NASCAR: Tony Stewart Consolidates as the Leader of the Sprint Cup

In the middle of a sunny afternoon in Pennsylvania, the driver Tony Stewart, who has extensive experience in the Sprint Series and in the other categories of NASCAR and also owns his own team, Stewart Haas Racing, earned his first victory of the season when he amazingly imposed himself at the Pocono 500, fourteenth event of the year that was held at the Pocono Raceway. This victory also impressive due to a serious accident he suffered during the last training session causing that he had to use a backup car for the main event, being forced to start from the bottom in spite of having obtained the pole position, also has its historical significance since Stewart became the first owner and driver at the same time to win a race of the Sprint Cup in more than 10 years. Last time something like this took place was in 1998 when Ricky Ruud, one of the best drivers in NASCAR history, came to the top of the podium in Martinsville. Thanks to the good performance shown at the Pocono 500, Stewart has successfully been placed first in the drivers general standings with a considerable amount of 2043 points, which fills him with optimism to remain steadfast in his position and that opens the doors to remain firm in the run with high expectations of repeating the glorious feat of being crowned champion of the highest level of NASCAR for the third time. This time, the skills of the Chevrolet #14 driver lead him to move from the last position to the top spots, where he got involved in a tight contest with Carl Edwards, David Reutimann, Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman. Stewart was able to pass through them and for a period of 39 laps, he was in charge of setting the pace of the competition. As the race was passing by, the difficulty of the contest increased as none of the pilots lowered their level of competition; on the contrary, it increased to exert a strong pressure on one another with the intention of making each other lose concentration, but as it was demonstrated, the superiority of Stewart was unattainable. He bravely resisted the attacks and was not intimidated by any of his opponents. With an intelligent but somewhat risky strategy of not entering to the pits area, Tony Stewart avoided wasting time and was able to remain among the top positions, although this meant that he could run out of fuel. However, Stewart gave a great demonstration of his driving skills as a professional driver strategically accelerating and braking at the right time, taking all possible advantage of his car and making the most out of the fuel, which lasted to the whole event. Realizing that he could run out of fuel at any moment, Stewart took advantage of a moment when the other drivers left the track to refuel when there were 37 laps to finish the race and moved forward as fast as he could, leaving Edwards and Reutimann behind, who thinking that he wouldn’t be able to finish pushed him as much as they could, but Stewart was more clever, managing to get to the finish line where he was expected by the checkered flag that made him the winner.

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Stephen Lars has been a prominent writer on daily NASCAR races; sports news and the sports book industry for many exceptional sport web sites. You may reprint this article in its full content, please note no modifications to it are accepted.

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