Stewart makes progress
BRISTOL, TENN. Tony Gibson, crew chief for Danica Patrick, worked his way through a crowd of reporters and vigorously shook Tony Stewart’s hand.
“You’re back, ain’t you?” Gibson said. “You’re back.”
It wasn’t victory lane, but it seemed like the next best address to Stewart and his team Sunday night. Despite a rotten qualifying performance and a 37th-place starting spot, Stewart pushed through the elements to finish fourth in the Food City 500.
After a season that began with finishes of 35th, 16th and 33rd and with Stewart still bothered by a right leg that was broken in a sprint car crash last August, the three-time Sprint Cup champion needed a performance that underlined his abilities — not the fact that he’s still recovering. And that’s what he got.
“It’s a step in the right direction, for sure,” Stewart said. “You get out of here with a top-five, and you’ve had a good day. We were pretty strong at the end. We just couldn’t run those guys down.
“But we’ll take that. It’s just what the doctor ordered.”
Stewart weaved through traffic, 12 cautions and a confusing stretch of late-race pit strategies to wind up with a shot at an improbable victory on a physically demanding track that isn’t welcoming for drivers recovering from injury.
“It’s big,” Stewart said. “This is a physical place. ... It’s no walk in the park by any means. When the leaders caught traffic, you had to make holes. You run 15-second laps on a half-mile track and go three-wide, it’s pretty impressive.”
Stewart credited an excellent car and the right circumstances. “It’s not impossible. You just have to have things go your way. We stayed around the top 15 all day. We had a really good car.”