Tony Stewart top dog in Darlington

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DARLINGTON, S.C. - In two straight races Tony Stewart has checked off a pair of tracks he had yet to win at in NASCAR competition.

After finally winning at Talladega Superspeedway two weeks ago, Stewart was able to keep the streak alive by pulling into victory lane at Darlington Raceway.

Stewart continued Joe Gibbs Racing's tear in the NASCAR Nationwide Series by capturing the sixth consecutive win for the team when he took the checkered flag in Friday night's Diamond Hill Plywood 200.

Stewart held off Clint Bowyer on a green-white-checkered finish to score his fourth win in sixth attempts. It was also the eighth overall win for JGR combined with Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.

"Man, what an honor. It's not the drivers, I'm telling you that, because it's been with three different drivers. It's this team," said Stewart.

"I can’t believe it. We finally won a race at Darlington."

Driving a back-up car, David Reutimann was able to passTodd Bodine coming to the finish to take third.

Steven Wallace finished fifth for his second consecutive top five.

The green-white-checkered finish was set up after Mark Martin, who was running second at the time, had fuel pick-up problems on a restart which caused a chain reaction.


"I didnt have a clue that we would come up short," Martin said.

The race looked like it would belong to Matt Kenseth in the late going, who had built a comfortable lead as the laps wound down.

But after pitting under green for a vibration to give up the top spot, Kenseth's car crashed hard on the frontstretch a few laps later.

"We just had a loose wheel while we were leading and we had to pit because it was getting ready to fall off," Kenseth said. "When we came back out, I was just driving way over my head to somehow try to get back in the race. We were a lap down and I was trying to catch up where I thought the lucky dog was and I just let it get away from me. I was frustrated and mad at the moment and driving a little faster than I knew the car would take me and it just got away from me. It’s frustrating."

Bowyer was able to increase his points lead to 112, the largest of the season with the runner-up finish.

Pole-sitter Carl Edwards, who trailed Bowyer by nine points at the start of the race, finished last after he hit the wall in Turn 1 on lap four.

They dropped the green and I was ready to race," Edwards said. "I got loose and hit the wall. That was a bad mistake and I learned by lesson there."

Kyle Busch was in front in the first half of the race but he found trouble when he ran into a pack of slower cars including Brad Keselowski.

Busch's car slid up the track and hard into the outside wall ending his night.

Busch called Keselowski and others "racing idiots” and promised, as he did last Friday night in Richmond after a late race tangle with Steven Wallace, to wreck cars if he had to in similar situations.

The NASCAR Nationwide Series now heads to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte on Saturday night, May 24th.