run. The only two challenges we had were on the restarts.”
Unlike the celebration of his past three wins, Stewart chose to forgo climbing the fence, even as the crowd exhorted him to do so.
Instead, he stopped at the flag stand and picked up the checkered flag and waved it as he took one last trip around the track.
“This place really isn’t conducive to fence climbing,” he said. “I looked at it and said, ‘I don’t feel like cracking my head open.”‘
His winning streak has accelerated his transformation from NASCAR’s bad boy into its marquee attraction, which is evident in his growing fan support.
“It’s a lot better than dodging grenades,” he said.
Stewart’s continued excellence overshadowed great runs by the three road racing aces who followed him across the finish line. Robby Gordon came from 39th to finish second, Boris Said, who drives the Centrix Financial car, came from 41st to a career-best third and Scott Pruett from 43rd to fourth.
All got an extra shot at Stewart when a caution with 2 laps to go extended the race beyond its scheduled 90 laps for a green- white-checkered finish. But Stewart timed his restart perfectly.
“They were playing the game; I was playing the game as the leader,” Stewart said. “They’re doing what they have to do. I did the same.”
Gordon had no complaints about Stewart’s tactics, in which he laid back to keep the cars behind him from getting a good run on him.
“You do whatever you can to snooker your competition. He did it once. I thought I was ready the second time,” Gordon said of letting Stewart get away on the last restart.
“He got away because he stabbed the brakes then took off,” Gordon said. “He’s a great racer, but second is just first loser.”
Stewart’s streak began June 19 with a runner-up finish at Michigan International Speedway, site of next week’s race. Since then, he has scored all but 89 of a maximum 1,520 points to go from 10th in the standings to first. He is 105 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson, who finished fifth Sunday.
Stewart’s Joe Gibbs Racing crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, described the past two months as a fantasy.
“As good as we’ve been in the past, we’ve never been anywhere near this,” Zipadelli said. “But we need to keep our chins up and not get complacent.”
