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SRX: Series and track owner Tony Stewart wins again

Posted by AR1 staff

It was like taking candy from a baby.  That’s what happens when you’re Tony Stewart and you happen to own both the racetrack and the race series.

And Saturday night Tony Stewart prevailed in a thrilling battle for the win across the final laps, holding off local all-star Kody Swanson to win his second race of the Camping World SRX Series season and sweep the series’ slate of dirt races.

Stewart took the lead late in the main even after working in the high side of the racetrack, using that line to pass Swanson for the final time. Swanson began to match Stewart’s line and tried to pull off a slidejob on Stewart, but wasn’t able to clear the three-time Cup Champion.

“Kody found the bottom. I couldn’t roll the bottom as good as he could. I was real dependent on being up on the top,” Stewart said in Victory Lane. “I just think that that’s what Eldora does. The complexion of the track changes during the race. I thought the top was good at the beginning of the Main, and then Kody got just crushing everybody on the bottom and got rolling through there.

“But the good thing was when he went by everybody else, they all followed him down there like they were in a parade and left the top open. And the longer we went, I finally got the momentum going on the top and got back by.”

Besides the top two, one of the stars of the night was Paul Tracy, who led a chunk of laps while also showing off his classic aggressive streak: Tracy traded paint with Helio Castroneves fighting for the lead, and then caused a late-race crash that tore the front end off of Bobby Labonte’s car. Labonte was unhappy with Tracy afterwards, one of two notable driver feuds during the night. In addition to Tracy and Labonte’s dustup, Tony Kanaan and Ernie Francis Jr. also took turns running into each other.

SRX at Eldora Results

  1. Tony Stewart
  2. Cody Swanson
  3. Helio Castroneves
  4. Marco Andretti
  5. Paul Tracy
  6. Scott Speed
  7. Tony Kanaan
  8. Ernie Francis Jr.
  9. Willy T. Ribbs
  10. Michael Waltrip
  11. Bobby Labonte (DNF)
  12. Bill Elliott (DNF)