NASCAR Cup Series

Stewart stunned by second-place finish

Published Mar. 7, 2011 12:00 a.m. ET

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Larry McReynolds

I think going into this past weekend for our first race on a 1.5-mile track, there were things we all anticipated happening. Then there were unanticipated things that happened, as well.

For instance, the No. 1 thing that jumps out at me, and I also think it wasn’t expected in the garage area, was how strong Tony Stewart's No. 14 car was.

I mean, I felt he was going to run well, but I had no indication he was going to be that dominant. He showed how incredibly strong he was on that next-to-last pit stop, when he drove away from the field after taking only two tires and the majority of others took four.

The thing I loved was the passion we got from Tony.

Here’s a guy who finished second in the race. Here’s a guy who just took the NASCAR Sprint Cup points lead. With all that being said, here’s a guy who was angry and frustrated in his postrace interview with our NASCAR on FOX’s Matt Yocum. Tony came out and said, “second sucks.”

That’s what I love about our sport right now. Nobody is content with a good, solid run. Nobody is content with a good points finish. It’s all about winning now. There’s an urgency to win. And, you know what, it’s tough to win these days.

These guys are driving hard. That green flag came out Sunday, and these drivers aren't screwing around. They are racing their guts out. I love it. It’s the best it has been in a long, long time.

Tony was in a box, however. They had to take two tires on that next-to-last stop to overcome a previous pit-road penalty. Taking the two tires gave them the chance to make up the lost track position.

So, from that point, it worked out. Then that last pit stop with 20 or 25 laps to go, they changed four tires while the rest of the field changed two. Unfortunately, you can trace how Tony lost the race all the way back to the pit-road penalty for dragging the equipment.

As I mentioned, you saw and heard the disgust and frustration from Tony after the race. You don’t very often get a car that dominant, and he had one. The other thing is Las Vegas is one of two tracks that Tony still has not won at. The other is Darlington Raceway.

Now, on the flip side of things, of what we knew to expect Sunday was the strength of Roush Fenway Racing and, quite honestly, the entire Ford camp. We saw it in the practices and in qualifying from the Fords.

Poor Matt Kenseth in the No. 17 never really had a chance. He had a flat tire early in the race and spent the rest of the day simply trying to get a lap back. He was able, at the end of the day, to get an 11th-place finish out of it.

Greg Biffle had every kind of issue you can have on pit road Sunday, and he finished way back in 28th. We knew that Carl Edwards was going to be very strong, and he didn’t disappoint. Actually, he probably had the car to beat in Phoenix the week before, too, if he hadn’t gotten caught up in a wreck early on.

Marcos Ambrose had a great run in his Richard Petty Motorsports Ford. He’s a new addition to that camp, and Sunday was a great day for him. He practiced well plus qualified on the outside of the front row.

Another surprise was Dale Earnhardt Jr., because I didn’t see that one coming. Even when they dropped the green flag, he didn’t have a very good race car. Everyone worked together on the No. 88 all day long. They made the car better, and he brought it home in eighth. He was also the top-finishing Hendrick Motorsports driver.

We never really got a feel for how good Jeff Gordon could have been. He blew that tire and slapped the wall, basically ruining his day. Our champion, Jimmie Johnson, was basically an also-ran all day. Mark Martin also struggled, and the best he could pull out was a top-20 finish. So for the first time in quite a long time, Dale Earnhardt Jr. carried the Hendrick Motorsports banner.

So we now head to an off week in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Three different tracks so far and three different winners — that’s pretty exciting. The Daytona 500 had a surprise winner, Trevor Bayne. The race at Phoenix was a surprise winner with Gordon snapping a 66-race losing streak. Now Sunday at Las Vegas really wasn’t a surprise winner because, let's face it, Edwards won the last two races of last year and has been very strong this year.

With that said, I think we can go along here and have different winners for quite a while now. The new nose and Goodyear tire combination is making for a great combination in NASCAR. These guys are racing hard for those elusive victories.

Think about this: Every football field is 100 yards. Every baseball field has bases 90 feet apart. In our sport, every racetrack we go to is different. We’ve been to a 2.5-mile track, a 1-mile track and now a 1.5-mile track. All this in only three races. Now, after this off weekend, we head to a half-mile track at Bristol. Following that, we head to Fontana to a 2-mile track.

Five races and five different track sizes. Every element of our sport is different every single week.

That’s one of the main reasons NASCAR Sprint Cup racing is riding so high right now.

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