Tony Stewart It’s Good To Be Good

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), knows all too well the importance of luck in racing. He has seen his luck turn seemingly sure things into misfortune and promise into vindication. After 17 years in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Stewart has seen it all.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon has placed Stewart at both ends of luck’s spectrum – from losing a race in September 2010 that he had thoroughly dominated until his fuel cell ran dry on the final lap, to winning the very same race a year later by leading the final two laps after the previous leader ran out fuel. These two examples give credence to the notion that sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

But sometimes it’s just good to be good. And when it comes to racing at New Hampshire, Stewart is good. Very good, in fact.

Stewart is a three-time Sprint Cup winner at New Hampshire (July 2000, July 2005 and September 2011) and in the last 20 races at the 1.058-mile oval, he has led the most laps of any Sprint Cup driver (971 laps or 17.1 percent). Stewart’s laps led total in Loudon (1,302) is second only to Jeff Gordon’s total of 1,371 laps led, yet Gordon has made nine more starts than Stewart. Stewart and Gordon are the only two drivers to lead more than 800 laps at New Hampshire.

Stewart took to the flat, paperclip-shaped track from the word go, first racing at New Hampshire in the IndyCar Series in August 1996 and recording his first win there in the June 1998 IndyCar race. A prelude to that win was Stewart’s first stock-car appearance at New Hampshire, when in May 1998 he finished second to Buckshot Jones in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race.

Those strong runs continued as Stewart advanced to the elite Sprint Cup Series, where as a rookie in 1999, he finished 10th and second in his first two Sprint Cup races at New Hampshire.

The first of his three Sprint Cup wins came in July 2000, where Stewart dominated, leading 156 of the 273 laps in the rain-shortened race. Sprint Cup win No. 2 came in July 2005, a year in which Stewart proved to be rock solid in the Granite State, as he finished second in his return to New Hampshire in September. Of the 600 laps available in those two races, Stewart led 405 laps (67.5 percent).

Even when Stewart left the comfort of Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of the 2008 season to become a driver/owner at SHR, his prowess at New Hampshire remained wicked good. Since 2009, Stewart has led 366 laps at New Hampshire with the high-water mark coming in 2011 when SHR swept the track’s poles and races. 

Former SHR driver Ryan Newman won the pole for the track’s July race and Stewart qualified second. The 1-2 start ended with a 1-2 finish, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since Hendrick Motorsports started 1-2 and finished 1-2 in the 1989 Daytona 500. When the series returned to New Hampshire in September, Newman again won the pole, but it was Stewart who won the race. It was the first of a five-win campaign during the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup that enabled Stewart to win his third Sprint Cup championship, augmenting the titles he earned in 2002 and 2005.

In addition to the wins, Stewart has a pole (September 2005), 14 top-fives and 18 top-10s in 31 career Sprint Cup starts at New Hampshire. Throw in a 2008 Xfinity Series win, and it’s proof that the driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS is just plain good at New Hampshire.

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