Catchfence

TEAM CHEVY DRIVERS TAKE SIX OF TOP 10 FINISHING SPOTS

KEVIN HARVICK MAINTAINS NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES POINT LEAD

LONG POND, PA – A wild Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 with rain delays and red flags couldn’t stop Tony Stewart from bringing his No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet across the finish line in second place. He gained one slot and is now eight in the point standings.

The start of the 500-mile race was delayed by rain and then had two lengthy red flag stops that totaled nearly 50 minutes. Series point leader, Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet, who scraped the wall on the first lap,  maintained the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point lead with a fifth place finish to give Chevrolet two of the top five finishes.

Jeff Gordon, who led the 200-lap race for 39 laps in his No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet, finished sixth and remains second, 189 points behind Harvick, in the standings. Mark Martin brought his No. 5 HendrickCars.com/GoDaddy.com Chevrolet across the stripe in seventh place; and Jeff Burton finished right behind in the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet in eighth. Burton gained two spots in the points and is now fifth in the standings. Martin is 13^th in points, 34 out of the Chase.

Jimmie Johnson, four-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup champion, lead for 96 laps but after the field was scrambled under the final caution, finished 10^th in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet and occupies the fourth place slot in the standings.  Clint Bowyer, who was involved in a multiple car accident on lap 165, rallied to bring the No. 33 The Hartford Chevrolet across the finish line in 15^th and rounds out the top 12 in the point with just five races remaining in the race to the Chase.  Ryan Newman, No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet finished 12^th, and Juan Pablo Montoya was 16^th in the No. 42 Target Chevrolet.

Regan Smith, No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet, crossed the line in 21^st place. Jamie McMurray, No. 1 AXE Twist Chevrolet, finished in 22^nd position. Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet, drove his damaged race car to the 27^th finishing position. Bobby Labonte, No. 71 TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet, was the 28^th finisher.

Greg Biffle (Ford) won the race; Carl Edwards (Ford) was third, and Denny Hamlin (Toyota) finished fifth to round out the top five.

The next stop for the Series will be August 8 at Watkins Glen International.

TONY STEWART, NO. 14 OFFICE DEPOT/OLD SPICE CHEVROLET – Finished 2^nd

POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:

KERRY THARP:  Let’s roll into our post race for the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway.  Our race runner up, Tony Stewart.  He drives the No. 14 Office Depot Chevrolet for Stewart Haas Racing.

Tony, take us through the afternoon.  Quite a race out there.  Again, another strong performance for the No. 14 team.

TONY STEWART:  Yeah, definitely happy with the outcome, for sure.  We didn’t get the best of starts.  We were tight at the beginning of the race.  Really proud of Darian Grubb, made great calls all day, kept making my car better.  Last half of the race started working our way back forward.

We had a good car.  Just was a matter of figuring out what the pit strategy was going to be at the end.  It always comes down to strategy of fuel or weather, it seems like here, which isn’t exactly the way you want to have to run a race.  It’s part of it and it’s made for some exciting finishes because of that.

I thought we were going to be in bad shape when we had to come in for the four there at the end.  But our guys did a great job of getting us out first car on four tires out of the pits, and that got us the opportunity to get by some of the guys that took two tires or no tires there at the beginning of the run.  From there, we were able just to race hard with Carl and the 77 car and Harvick.

It was a fun day.

KERRY THARP:  We’ll take questions for Tony.

Q.  The part of the track over here in turn three where Elliott Sadler and those guys hit, what is your view of that part of the racetrack?  What do they need to do?  From your standpoint, what do you see over there and what should be done?

TONY STEWART:  I’ll be honest, I haven’t even looked that far off the racetrack.  Obviously when we got going again after the red, we could see they were still working on that area.  I don’t know what the problem was with it.  Obviously, without knowing the problem, I don’t know the solution either.

I don’t think it’s a big drama or anything.

Q.  Tony, when you were running third and Hornish had fresher tires at that point, did you have a feel that if you could have gotten by him, you would have had something for Greg?

TONY STEWART:  I don’t think so, to be honest.  You know, Carl and I both struggled to get around Sam and Sam ran a good race.  He ran good here last time here.  You know, there wasn’t a defined spot on the track where I don’t think    I think Carl was better than him in one and I was a little better than him through the tunnel.  Neither spot led either one of us to have one clear cut spot where we were going to have a really good opportunity.  We just had to force him into a mistake.  That’s what we did.  We finally pressured him hard enough in three that he finally got loose.  What he did, he couldn’t get it back.

Q.  Tony, this time last year you were leading the points.  Now you have a lot of momentum.  Comparing your situation to last year in some ways do you feel like you’re in a better spot?  Seems like this time last year you started to lose your way a little bit.  Could you compare the two situations a bit.

TONY STEWART:  If it keeps building then, yes, I like the situation better.  But I don’t know what next week’s gonna bring or the week after.  It’s nice to have a little momentum.  I know we won the spring race, we came back the second time we were terrible.

Today is definitely good.  We finished good at Indy there.  We’ve had some strong runs here recently.  I’m hoping that trend is going to keep going.  If it does, I’d much rather be in this situation than leading the points when it doesn’t get you anything.

Q.  Obviously today’s race was a really long event, start and stop.  In the car, how do you keep your focus once you do stop, get ready to gear up to go back out there and go racing again, how to you do that?

TONY STEWART:  We probably know less at that point.  We’re sitting in a corner and dont have a view of what’s going on.

KERRY THARP:  Gentlemen, thank you for putting on a great show.  Good luck this week at Watkins Glen.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports

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- Team Chevy, Press Release