Las Vegas NASCAR win elusive for Tony Stewart

Tony Stewart has won races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on its three-eighths-mile Bullring and half-mile dirt track.

But the two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion has yet to win on the speedway's premier 1.5-mile oval, where he will race Sunday in the Kobalt Tools 400.

"Vegas is one of only two tracks on the circuit where I haven't won," he said, noting the other is Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. "I don't know why we haven't. I'd sure like to get that monkey off my back."

Stewart, 39, has completed 4,968 NASCAR miles on the 1.5-mile oval; in 12 Cup races, he has four top-fives with a runner-up in 2000 and a third-place finish in four Nationwide races. He competed on the track from 1996 to 1998 in the Indy Racing League with a best finish of 11th. His wins at the complex were in a USAC Midget race at the Bullring in November 2002 and the Las Vegas Sprint Car Nationals at the dirt track in November.

He said he needs to run consistently for 267 laps in Sunday's Cup race to be in contention on the final lap.

"There's really no key to it," Stewart said. "We've had cars that have been good three-quarters of the day, but we'd lose the handle on it the last quarter."

Stewart was relaxed Wednesday before zipping along the Strip driving a former race car with a taxi sign on the roof to ferry some local celebrities and surprised fans to promote one of his sponsors.

He successfully completed his afternoon stint as a cabbie. He also is pleased with his success this season working his real job.

He won the Nationwide Series race Feb. 19 in Daytona Beach, Fla., before finishing 13th the next day in the Daytona 500. He finished seventh Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway after leading 59 laps before pitting under a yellow flag with 25 laps left. His team changed two tires while others in the lead pack took four, after which he began losing ground.

"That strategy bit us," Stewart said. "It didn't work out. If that caution hadn't come out, we would have had a shot at winning."

He certainly wants to win Sunday, but something more important came to fruition a few weeks ago when he was told he could drive a Formula 1 car this summer in an exhibition on the road course in Watkins Glen, N.Y.

"That's more of a bucket-list item for me than winning here," Stewart said. "I'm real excited about switching cars with Lewis Hamilton, and I'm only getting that opportunity because we're both sponsored by Mobil 1."

The high-tech F1 speedster might be the only type of open-wheel car on the planet that Stewart hasn't driven.

But he doesn't expect that experience to lure him back in an IndyCar for the series' return to Las Vegas from Oct. 14 to 16, when a non-IndyCar regular could make $5 million if he or she qualifies and wins the race.

"You never know what we're going to do, but I don't think the IndyCar offer is going to work out for us," Stewart said. "It's a really cool offer, but you can't expect to come out and do it that easy. But this is one of those tracks where you'd run flat (out) around it. It would make more sense for Juan Pablo Montoya, Robby Gordon or Sam Hornish to try it. Hornish was great on 1½-mile tracks when he drove (IndyCars)."

But Stewart said he might return to the dirt track in the fall to defend his title.

You just never know what he's going to do.

Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0247.