Stewart-Haas Racing – Will They Pick Up This Weekend?

Stewart-Haas Racing has come further than many expected it would.  Many expected the team to fail last year; however, Tony Stewart has been an asset to this team and made it that – a team.

Last year, Stewart and Newman did pretty well throughout the year despite any troubles that they had at the beginning of the year with wrecks and cars (especially Newman).  This year, they have been hanging in there by a thread, but did Tony Stewart change this with last week at the Food City 500 with his second place finish behind Jimmie Johnson?  And Newman was just short of making a top 15 finish, but could he be ready to gear up and get going this coming weekend? If you look at last year, both the drivers picked up about this time last year.

Denny Hamlin is the defending winner for this event while Jimmie Johnson won the race at Martinsville last fall.  Remarkably, Tony Stewart holds the track record in qualifying at Martinsville at 98.083 mph, which he successfully set in October 2005.

Looking back at last year for Stewart and Newman at the races held at Martinsville Motor Speedway…Newman did very well and has both sixth and seventh place finishes with Stewart having finishes of third and ninth place. Overall, Tony Stewart has eight top 5’s, 13 top 10’s, and two victories as well as three poles.  Overall, Newman has no wins, but five top 5’s and eight top 10’s along with his three poles also.

Stewart won this race back in 2006 – will he do it again this Sunday?  Or his teammate?  We’ll have to wait and see…but I think with his second place finish this last week, he is going to have a lot of built of self-esteem and he’s going to push his car to its limit and get in victory lane.