NASCAR notebook
Stewart says sorry for pit road miscues
LOUDON, N.H. — This time, Tony Stewart apologized to his crew for pit-road miscues instead of blasting them.
Stewart ran up front early until a pair of pit-road stumbles knocked him down a lap. Instead of letting the mistakes anger him, Stewart rebounded with a strong run in the second half of the race, picking off other Chase drivers and motoring his way up to an eighth-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
He even moved up a spot in the Chase standings to seventh place, 73 points behind co-leaders Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards.
"To fight back to eighth, I'm pretty happy with that," Stewart said.
Stewart was in second place when he bumped into Johnny Sauter as he left his pit box during a routine stop only 87 laps into the race.
Stewart needed a quick return to the pits to have the left front fender on the No. 20 Toyota pulled back out and fell to 35th on the restart. Stewart was too fast exiting pit road on lap 159 and hit with a penalty for speeding.
"Sorry, guys," he radioed his team.
Sorry? Certainly that was a nice change of tune for crew chief Greg Zipadelli. Stewart snapped at Zipadelli last week at Richmond, telling him over the radio that "we gave another one away" in a second-place finish. Zipadelli sharply reminded Stewart they won as a team and lost as a team.
"Last week it was a mistake in the pits and this week it was a mistake on the driver's part," Stewart said.
Campaign on track
John McCain's campaign in the presidential race had him enjoying a different kind of race. The Republican presidential nominee attended the first race in the Chase and gave a short pep talk in the drivers' meeting. His wife, Cindy, joined him later on stage and they shook hands with the drivers during race introductions.
McCain thanked NASCAR for its support of the troops in the meeting and said the drivers were role models for everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It's remarkable. It's uplifting to these young people," McCain said.
Kenseth crash
Matt Kenseth was already a long shot to win his second Cup title starting the Chase as the 12th driver in the field. Now, Kenseth finds another championship even more out of reach after a late-race wreck knocked him out for his first DNF of the season. He finished 40th and is 177 points behind co-leaders Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards.
Kenseth got caught up on a restart with 71 laps left when Chad McCumbee got loose and spun up the track and plowed into the No. 17 Ford. The 2003 Cup champion gingerly got out of his car with his shot at a possible top 10 finish over.
"If we would have been running where Greg (Biffle) and Carl (Edwards) were running, we wouldn't have got wrecked to start with, so I always feel it's partially your fault," Kenseth said. "Even though we got caught up in somebody else's mess, if we would have been running better, we would have been ahead of their mess."
