| | Associated Press
Results
BROOKLYN, Mich. -- With Dale Earnhardt's black No. 3 race
car looming in his rearview mirror late in Sunday's Kmart 400, Tony
Stewart was doing a mental rain dance.
"I was just praying for rain," Stewart said.
His prayers were answered as the race was cut short by just over
five laps with his Pontiac out front.
|  | | Tony Stewart's Pontiac has the lead on lap 192. Rain cut short the Kmart 400 less than three laps later, with Stewart still the leader and eventual champion. |
It was the second straight victory for last year's top NASCAR
rookie, who has overcome a difficult start this season.
Stewart, who won the previous Sunday in Dover, Del., charged
past Robert Pressley to take the lead on lap 185 of the scheduled
200-lap event on Michigan's 2-mile, high-banked oval.
As he drove toward the finish, with one eye on his mirror and
another on the darkening skies, a three-way battle raged behind him
for second, with Earnhardt passing Dale Jarrett and then holding
off Bobby Labonte to take the runner-up spot.
NASCAR, which earlier red-flagged the race for 94 minutes after
rain began falling on lap 150, put out the fourth yellow flag of
the day on lap 192 when rain began falling again.
They brought the cars onto pit road and stopped them just short
of completing lap 195 in hopes of waiting out the rain. But, less
than five minutes later, with what was left of the crowd of 170,000
getting soaked again, the race was ended.
"I was just praying for rain," said Stewart, who knew anything
could happen in a four-lap shootout with Earnhardt, Labonte and
Jarrett.
"That would be a nerve-wracking experience, probably worse than
childbirth for women -- who knows?" Stewart said with a grin.
Asked who he would have worried about the most if the race had
resumed, Stewart said, "I knew the (No.) 18 (Labonte) is not going
to hurt me. He may go by me, but the 3 (Earnhardt) wouldn't have a
problem roughing you up a little bit on the way by just to say hi,
and he'd smile and laugh as he was doing it. I didn't really like
seeing him back there at the end."
But Earnhardt, who barely held off Labonte in the battle for
second -- with the two bumping as they drove side-by-side through
the fourth turn on the last green-flag lap, also seemed happy with
the abbreviated finish.
"We still weren't quite as good as the 18 or the 20 (Stewart)
at the end," said Earnhardt, who moved past Ward Burton into
second place in the season standings, trailing Labonte by 98 points
after 14 of 34 races.
Burton, who finished sixth, right behind Pressley, fell to
third, four points behind seven-time series champion Earnhardt.
Sunday's race was like three events in one.
Jeremy Mayfield was the class of the field as he led 85 of the first 151 laps and held a lead of nearly seven seconds over
Jarrett, who dominated this race in winning a year earlier.
His troubles began when all the leaders pitted under caution
after the cars restarted. Mayfield was sent to the rear of the
longest line for the green-flag restart as a penalty for having one
of his worn tires bounce off a crewman onto pit road during his
stop.
Mayfield's Ford, which restarted 13th, got all the way to sixth
before his engine blew, bringing out another caution on lap 176.
"Something just broke," the disappointed Mayfield said. "We
know who had the best car here again."
Meanwhile, Labonte, who won here last August, had taken charge
after taking the lead from Jarrett on lap 157. He built a lead of
more than two seconds over Stewart before Mayfield's engine blew.
The leaders pitted on lap 178, during the caution, and Labonte,
Stewart's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, fell to sixth after his crew
had trouble removing a lug nut on the right rear tire.
"I felt like we had the best car before the caution came out
when Mayfield's car blew up," Labonte said. "You can look at it
two ways. I feel like we were lucky to get back to third."
After that, Stewart, 29, who has five career victories, took
charge.
During the final caution period, crew chief Greg Zipadelli kept
reminding Stewart to be patient, but the driver said, "I didn't
think we had enough time to be patient."
On the restart, Pressley, who got the lead by taking only two
tires on his final pit stop, stayed low on the track and Stewart
zoomed past, pulling Jarrett and Earnhardt along.
Stewart, who had led only once earlier in the race for three
laps, stayed out front to the end.
After a lot of tough luck that kept him from winning early in
the season, Stewart joins rookie Dale Earnhardt Jr. as the only
drivers with two victories this season. Stewart is also the first
driver to win two in a row since he managed the feat late last
season in Phoenix and Homestead, Fla.
Stewart, who averaged 143.926 mph in the race, said winning two
straight "is either impressive or lucky. The fact is we won.
That's all we care about." | |
ALSO SEE
Notebook: Mayfield's run unravels
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Tony Stewart talks about his victory in the Kmart 400 on Sunday.
wav: 363 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Dale Earnhardt made adjustments too late in the race.
wav: 93 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Dale Jarrett says that Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte had the best cars.
wav: 70 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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