NASCAR: Tony Stewart Ridin' High in Las Vegas Winner's Circle

Racin’ with Russ—After having his car not re-fire late in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race last week, Tony Stewart rebounded nicely to capture his first checkers of the season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon.

The race started with Kasey Kahne on the pole, but was never really a threat on the day at any time. Dale Earnhardt Jr rocketed to the lead early and stayed there for most of the opening 50 laps.
Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth led with strong cars, but it was Stewart who seemed to have the ‘horse’ of the day.

Several of the second half restarts saw Stewart rise to the occasion, especially one of them when he zipped to the point from third in just the first turn of the restart. Drivers such as Greg Biffle, Johnson and Brad Keselowski all tried to get by Stewart’s No. 14 Chevy, all to no avail as Stewart’s car was stout. Other than the restarts, the field spread out quickly and at times, the race was a snoozer.
Crossing the line behind Stewart included the cars of Johnson, Biffle, Ryan Newman and Carl Edwards.

Biffle’s latest third place run is his third of the year and catapults him into the top spot by 10 points over Kevin Harvick and a dozen over Denny Hamlin. Several drivers had tough days with various problems netting poor results. They included both Busch brothers Kyle and Kurt. Both had tire problems and fell down the results sheets to 23rd and 35th respectively.

On the other side of the coin, Jamie McMurray and Trevor Bayne had good results with eighth and ninth place runs.

Nationwide

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. took his third career Nationwide trophy at Las Vegas on Saturday after a heads up battle with veteran racer Mark Martin in the closing stages.
Early laps saw Elliott Sadler lead as did Martin, Brad Keselowski, along with Kasey Kahne taking turns out front.
But during that final segment, Stenhouse seemed to settle in a groove and pull away from the wily veteran Martin and into victory lane for the first time this year.
Six seconds back at the stripe were the cars of Martin, Sadler, Trevor Bayne and Brendan Gaughan.
The latest results finds Sadler ahead of Austin Dillon by 15 points with Stenhouse back by 17 markers.
Danica Patrick started and finished in 12th place. She was never a factor on the day, but managed to finish on the lead lap and with all four fenders on the car.

From Rumorville

Nationwide driver Patrick was recently heard to readjust her goals and aspirations for the year, recalling how she was on a mission to land that first Nationwide title. After the first few weeks and reality setting in, she now realizes those were unreasonable goals and just finishing among the top 20 would be more realistic.

From the unusual department, Dale Earnhardt Jr is known for some strange or different purchases, but his latest might be among the most unusual. To add to the eclectic array of items surrounding his Whiskey River homestead, Earnhardt purchased Juan Montoya’s race car that hit the jet dryer at Daytona just a few weeks ago. Talk about a conversation piece!

Look for Brian Vickers to return behind the wheel of the Michael Waltrip No. 55 Toyota at both Bristol races in addition to the events at Martinsville and New Hampshire. Let’s hope Vickers has put away his manual on how to race in NASCAR with a bulldozer and compete with some kind of common sense. After all, this will be his audition for possible future rides and a continuation of his latest results will not get him there.

That’s it for this week. Next week, RWR will review the NASCAR carnage from Bristol along with more racing news from around the globe. Don’t forget to watch the opening rounds of Indy Car racing from the streets of St. Petersburg, FL (March 25) and Formula One action from Australia (March 18). The Indy Cars are debuting their "new look" and the F-1 cars will exhibit their extremely ugly, but functional noses.