MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Tony Stewart passed Jimmie Johnson on a restart with three laps to go Sunday and surged into contention for his third NASCAR Sprint Cup championship with three races remaining.
Then, Stewart playfully called out points leader Carl Edwards in a duel to the finish.
“He better be worried. That’s all I’ve got to say,” Stewart said of Edwards in Victory Lane, a broad smile spreading across his face. “He’s not going to sleep for the next three weeks.”
The victory was the third for Stewart in the first seven races of the 10-race playoffs, and he was easily the leading benefactor as the points race was significantly jumbled.
Stewart moved from 19 points behind leader Edwards and in fourth place to just eight points behind in second as several contenders got caught up in a season-high 18 caution flags.
Even Stewart had trouble, at one point having to apologize to race leader Denny Hamlin for racing him hard to stay on the lead lap. And that was with less than 20 laps to go.
“I was pretty mad all day, but I was the only guy who didn’t get in a wreck with somebody, so I was kind of proud of that,” Stewart said, adding that his team told him not to be nice.
The winning pass, he said, surprised even him.
“I don’t think anybody has ever passed Jimmie Johnson on the outside,” he said, crediting crew chief Darian Grubb for making the right calls and adjustments all race long. “I don’t think we had the best race car today, by any means, but we had the most determined pit crew.”
Johnson, for much of the day, looked like he might be the one making a huge gain in the points race, especially as Edwards was running in the mid-20s and wasn’t getting any better.
The cautions, which slowed things for 108 laps, also a season high, allowed Johnson to weather a call by crew chief Chad Knaus to stay out when all the leaders behind him pitted for fresh tires with just over 40 laps to go. But he couldn’t hold on with Stewart pressing him at the end.
“I just could not get away from him on the restart,” he said, adding that he tried to be cognizant of Stewart’s better position in the championship battle. “I thought about going in there and leaning on him, move him up, but that is just not the right thing to do.”
13 the hard way
How Regan Smith, racing for Denver’s Furniture Row team, fared:
• Despite getting spun out twice and driving a damaged car, Smith stayed patient to finish 13th at Martinsville Speedway. “We got collected early and thought it was going to be a long day. But we hung in there,” he said.
• It was Smith’s career- best result in seven starts at the track.
