At long last, Stewart breaks winless drought at Sonoma

Since I began my career in sports writing nearly 20 years ago, one of the bigger lessons I was taught was when it comes to being a good reporter, you simply have to keep cheering out of the words you put on a page.
With what went down at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., on Sunday, it was next to impossible to jump up and down like a kid about to be let loose in a candy store.
For all the heartaches, all the bad luck, all the stress and pain, Tony Stewart finally grabbed a dose of nirvana at a track he’s more than familiar with.
Stewart got a break when a well-timed pit stop put him in front, then he worked a final restart to perfection and had to hold off a hard-charging Denny Hamlin to win the Toyota/SaveMart 350. It was Stewart’s eighth road-course win (third at Sonoma) and 49th career Sprint Cup win, but it meant so much more than an average race day.
The last time Stewart won came at Dover on June 2, 2013. Three years and 24 days later – a stretch of 84 races – Stewart found his way back to Victory Lane.
And if you can’t appreciate how it unfolded, please go back and check yourself for a pulse, heart or soul.
At lap 83, Stewart and his No. 14 Chevrolet sat in 17th place. Five laps later, the race’s fourth and final caution came out. All of a sudden, Stewart found himself in front of the field.
He didn’t let it go over the final 22 laps, including one precarious restart and two bump-and-run exchanges with Hamlin in the final three turns.
Just like Kyle Busch before him one year ago, Stewart – despite missing the first eight races – has met the first requirement for making the 2016 Chase. One checkered flag in the win column.
Now comes the harder part. Stewart still needs to get to the top 30 in points, but he’s closer than you think.
With 10 races to go until the Chase, Stewart is 32nd in points, but only nine behind Brian Scott and three behind Regan Smith. Since he returned eight races ago, Stewart had struggled with only one top-10 and three straight early exits.
But after a seventh-place run at Michigan two weeks ago, it had the feeling of a turn-the-corner moment for the entire Stewart-Haas Racing organization.
When the checkered flag flew, the picture captured by the Fox cameras of Stewart’s father, Nelson, wiping away tears showed you just how special the breakthrough moment was. Stewart led laps only one other time on the 2016 season at Kansas, but ended up 12th.
In the bigger picture, Stewart may have the win, but he can’t afford to backslide into finishes he endured at places like Dover (34th), Charlotte (24th) and Pocono (34th) if he wants one last shot at a fourth Sprint Cup title.
Smoke is also one win away from becoming the 13th driver in NASCAR history to reach 50 career wins. After what he’s been through since his last one, from the broken leg that cost him 15 races in 2013 to the tragic accident involving Kevin Ward and missing the first eight races this year due to a non-racing injury, Tony Stewart has definitely risen from the ashes.
Stewart said he wasn’t having much fun driving a Sprint Cup car to the media on Friday. What a difference a little luck can make to improve the feeling.

Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Daytona International Speedway (2.5-mile D-shaped oval), Daytona Beach, Fla.

-SPRINT CUP: Coke Zero 400, Saturday, 7:45 p.m. ET/4:45 p.m. PT, NBC. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 400 miles, 160 laps.

2015 champion: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

-XFINITY SERIES: Subway Firecracker 250, Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 250 miles, 100 laps.

2015 champion: Austin Dillon.

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Off until July 7 for the Kentucky 225 at Kentucky Speedway.

Side note: At least John Wes Townley and Spencer Gallagher can go to their neutral corners after their little wrestling match at Gateway that happened with five laps to go Saturday night. It's all raw emotion, though, and it definitely got everyone talking.

This just in...Kyle Busch is back.

Love him or hate him, there’s no denying 2015 has been one of the most stressful years in the career of Kyle Busch. He missed nearly three full months after suffering multiple broken bones following a wreck at the Daytona XFINITY race that opened the season in February.

Winning races took a back seat to regaining his health. The Chase was a distant thought, but Busch knew the sooner he could get back to full health and be cleared to race, the faster he could start the charge to get to the goal.

Win a race, get to the top 30 in points, and earn a spot for the Chase.

It took all of five races, but Busch can kick the first part of the mission off the to-do list.

Taking the lead away from Jimmie Johnson with five laps to go, Busch grabbed the checkered flag at the Toyota/SaveMart 350 on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Sonoma Raceway. Kyle beat Kurt Busch by .532 seconds and zoomed into Chase contention.

He may have one more hurdle ahead to make the Chase, but the win was the most satisfying moment for the younger Busch brother. Busch broke a streak of 10 straight different race winners at Sonoma and won for the first time on the 1.99-mile road course since 2008.

“Normally it's kind of a nightmare for us sometimes and this 18 team, but we had a great day today,” he said in the post-race media center interview. “We needed to come in and get tires, and that was going to be our best chance to win the race.”

After the last of the race’s five cautions came out at lap 100, only 10 laps from the finish, Busch’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, knew the timing was right to get the work done.

“We had decent short run speed and were able to show it on some mock runs,” Stevens said. “There at the end, it just kind of fell into the strategy that we wanted to run anyway, and we knew that we didn't have what we needed to outrun them on old tires, so it was a no-brainer call for me to come down and do everything we could to put him in a position where he could drive to the front.”

Mission accomplished, but the hard part is still to come.

With 10 races remaining until the Chase field is set, Busch sits 37^th in points, 136 behind 30^th-place Cole Whitt. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver likes his chances to be in the championship mix.

“Yeah, you know, certainly it's feasible. There's no reason why it shouldn't be,” Busch said. “This team is good enough to be that way, and I should be good enough to be that way.

“Now having a win, I think that that treats us a little bit better.  We don't have to race as hard for a 

win.”

NOTES: Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer (who finished third after qualifying sixth) were the only drivers who qualified and finished in the top 10 Sunday at Sonoma. Pole-sitter and Los Gatos native A.J. Allmendinger had to replace a fuel cell in his No. 47 and finished 37^th, 12 laps down. … Fox finished its 15^th season of NASCAR broadcasts at Sonoma and will make one big change for 2016. Larry McReynolds will move from the booth to the Hollywood Hotel, and Jeff Gordon will join Mike Joy and Darrell Waltrip to call the races. … NBC Sports will return and start its coverage of the rest of the 2015 season at Daytona for the 4^th of July weekend. The XFINITY Subway Firecracker 250 runs Saturday on NBC Sports Network, then the Coke Zero 400 happens next Sunday night on NBC. Rick Allen will call the races after 12 years as the voice of the Camping World Truck Series on Fox.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Daytona International Speedway (2.5-mile superspeedway), Daytona Beach, Florida

SPRINT CUP: Coke Zero 400 powered by Coca-Cola, Sunday, 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, NBC. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 400 miles, 160 laps.

2014 champion: Aric Almirola

XFINITY SERIES: Subway Firecracker 250, Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 250 miles, 100 laps

2014 champion: Kasey Kahne

CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Off until July 9 for the UNOH 225 at Kentucky Speedway.