NASCAR Cup Series

Tony Stewart crashes out of Coke Zero 400 at Daytona

Published Jul. 2, 2016 10:52 p.m. ET

foxsports

Tony Stewart needed a good points night in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, but he didn’t get one.

Still, it could have been worse. Much, much worse, in fact.

On Lap 149 of the 161-lap ace, Stewart’s No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet got loose as he entered Turn 1.

The car got away from him and made heavy contact with the wall, putting a premature end to Stewart’s night. He finished 26th.

Afterwards, Stewart took the blame for the incident.

“I just overcorrected for it and drove it into the fence,” said Stewart. “So definitely my fault. … I don’t know why I got loose, but I got loose going into (Turn) 1.”

Not good, but it could have been a lot worse.

But with a lot of other competitors having difficulty in an earlier 22-car crash, it wasn’t as devastating a blow to his hopes as it could have been. With a victory in last week’s road race at Sonoma Raceway, Stewart still has an excellent chance to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

In fact, even with the 26th-place finish, Stewart moved up to 30th in points, which puts him in position to qualify for the Chase.

Stewart is 3 points ahead of Brian Scott and 9 points ahead of Reagan Smith, both of whom have been in all 17 races this year. Stewart has only been in nine races, having missed the first eight races of the year with a broken back.

“We knew we might be able to gain points here, but you know it’s a coin toss that you might get in a wreck here,” said Stewart. “For us it was more trying to take care of ourselves. And when that big wreck happened, that really opened the door for us to take car of us. Two of the three guys that were around us in points got caught up in it.”