Stewart takes Nationwide race

DARLINGTON — Tony Stewart couldn’t win on Darlington’s old surface.

But he’s 1-for-1 on the track’s new one.

Stewart led 90 laps and pulled away on the green-white-checkered flag restart to win the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 on Friday night in front of an estimated crowd of 31,000.

Prior to Friday’s win, Stewart was 0-for-19 in Nationwide and Cup races at Darlington.

“With the rich heritage here and being the first guy to win when they resurfaced it is cool to win at Darlington,” Stewart said.

Stewart’s victory continued the Nationwide dominance by the No. 20. The car, owned by Joe Gibbs Racing, has won four straight races, six overall, with three different drivers — Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch.

The only constant with the team has been the crew, led by Dave Rogers.

“It’s the team,” Stewart said. “It starts with Dave Rogers and his guys. It’s an honor to drive for this team. They do the work and we just go drive. It doesn’t matter who is driving.”

Other drivers are wary of the No. 20’s prowess.

“It’s getting old seeing that No. 20 car win,” said David Reutimann, who finished third. “We got to do something about it.”

Rookie Joey Logano, who won last week’s ARCA race at Rockingham, will now take over the No. 20 car for most of the season. But Stewart doesn’t expect much of a drop-off.

“He was licking his chops, standing on the pit wall tonight,” Stewart said. “He won’t be intimidated. I think he has the chance to win some races.”

Clint Bowyer was second followed by Reutimann, Todd Bodine and Steven Wallace. Bowyer extended his points lead to 112 over Busch, who was involved in an accident on Lap 103.

The race turned into one of attrition on Darlington’s shiny new surface. Only 23 cars were running at the end of the race, which featured eight cautions and was red-flagged twice for nearly 23 minutes.

Two of the final three cautions took out contenders Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin.

Kenseth led 35 laps but went a lap down when he cut a tire on Lap 130. He went a lap down and got a little anxious trying to make up the ground, spinning out and hitting the inside retaining wall on the front stretch.

Martin was running second with three laps to go when he slowed down on a restart, triggering a five-car accident.

“It was my fault. I apologize,” Martin said.

Two of the race favorites, Hamlin and Carl Edwards, weren’t factors at all.

Hamlin, winner of the last two Nationwide races at Darlington, failed to make the race after wrecking in Turn 2 during his qualifying lap earlier in the day.

Edwards, the polesitter, hit the wall twice and brought out the first caution on Lap 3.

Busch also had an early end to his night. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver collided with Brad Keselowski, who was a lap down, going into Turn 1.

“It was a product of racing idiots,” a furious Busch said. “I backed out going into Turn 1 and got ran into by a lap car. (Keselowski) wrecked during practice, during qualifying and the race.

“Next time I’m wrecked and driving around, I’m going to race him like an S.O.B. He’s got one coming.”