Date: April 4, 2009
Event: O’Reilly 300 (Round 5 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Nationwide Series
Location: Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth (1.5-mile oval)
Start/Finish: 8th/2nd (Running, completed 200 of 200 laps)
Winner: Kyle Busch of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Life is full of decisions. Sometimes you make the correct decision and sometimes you make the wrong decision. Racing is no different, and Tony Stewart found that out when he finished second in Saturday’s O’Reilly 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
A decision early in the race cost the driver of the No. 33 Armor All Chevrolet for Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) several positions on the racetrack, while a decision late in the race helped him gain several positions when it counted.
After starting eighth, Stewart quickly moved into the top-five as the race remained under green for the first 50 laps around the 1.5-mile oval. The two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion brought his Armor All Chevrolet to pit lane under green on lap 54 and the KHI crew, led by crew chief Ernie Cope, executed a flawless pit stop in which they changed four Goodyear tires and filled the gas tank with fuel.
Just 12 laps later, the first yellow flag caution period of the day came out due to debris on the backstretch. It was then when Stewart and Cope made their first critical decision of the race, as they opted to pit for fuel only while all the other cars took on tires.
The gamble gave Stewart the lead when the race restarted on lap 72, but the advantage quickly went away as cars with fresher tires began passing the Armor All machine. Unfortunately for Cope and Stewart, the race went uncharacteristically green for the next 49 laps, causing Stewart to loose ground to the leaders and fall all the way to 11th-place.
Throughout the long, green flag run, Stewart informed Cope that in addition to his tires being nearly used up, he was also fighting a tight-handling racecar.
Once a caution finally came out on lap 121, Stewart was able to pit for much-needed tires while Cope and the Armor All crew got a chance to tweak the car’s handling via a tire pressure adjustment and by pulling a half-rubber out of the left-rear spring.
