AUTO RACING
Wreck costs Stewart Pocono pole
Published: June 07, 2009, 12:30 am
Story tools:
Share this story:
LONG POND, Pa. — Tony Stewart lost his pole position and will start from the back of the pack for the Pocono 500 after wrecking his car during practice at Pocono Raceway on Saturday.
NASCAR’s Sprint Cup points leader lost control of his No. 14 Chevrolet and spun off the tunnel turn at the end of Saturday’s first practice. The car spun into the grass, sending mud and sod flying and ripping off the nose of his car.
His Stewart-Haas Racing crew quickly got to work on the backup. Stewart became the pole sitter for to-day’s Pocono 500 (2, TNT, Radio 550, 1330, 1340) when rain washed out Friday’s qualifying and start positions were based on the points.
Stewart was confident he could still make a strong run in the backup.
“I feel like it’s better than the primary car,” Stewart said.
He posted the third-fastest practice time with a lap of 166.701 mph during the first practice Saturday and hit 164.817 with the backup in the second practice session.
“I was happier with that car than I was the first one,” Stewart said. “If I’d known the second one was going to be so good, I would have crashed the first one the first lap out.”
Stewart’s second-place finish at Dover last Sunday shot him to the top of the Sprint Cup standings, 46 points ahead of Jeff Gordon. Stewart is the first driver/owner to lead the points since Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 Cup title, a span of 556 races.
In Gladeville, Tenn., Kyle Busch raced to his fourth Nationwide Series victory of the year and ninth overall NASCAR win of the season Saturday night, easily holding off Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards in the Federated Auto Parts 300. •••
Helio gets Texas win
FORT WORTH, Texas — Helio Castroneves is now a three-time Texas winner, too.
Castroneves, who last month won his third Indianapolis 500, beat Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe off pit row on the final stop and held on for the final 46 laps Saturday night to win at Texas Motor Speedway.
Briscoe was dominating the race, with more than a 10-second lead before a caution flag on the 150th of the 228 laps bunched the field after an extended stretch of green-flag racing.
Castroneves worked past Marco Andretti after that restart and was on the tail of his teammate when A. J. Foyt IV crashed 15 laps later.
When everybody went into the pits for the final time, Castroneves had a 6-second stop, beating Briscoe and Scott Dixon out by more than a half-second.
Reader comments
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Comments have been disabled.
Due to a high volume of submissions that violate The News’ guidelines, commenting is no longer available on this story. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this story, click here to get information on contributing to The News’ opinion pages.