Stewart nips Bowyer in photo finish

Tony Stewart barely edged Clint Bowyer to cap off a dominating performance in Saturday’s DRIVE4COPD 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race, winning the season-opening event for fourth straight year.

Stewart rallied from a late-race pit stop for a flat tire and hooked up with Landon Cassill to come back up through the field and catch the lead duo of Bowyer and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. coming through the final turn before ducking to the outside and beating Bowyer to the line by mere inches.

Bowyer was credited with second, followed by Cassill, Earnhardt, Jr. and Reed Sorenson with Chevrolet sweeping the top five.

“We got to the front pretty early. Once we got with Clint (Bowyer), we knew if we could stay together all day, we were going to be a pretty potent combination,” said Stewart. “We had the caution there where we would have started on the front together. We had the flat tire under the caution.

“I didn't realize that we had as many cars a lap down as what we had. But that's what saved us in that. We were able to come in, put four tires on, restart 11th. The tire didn't come apart when it went flat. We were able to get around to the pits without it coming apart and tearing the body off. That was a huge, huge key in this race really, was that flat tire.”

Stewart celebrates

Getty Images for NASCAR

Despite Stewart’s success in the season-opening events for the lower-tier series, he’s still winless in the Daytona 500 as he prepares to make his 12th start in the event on Sunday.

“The good thing is I'm probably the happiest guy going into tomorrow,” said Stewart. “We're coming off a win today. It shows we can do it. It's just a matter of whether the cards play out tomorrow.”

Much like the Sprint Cup races from earlier in the week, most of the front-runners broke away from the field in two-car packs and trading the lead back and forth, leading to a race-tying record 35 lead changes among eight drivers.

Piloting a Chevrolet out of the Kevin Harvick, Inc. stable, Stewart picked up his “prom date”, pole-sitter and KHI teammate Clint Bowyer, early in the race as the two made their way to the front of the field, where they combined to lead 53 laps.

Stewart finally had to leave his dance partner following the third multi-car crash of the day with 14 laps to go, when Cassill unexpectedly dropped down on his drafting partner, Brad Keselowski, touching off five-car pileup that brought out the red flag.

Stewart, running second, suffered a cut right-rear tire and was force to pit, rejoining the field in 11th-place.

Now hooked up with Earnhardt, Jr., Bowyer again pulled away at the start as Kyle Busch and Joey Logano paired up and gave chase.

Stewart, now finding himself without a drafting partner, got in behind Cassill and began pushing them through the field.

On the white-flag lap, Logano got into the outside wall and spun out, sending Busch plummeting out of the top five as Stewart and Cassill continued to close in on Bowyer and Earnhardt.

Coming out of turn four, Bowyer moved to block as Earnhardt looked to make a move, creating an opening for Stewart as he parted to the outside and out in front of Cassill, juts barely getting his nose in front of Bowyer as they came to the start/finish line

“We went for that ultimate speed scenario to try to get through there,” said Stewart. “Landon did a good job of making some good moves to get through traffic. When two of the cars in front of us swapped, I made the decision for us, we didn't have time to get with the spotter and make that decision, it was just kind of a calling an audible, I guess, but pulled a swap with him. That got us back a little bit, but we were with the two groups we needed to be around.

“Landon pushed and pushed and pushed and did a really good job. We got that momentum built. We never had to check up ,we never were in a scenario at the end where we had to break that momentum. The other guys were up front and we had the benefit of having the pocket of air we were in to get the momentum. Just ran 'em down. Got there in just enough time.”

For Bowyer, it was a bitter pill to swallow after leading so many laps drafting with Stewart only to see it get snatched away in the final moments.

“(Earnhardt, Jr.) was getting antsy, fixing to do something. When I pulled up, I looked in the mirror one more time, they were still door-to-door,” said Bowyer of the last lap scramble. “I thought (Stewart) would be a lot farther ahead than he was. Junior dived down low under me. I went to block him thinking he had the run. Just went the wrong way.

“Coming off of four, what do you do? They had a good run. I tried to block the 4's momentum. About that time Junior ducked under me, I had to block him. All hell broke loose. Awesome ending. That's what's so much fun about this place.  No matter what the race is, the ending's always great.”

Cassill, by virtue of being the top NASCAR Nationwide finisher to receive driver points, now finds himself as the points leader, and without a ride for next week’s race at Phoenix.

