Sweet 16 for Stewart

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In: NASCAR Cup Series News

With Tony Stewart’s win earlier this year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he has now found victory lane at all but two of the 23 tracks that host NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events. Only Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and Kentucky Speedway in Sparta are tracks where Stewart has gone winless in NASCAR’s top series, and Kentucky hosted its first Sprint Cup race just last year.

Of the 21 tracks where Stewart has won a Sprint Cup race, he has scored multiple wins at 15 of them. He has only one victory apiece at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Phoenix International Raceway and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway – site of Sunday’s Aaron’s 499.

Stewart’s lone victory at the 2.66-mile oval came in October 2008 when he started 34th and led 24 of 190 laps en route to victory in a race that was extended two laps due to a green-white-checkered finish. It was his last win as a member of Joe Gibbs Racing before he became co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) in 2009.

Since he moved to SHR, Stewart has scored 13 victories and one Sprint Cup championship, but Talladega has been anything but pleasant to the driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet.

His seventh-place finish in last October’s Good Sam Club 500 is his only top-15 result at Talladega since his victory four years ago. And Sunday’s race, like the previous 26 Sprint Cup races Stewart has competed in at Talladega, will be a crapshoot. Drivers know that being in the right place at the right time on the last lap is the key to victory, for one moment a driver can be in the lead, and then seconds later get shuffled out of the draft and jettisoned from winning to wondering what would’ve been.

But before Stewart attempts to draft his way into Talladega’s victory lane and hoist a trophy on Sunday, he’ll pick up his Driver of the Year trophy on Thursday night from the International Motorsports Hall of Fame during a black-tie banquet that will also honor 2011 ARCA champion Ty Dillon, as well as induct drag racing legends John Force and Kenny Bernstein and NASCAR owner Richard Childress into the Hall of Fame.

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Speedway Digest Staff
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