NASCAR News & Notes of the Week

Tony Stewart. (Photo by ASP, Inc.)

Days after Brad Keselowski employed some gamesmanship — and subsequent mind games — at Chicagoland Speedway, Tony Stewart detailed his use of mental deviousness, claiming that he knew even before last year’s NASCAR season finale at Homestead ended that he would beat Carl Edwards for the Sprint Cup championship.

He could see it in Edwards’ reaction that weekend.

Stewart recounted that story in a fan forum Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame when asked about his come-from-behind charge to win the championship.

Stewart had won four races to put himself within three points of Edwards heading into the Homestead race. Three days before the event, Stewart and Edwards met with the media to discuss their championship battle and Stewart unleashed his boxer’s bravado.

Asked how far they would go to win the title, Stewart started the following exchange that day:

“I’d wreck my mom to win a championship,” Stewart said. “I respect him as a driver, but this isn't about friendships this weekend. This is a war. This is a battle. This is for a national championship. It’s no-holds barred this weekend. I didn’t come this far to be one step away from it and let it slip away, so we're going to go for it.”

“Did you say something?” Edwards asked.

“Yeah, you can come visit my trophy in the room at (Las) Vegas when you come there,” Stewart responded, referring to the site of the season-ending banquet.

“He’s got the talking part figured out,” Edwards replied.

“They say there’s talkers and doers. I’ve done this twice,” Stewart said.

Tuesday, Stewart talked about that media session and what followed:

“The trash-talking started on Thursday at the media event, which wasn’t really necessarily my plan until I got there. When we got there, I saw that Carl was nervous and it was like a drop of blood for a shark. As soon as I saw that it was like instincts kicked in for me. I’ve been in championship battles before with guys that had that look. You just know that you can kind of take advantage of that situation a little bit.

“So we wore him out at media day, but then he came back and won the pole and pretty much made a statement that it didn’t look like it really phased him too much.”

While Edwards led much of that race, Stewart battled various issues, including running over debris that forced him at the back of the pack. Yet, Stewart continually moved toward the front.

During a red flag for rain about 150 laps from the end, NASCAR parked the cars on pit road. It was then that Stewart knew he would win the title even though Edwards led and Stewart was only a few positions behind.

“I saw what to me was the final blow to him,” Stewart said. “He got out of the car ... looks back and we’re four cars behind him. The look on his face was, ‘How did he get up there already?’ He sat there for ... that rain delay, he was with his crew chief and Jack Roush at the pit box and I was just sitting on the wall talking to crew guys, laughing and carrying on. I knew we had it won. I hadn’t raced him all day but I just knew mentally we had the advantage.”

Stewart also later said that his car’s handling was as good as it had been, allowing him to make various moves. He called the race “the most fun I’ve had on pavement, for sure.

“That’s by far the best pavement race I’ve ever had,” Stewart said. “Everybody goes, ‘Oh, he did something different, he rose above everything.’ My car was really good. That’s the moral of the story. My car was good and balanced all day. When you get it driving that nice, you can do things like we were doing. I put myself in spots that I wouldn’t normally do because it drove so well and it felt so good that I felt more comfortable getting myself in those positions.”
 

AJ Allmendinger. (Photo by ASP, Inc.)

REINSTATED   NASCAR announced Tuesday that it has reinstated driver AJ Allmendinger after his successful completion of its recovery program.

“I want to thank everyone for their support,” Allmendinger said in a statement issued Tuesday. “I am grateful for the opportunity to return. The Road to Recovery program was really helpful to me in getting my priorities reset away from the race track. And, honestly, that helped find my love of racing again and why I began racing in the first place.”

Allmendinger failed a drug test at Kentucky in late June and NASCAR temporarily suspended him for the Daytona race the following week, forcing him out of the car hours before the race. He had the opportunity to request his remaining urine sample be tested and that was done later that month. After it came back positive, NASCAR indefinitely suspended him July 24.

Penske Racing released Allmendinger on Aug. 1. That opened the No. 22 ride. Sam Hornish Jr. has driven the car since Daytona. Joey Logano will take over the ride next season.

SHOWING IMPROVEMENT   With the opportunity to drive in the Cup Series after AJ Allmendinger’s suspension, Sam Hornish Jr. is showing signs he could be ready for another full-time effort in the series.

Hornish’s finish at Chicagoland Speedway was the third consecutive race he’s placed 11th. He’s finished in the top 12 in five of the last six races, including a fifth-place run at Watkins Glen.

In the Nationwide Series, Hornish’s sixth-place finish last weekend at Chicago marked his 13th top-10 finish in the last 14 races.

SPECIAL GROUP   Ryan Blaney became the seventh first-time winner this season in the Camping World Truck Series and the 12th different winner in 15 races when he won at Iowa last weekend.

The first-time winners in the Truck series this season are John King (Daytona), James Buescher (Kansas), Justin Lofton (Charlotte), Joey Coulter (Pocono), Nelson Piquet (Michigan), Ty Dillon (Atlanta) and Blaney.

In the process, Blaney — at 18 years, eight months — became the youngest driver to win in NASCAR’s three national touring series.

PIT STOPS   JR Motorsports announced Tuesday that Ryan Pemberton would serve as Danica Patrick’s interim crew chief for this weekend’s Nationwide race at Kentucky Speedway. The team released Patrick’s crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., earlier this week. ... A Chase driver has won the fall New Hampshire race every year since the Chase’s debut in 2004. ... The winner of the fall New Hampshire race has gone on to finish in the top three in points four of the last five years.

by Dustin Long
Follow Dustin on Twitter: @DustinLong