Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet has not performed this week like the car that romped to victories in the first two races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. He was horrible at practice, and that carried over into Saturday’s qualifying, where he turned a lap of 156.760 mph and will start the third Chase race 27 spots behind pole-sitter Martin Truex Jr.
Stewart’s two wins have given him only a seven-point cushion over Kevin Harvick entering today’s race. With four Chase drivers starting in the top six, this could be the race where the standings get rattled.
Truex returned to the site of his only career Sprint Cup win and turned a lap of 159.004 mph to win the pole at Dover International Speedway.
“I love this place,” Truex said. “I feel like I understand what it takes to get around this place. I’ve just been fortunate enough to have good race cars here.”
Chase driver Kurt Busch was second. Paul Menard was third. Chase drivers Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson took the next three spots.
Like Stewart, four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon also struggled during qualifying and starts 34th.
Enumclaw’s Kasey Kahne qualified ninth, one spot ahead of Vancouver, Wash., native Greg Biffle.
Round 3 of the Chase promises to create some separation between the contenders and the pretenders.
Stewart has taken up residence in Victory Lane and at the top of the Chase standings with wins at Chicago and Loudon, N.H.
He’s found it hard to keep it up at Dover, however. He was a miserable 41st in Friday’s final practice session, and his team couldn’t fix whatever ailed the No. 14 car in time for qualifying.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow,” Stewart said.
Johnson, the five-time defending champion who is stuck in 10th place, 29 points behind Stewart, could position himself as a contender today. He has six career victories at Dover and won the race here last September.
“In these first two (Chase) races, we’ve had much better cars than where we’ve finished, and it just didn’t work out for us,” Johnson said. “But that’s racing. Anything can and will happen, and we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen this weekend.”
HOT LAPS
Edwards dominated the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Dover, his seventh victory of the season in the series. Brad Keselowski was second, Clint Bowyer third and Kahne fourth. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fifth. … IndyCar points leader Will Power won the pole for today’s race at Kentucky Speedway. Power is 12 points ahead of Dario Franchitti, who had a disappointing qualifying run and will start 11th. Scott Dixon, who is a distant third, 59 points behind Power, qualified seventh. … Ron Hornaday extended his NASCAR Trucks Series record with his 50th career victory. He held off Austin Dillon over the final 10 laps at Kentucky Speedway to win for the third time this season. Dillon retained his lead in the points standings. … Antron Brown raced to the No. 1 qualifying position in Top Fuel at the Auto-Plus NHRA Nationals in Mohnton, Pa. Brown’s 3.766-second pass is No. 2 all-time in a Top Fuel dragster.
