Stewart drove from the back of the pack twice after a hole was punched in his front grill. He reached the front despite the setbacks with a number of aggressive passes, especially on the restarts. Stewart was able to pass three, four, sometimes five cars following a restart. Thankfully, other drivers raced Stewart smart, understanding what was on the line.
Stewart drove with the dogged determination that we find in only the greatest drivers. He was aggressive and smart at the same time. Not every driver could have made some of the moves he made Sunday night. He simply outdrove Carl Edwards, who led the standings by a mere 3 points heading into the event.
Now, Edwards did just about everything right on Sunday. He did everything he was supposed to do, by winning the pole and leading the most laps. Edwards had the car to beat. However, the experience meshed with the sheer determination of Stewart conquered the speed of Edwards. Stewart was on a mission, and he was not going to leave South Beach without his third championship trophy in NASCAR's upper echelon of competition.
He joins an exclusive and elite group by winning his third championship. He matches Hall of Fame drivers Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Lee Petty, and David Pearson with three Cup titles. He trails only 7-time champions Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty, 5-time champion Jimmie Johnson, and 4-time champion Jeff Gordon. That is a group of 9 drivers in the history of the 64-year sport, where thousands of drivers have competed, that has won at least 3 champions.
Stewart's incredible drive on Sunday was reminiscent of several Dale Earnhardt moments, most notably the 2000 comeback at Talladega, and his aggressive charge through the field at Bristol in 1995, when he finished second to Terry Labonte before ramming him coming to the checkered flag. The determination in Stewart matched the determination of Earnhardt during the 1987 All-Star race at Charlotte. If you recall, Earnhardt refused to lose no matter what. Refusing to lose is exactly why Stewart won the 2011 Sprint Cup championship.
4 comments:
yea nascar should have taken his car straight to the wind tunnel and told the fans how much better his aero package was than everybody elses and if it wasnt nobody should be able to outrun tony for at least 3/4 of next season because not even jimmy johnson can drive that good but wait he could stumble because he is firing what could be said the greatest crew cheif in nascar what a joke WWF scripted bought and payed for championship who's next jr or kane i say hendricks money is for jr then kane now that his promise to tony has been met maybe a ford team should try and get grubb with their fr9 advantage and a crew cheif like that they could be untouchable for years.
What color are the trees in your world?
If it had been Earnhardt-esque, Stewart would have punted Edwards out of the race on one of his trips to the front.
Look Ma! Punctuation, correct spelling AND capital letters!
Honestly as much as I don't want to believe that race looked fixed to fit a story line. I don't know if it NASCAR trying to increase ratings and ticket sales or if it is money. But there are far to many things that could have been modified on that car and "overlooked" by inspectors to trust that nothing is going on. or maybe tony just has magic in his hands that make his tires have 20% percent more grip so he doesn't have to slow down in the corners. Or maybe all these other drivers who say they are competive and want to try and win races were so in awe of him that they couldn't stay in the gas in the corners and moved out of his way.
I don't want to believe but the chase this year seemed pretty suspicious.
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