The Hot Pass: Stewart regains upper hand
Tony Stewart's humongous 260-point lead won't matter four races from now — but his three Sprint Cup wins will.
On Monday, Stewart dominated at Watkins Glen by leading 34 laps for his fifth win on the 2.45-mile road course. More importantly, however, his third victory of the season ties him with Jimmie Johnson for wins once NASCAR recalculates the point standings before the Chase to the Sprint Cup championship begins at New Hampshire.
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"Today's 10 points were huge for us," Stewart said. "That cuts down the deficit that we're going to be behind at the start of it in half. We're going to be in better shape here.
"I got my eye on the bigger prize. You don't get any prize money or a trophy for leading the points after 26 races."
After Johnson won at Indianapolis last month, the No. 48 team was in prime position with three wins to start from a vantage point in the playoffs. But after Johnson finished 12th — and outside the top-10 for the second consecutive week — suddenly, it's advantage Smoke.
As the Sprint Cup tour returns for a second run on the next four tracks — Michigan, Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond — Stewart's average from the first swing was an 8.5. Johnson's average finish was 17th. Advantage Smoke.
Stewart has seven wins on the next four tracks and has been victorious at each one. Johnson has two wins at Atlanta and Richmond, but has never won at Michigan or Bristol. Advantage Smoke.
Once Stewart takes the green flag at Michigan next Sunday, he will be the first driver locked into the Chase. But he's not concerned simply with Johnson, the three-time defending Cup champ. He's looking at any team that has the drive and determination to make the Chase.
"It's hard because there are so many good teams," Stewart said. "(Johnson), (Jeff Gordon), (Denny Hamlin), they've been really, really strong here in the last couple of weeks.
"I think those are the three guys that we're worried about the most right now. But I think if you look at the past in the Chase here, I don't think that you can count anybody out that's in the Chase. They're strong and there's a reason they got there."
Numbers game
Greg Biffle made the greatest gains in the points with a career-best fifth-place finish at the Glen which enabled him to jump from 12th to 10th in the standings and build a 91-point buffer between himself and 13th-place Kyle Busch.
"We expected to run well but you can't expect a good finish," Biffle said. "We had great pit stops, the guys did a good job preparing the car, our brakes were good, the transmission shifted beautiful — that's all you can ask for when you're road racing."