Stewart’s victory snaps 84-race losing streak
SONOMA, Calif. — Tony Stewart snapped an 84-race losing streak that dated to 2013 with a victory in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race on the road course at Sonoma Raceway.
Stewart, 45, returned to Victory Lane in vintage fashion, refusing to let Denny Hamlin steal a win on the final lap.
Stewart’s victory stopped a slide of poor performances, injuries and personal turmoil that has tarnished the end of his career. He missed the first eight races of this season, his last as a NASCAR driver, with a back injury suffered in an off-road vehicle accident one week before the season opened.
Stewart took the lead on fuel strategy during a caution with 24 laps to go and had to hold on after another yellow flag stalled the race. The final restart came with 14 laps remaining, and he held off a trio of Toyota drivers for his third career victory at Sonoma.
Hamlin made it interesting by pouncing on a Stewart mistake to snatch the lead away in the seventh turn of the final lap. Stewart grabbed it back in tricky turn 11, where he dove to the inside of Hamlin and, as the two raced side by side, Stewart pushed Hamlin toward the wall.
Stewart got past Hamlin and charged to the checkered flag with the entire side of his car crumpled and his tires slightly smoking from the contact with Hamlin.
In other motor sports news:
• Pole-sitter Will Power picked up his second IndyCar series victory of the year, winning by 0.74 seconds after holding off Tony Kanaan’s last-lap surge at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. Kanaan shaved about a half-second off the gap with Power after the white flag went up, but he couldn’t catch up as the cars wound their way toward the end of the 202-mile race on the 14turn track.
• Ron Capps won the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio, for his third Funny Car victory in the last four events and fourth of the season. Capps beat Courtney Force in the final with a 3.956-scond run at 317.49 mph in his Dodge Charger.
• Christopher Bell prevailed in a two-lap sprint after the last of three re-starts for his first victory of the season in the rain-delayed NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Madison, Ill., on Saturday night. Bell, 20, held on to beat Ben Rhodes, the pole-sitter in the 200-mile race.