Hard-luck Stewart’s lead goes up in smoke

The man nicknamed "Smoke" was doing a slow, rising burn.

Lips pursed. Brow wrinkled. Gaze boring a laserlike hole into the back wall of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway media center, some 75 feet away.

Left foot shaking angrily, defiantly as he sat on the dais assessing the what-ifs and what-could've-beens at a racetrack he had yet to conquer.

It wasn't so much Tony Stewart wanted to be anywhere other than where he was Sunday, it was that there was only one place he really wanted to be. Where he felt he should have been.

Victory Lane in Las Vegas once again had escaped Stewart's grasp.

The man who by his own description had the fastest car even on old tires, the man who dominated by leading 163 of 267 laps, the man who wears his emotions on the sleeve of his fire suit like a sponsor's logo and makes no apologies for doing so, was seething over a pit road mistake that led to a runner-up finish to Carl Edwards in the Kobalt Tools 400 on the 1.5-mile speedway.

Pity today the Stewart-Haas Racing pit crew member who got the air hose tangled up on the rear of Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet, leading the 39-year-old racer to drag it out of his pit box with 116 laps to go. The blunder resulted in a stop-and-go penalty and sent Stewart to the back of the lead lap, dropping him to 23rd.

Even though Stewart gamely recaptured the lead -- the result of a quick, calculated two-tire change instead of going for four on a green-flag pit with 65 laps left -- he eventually would have to go back in for four, and Edwards would get the chance to retake the lead when he pitted for only two. A three-second Stewart advantage turned into a two-second deficit.

Never mind that without the midrace penalty Stewart might've turned the final 100 or so laps into nothing more than a leisurely Sunday drive under slightly overcast skies.

Yes, if golf is, as Mark Twain once famously wrote, "a good walk spoiled," then stock car racing is, with its many pitfalls and occasional pit road mistakes, "a good drive ruined."

"I don't know what happened on the pit stop there, but we had a miscue and had a penalty and had to go to the back, and unfortunately it kind of dealt our cards for us," Stewart said, moments after he sat stone-faced listening to a bubbly Edwards do his Victory Lane interview for TV. "(Crew chief) Darian (Grubb) made a good call getting us the track position back, but it also showed everybody else that they could do it, too, and we couldn't run 2½ (green-flag) runs on a set of left-side tires."

"(We) just shot ourselves in the foot two weeks in a row."

A week earlier in Phoenix, Stewart finished seventh after leading late when he and his team opted for two tires but those behind him, including eventual winner Jeff Gordon, took four.

Sunday's loss left Stewart 0-for-13 in Las Vegas Cup races, with two runner-up finishes (his first came in 2000) and two other top-fives. Not bad for most racers, but miserable by the standards the intensely driven native of Columbus, Ind., sets for himself.

"I felt for him as much as I could as a competitor," Edwards said of Stewart. "That was really a gift for us for him to have that penalty."

If there was any consolation for Stewart in finishing second, it was that he moved into first in the series points standings -- albeit, just three races into an arduous 10-month season.

"I probably should be (consoled), but that's not in my makeup," he said. "I mean, it just kills me to throw a race away like that, especially at a place we haven't won at yet.

"This was a big deal today, and when you lead that many laps and have a car that's fast and you lose it ... I'm sure tomorrow, when the emotion dies down, we'll look back and say it was a great weekend. But, man, it does not sit good right now."

Knowing Stewart, it won't "sit good" anytime soon. And it doesn't help that the series takes a week off before returning to competition at short-track Bristol, Tenn., on March 20. That's more time for "Smoke" to burn.

One of these years, the ultra-competitive Stewart, who has 39 Cup victories, will get his first win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Perhaps it will come with him driving the dominant car, as he was doing Sunday before the pit road gaffe; maybe it will come with him benefiting from some other driver's misfortune, as Edwards did on Sunday.

When it happens, he will have deserved it. If not for what Stewart does that day, then as some divine makeup call for the victory that suddenly went up in smoke Sunday.

Contact Las Vegas Review-Journal sports editor Joe Hawk at jhawk@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2912.