Stewart took the lead with just two laps to go in the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and now Stewart has become a ‘favorite’ to win this year’s championship, in hopes of dethroning five-time champion, Jimmie Johnson. As this race was a mere image of last week’s fuel mileage race, Stewart took the lead from Clint Bowyer, as the driver of the No. 33 once again experienced bad luck and ran out of gas. And if anyone remember’s last year’s Chase race at New Hampshire the roles were reversed as Bowyer won due to Stewart running out of gas. Now it is really starting to look like the 14 team has this fuel mileage calculating down pact.
“It’s eight long weeks to go,” Stewart said. “It’s way too early to be counting chickens right now.“We got rid of some dead weight earlier this week,” he said in victory lane. “Sometimes you have to make adjustments in your life. These guys have never quit, never given up, and we’ve got a shot at this thing.”
And, this week’s hot topic is: What is the dead weight? Well in all honesty it could be the monkey that was on Tony Stewart’s back but Stewart exchanged his monkey for Johnson’s horseshoe. Is it safe to say that Johnson now has that monkey on his back?
Johnson’s five-time fire seems to be fading fast. All race long he was fighting himself, crew chief and of course other drives such as Kyle Busch. Johnson admitted that the bumping and almost wreck was none of Kyle’s fault but just to dedicated drivers battling it out. Kyle Busch was not very pleased by his run or crew chief either. Denny Hamlin had another horrible race where he ran out of gas again! His hopes of the championship are truly dashed now.
Dover is the next stop on the NASCAR Chase for the Championship. And Dover is always a race that you should expect the unexpected. Buckle your belts and pull down tight because we are going to be on one wild ride.