Since being added to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule in 2001, Kansas Speedway in Kansas City has been a welcome stop for Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR). In addition to his two wins at the 1.5-mile oval in 2006 and 2009, Stewart owns six top-five and nine top-10 finishes, has led 152 laps, and completed all but 45 of the laps that have been available to him in his 17 career starts at the track for a lap completion rate of 99 percent.
To Stewart, however, it’s all irrelevant. That was then. This is now. And for now, the three-time Sprint Cup champion simply wants this weekend’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400 to be the turning point in his 2015 Sprint Cup campaign.
Stewart’s struggles this season have been well-documented. The challenge of negotiating the 2015 rules package, which features a decrease of 125 horsepower and a 30 percent reduction in downforce, have conspired against Stewart. For a driver who made his career driving racecars with more horsepower than could be put to the pavement, Stewart likens the 2015 rules package to learning calculus without having taken precalculus. It’s a combination that goes against everything Stewart has successfully accomplished behind the wheel of a racecar.
While 2015 has been a disappointment to Stewart, there have been signs of a shift in the last month. Stewart earned a sixth-place finish three weeks ago at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. Two weeks ago, Stewart had what looked to be a top-10 result at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway fall by the wayside after a midrace incident eliminated him from contention.
Stewart is quick to note, however, that while intermittent success can help build momentum, it’s consistency that will sustain the team’s efforts. The forthcoming shift in the Sprint Cup schedule could be a mitigating factor in facilitating the turning point Stewart seeks.
To date, the 10 races run on the Sprint Cup schedule have included events of all types with races at short tracks, intermediate tracks and superspeedways. The only thing the series has yet to see is a road course, and those are forthcoming, beginning with a June stop at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway. Aside from the season’s two road-course races, intermediate tracks become the theme for the next 13 stops on the Sprint Cup tour, and it all begins this weekend in Kansas.
For historical reference, the bulk of Stewart’s success at Kansas was scored on a surface that no longer exists. In addition to a massive repaving project during the summer of 2012, the track was reconfigured to include progressive banking of 17 to 20 degrees. In the five Sprint Cup races that have played out at Kansas since the facelift, Stewart’s best outing is a fifth-place result earned in the fall of 2012. It’s a five-race stretch, however, that could be slightly misleading.
Stewart has run only four of the five races run at the “new” Kansas. Rules packages have changed a couple of times since the fall of 2012, and the first of Kansas’ two races has gone from being a day race in mid-April to an event that begins in late afternoon and ends under cool, dark skies on Mother’s Day weekend. Those are significant changes that, in the past, Stewart has assuaged with his vast experience of navigating almost any kind of racing surface in nearly every kind of car.
The intermediate track attack kicks off this week in Kansas. It’s a schedule shift, one where Stewart and Co. seek a shift in fortune.
TSC PR
- NASCAR All-Star Race NEWS: #HaleYES You Need to Vote for Justin Haley - April 23, 2024
- Goodyear to Supply Option Tire for Cup All-Star Race - April 23, 2024
- NASCAR, North Wilkesboro Speedway Announce 2024 NASCAR All-Star Race Format - April 23, 2024