“I don't have a ride next week, so I'm going to bask in this for the next several days,” said Cassill. “It was just a crazy day. We didn't draft at all in practice. I was worried about that 'cause I'd never done this -- actually, I've never done any drafting before in the Nationwide Series. It was kind of a learn on the fly deal.”

Jason Leffler, Kyle Busch, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Michael Waltrip and Trevor Bayne rounded out the top ten. Danica Patrick finished 14th, one lap down. 

Results

FIN	CAR	DRIVER	MAKE	SPONSOR	PTS/BNS	LAPS	STATUS
1	4	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet	Oreo / Ritz	PE	120	Running
2	33	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet	Rheem Heating, Cooling & Water	PE	120	Running
3	1	Landon Cassill	Chevrolet	Phoenix Construction	41/0	120	Running
4	5	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet	Hellmann's	PE	120	Running
5	32	Reed Sorenson	Chevrolet	Dollar General	39/0	120	Running
6	30	Jason Leffler	Chevrolet	AccuDoc Solutions	38/0	120	Running
7	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	Z-Line Designs	PE	120	Running
8	6	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	Blackwell Angus Beef	36/0	120	Running
9	99	Michael Waltrip	Toyota	Pastrana Waltrip Racing	PE	120	Running
10	16	Trevor Bayne	Ford	Ford. Drive one.	35/1	120	Running
11	38	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	Great Clips	PE	120	Running
12	20	Joey Logano	Toyota	GameStop	PE	120	Running
13	19	Mike Bliss	Chevrolet	TriStar Motorsports	31/0	120	Running
14	7	Danica Patrick	Chevrolet	GoDaddy.com	31/1	120	Running
15	87	Joe Nemechek	Toyota	DAB Constructors	29/0	120	Running
16	51	Jeremy Clements	Chevrolet	RaceDaySponsor.com	28/0	120	Running
17	52	Bobby Santos	Chevrolet	Target Your Market Promotions	27/0	120	Running
18	15	Todd Bodine	Toyota	Tire Kingdom / Valvoline	PE	120	Running
19	88	Aric Almirola	Chevrolet	Grand Touring Vodka	25/0	120	Running
20	66	Steve Wallace	Toyota	5-Hour Energy	24/0	118	Running
21	05	David Starr	Chevrolet	31-W Insulation	PE	118	Running
22	70	Shelby Howard	Chevrolet	Foretravel Motorcoach	22/0	118	Running
23	81	Donnie Neuenberger	Dodge	Eagle Convenience Stores	21/0	118	Running
24	141	Patrick Sheltra	Ford	Fuel Doctor USA / Lilly Trucking	20/0	118	Running
25	28	Derrike Cope	Chevrolet	ThePrevention Plan.com	19/0	118	Running
26	89	Morgan Shepherd	Chevrolet	Salvation Army	18/0	117	Running
27	31	Justin Allgaier	Chevrolet	Brandt	17/0	116	Running
28	09	Kenny Wallace	Toyota	University of Northwestern Ohio	16/0	115	Running
29	60	Carl Edwards	Ford	Fastenal	PE	107	Running
30	22	Brad Keselowski	Dodge	Discount Tire	PE	105	Running
31	39	Josh Wise	Ford	Cajun Industries	13/0	103	Running
32	23	Robert Richardson Jr.	Dodge	Wildlife Conservation Society	12/0	103	In Pit
33	14	Eric McClure	Chevrolet	Hefty BlackOut	11/0	95	Running
34	11	Brian Scott	Toyota	Shore Lodge	10/0	70	In Pit
35	40	Scott Wimmer	Chevrolet	Key Motorsports	9/0	57	Out of Race
36	12	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge	Penske Racing	8/0	53	In Pit
37	01	Mike Wallace	Chevrolet	G&K Services	8/1	51	Running
38	2	Elliott Sadler	Chevrolet	OneMain Financial	6/0	45	Running
39	62	Michael Annett	Toyota	Pilot Flying J Coffee	5/0	26	In Pit
40	44	Jeff Green	Chevrolet	TriStar Motorsports	4/0	18	In Pit
41	24	Kevin Lepage	Ford	RaceDaySponsor.com	3/0	12	In Pit
42	27	J.R. Fitzpatrick	Ford	Schick Hydro / Energizer Canada	2/0	10	In Pit
43	25	Kelly Bires	Ford	RaceDaySponsor.com	1/0	5	In Pit

* Denotes Rookie