Daytona International Speedway Victories Dot Tony Stewart’s Resume, But Not A Daytona 500 Win

Tony Stewart’s NASCAR resume is impeccable: Two Sprint Cup championships and 39 victories that include two Brickyard 400 wins.

The Indiana native has always been one of the top drivers at Daytona International Speedway, too: He’s won three Sprint Cup points races, three Bud Shootouts, five Nationwide races and two Gatorade Duels. Overall, he’s No. 1 in NASCAR’s Daytona driver rating statistic.

But there’s something big missing on Stewart’s list of accomplishments: The driver they call ‘Smoke’ has never won the Daytona 500.

Asked if his 0-for-12 streak is getting to him, Stewart answered pleasantly but said there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“When it comes to that race, you cannot try any harder,” he said. “If you can try harder here, when it comes to the rest of the races, you’re not doing a good enough job in the rest of the races.

“All you can do is what you always do, and that’s try to win the race.”

But for all Stewart’s successes at Daytona, doesn’t the lack of a 500 victory bother him? Sure, he said, but waiting a year to try again is what bugs him the most.

“That bothers you more than not winning that night,” he said. “That’s what I think about: ‘I can’t just wait until next weekend to (try and) accomplish that goal again.’

“This event happens one time a year. If you accomplish it, you’ve got a whole year to bask in the glory; if you miss, you’ve got a whole year to sit there and think about what went wrong.”

Dale Earnhardt was famously 0-for-19 before finally winning the 1998 Daytona 500, while other greats such as Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin have never been Daytona 500 champions.

Could the 39-year-old Stewart finally get it done this year?