As expected, Tony Stewart was one unhappy camper after his awesome car at Las Vegas resulted in only a second-place finish – despite “Smoke” leading a race-high 163 laps.
Tony Stewart’s Second-Place Finish At Las Vegas Tough To Swallow
“Second sucks,” Stewart said, calling his car “the fastest thing on the planet” and “the baddest thing on the West Coast today.”
Later, he couldn’t stop noting that he and his Stewart-Haas Racing team “gave it away” – especially painful since Las Vegas Motor Speedway is one of two tracks where he had never won in his Sprint Cup career (the other being Darlington).
“It just kills me to throw a race away like that, especially at a place we haven’t won at yet,” he said. “This was a big deal today, and when you lead that many laps and have a car that’s that fast and you lose it ... it does not sit good right now.”
A pit-road miscue by Stewart’s crew – he left his pit box with equipment and was assessed a penalty – set the tone for his day being ruined. Crew chief Darian Grubb got Stewart’s track position back with a two-tire pit stop, which was successful.
But everyone else noticed, and Stewart was burned when Edwards took two tires himself on the final pit stop of the day.
"Darian made a good call getting us the track position back, but it also showed everybody else that they could do it, too," Stewart said. "We couldn't run two-and-a-half runs on a set of left-side tires. Just shot ourselves in the foot two weeks in a row now."
Stewart might be able to take some solace in the fact he’s tied for the Sprint Cup Series points lead with Kurt Busch. But knowing him, probably not.
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