Stewart

HAMPTON, Ga. -- It would have been easy for Tony Stewart to take a more conservative approach to Sunday's NASCAR NAPA 500. After all, Stewart entered the race with an 82-point lead over Jimmie Johnson and could have coasted with a top-five finish.

But coasting is not Stewart's style, which he proved in Sunday's rain-shortened race. He drove through traffic several times to lead three times for 39 laps before finishing fourth.

"There still isn't anyone out there that can say I'm points racing," Stewart said. "I had that thing sideways chasing Joe Nemechek down. I could've cruised and just rode in, but I was going for the win today."

Because Friday's qualifications were rained out, the 43-car field was based on points, which meant Stewart started on the pole. But when he made his first pit stop, one of his wheels had loose lug nuts, forcing him into the pits for an extra stop.

That dropped the driver from Rushville, Ind., to 32nd when the green flag waved on lap 46 after a rain delay of nearly 2½ hours.

By lap 50, Stewart was up to 17th. Thirty laps later, he was 10th and regained the lead on the 92nd lap.

"We had that unfortunate deal with the lug nuts," Stewart said. "We found them on the red (flag), and we probably could've gone ahead and went because nobody caught it, but why take a chance? So we went to the back, and we drove ourselves to the front.

"We didn't get three yellows to help us get there; we drove non-stop on our way to the front before the yellow finally came out. Man, this thing was awesome all day. (Crew chief) Greg Zipadelli and all of these guys on this Home Depot team did an awesome job."

Stewart credits Zipadelli for putting him in position to win his first Winston Cup championship. Although Sunday's race could have just as easily had Stewart celebrating in victory lane, the fourth-place finish gave him reason to rejoice. His lead increased from 82 points over Johnson to 146 points over Mark Martin.

"We definitely did what we needed to do heading in here," Zipadelli said. "We had a great car all day. We had to give up track position, but to come from the back like we did I think just showed how strong this car was. And that's what our driver is. He was up on the wheel.

"I saw some stuff there that made me nervous there in traffic, but he's our man. I couldn't be prouder of the team. We unloaded here and this thing's been a rocket. It's going to Homestead next week to test and we're looking forward to it. It's a great car -- same car we ran at Charlotte. He's real comfortable in it at these big race tracks."

Zipadelli admitted there was plenty of stress that came with making the right call from the pits. That's because of the uncertainty on how long the race would last because of rain that was closing in on Atlanta Motor Speedway.

"It's stressful when you got cars like the 48 (Johnson) and the 6 (Martin) that aren't running that good, and there stretching their fuel mileage and we're trying to win a race," Zipadelli said. "But if it weren't for the win we would've pitted earlier and probably stayed up front and led more laps. You take the chance of that five or 10 laps that you stopped of something happening and letting them put you on the tail end of the lead lap, but I wasn't about to do that. So we kind of played it right down the middle today. It probably cost us a little bit, but in the long run it was the way to go."

Rookie race

	Newman

Ryan Newman was the highest-finishing rookie, placing 10th. Fellow rookie Jimmie Johnson was 22nd, leaving Newman's lead in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award at 20 points (338-318).

Newman is fourth in the Winston Cup standings, 203 points behind Stewart and 53 points behind Johnson for third place.

"We had a good race car," Newman said. "We struggled on the short run and we were flat awesome on the long run. We couldn't find the happy medium to be good all the way through, but overall, it was a good day.

"Jimmie Johnson struggled and we didn't want to see that, but it looks good for the points. It's coming down to the end of the season and wrapping things up and we seem to be holding our own. That's important to me as a rookie."

Newman scored his series-leading 21st top-10 finish of the season. In both races here, he was 10th. the most of all drivers. It was his second top-10 finish in two races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, both 10th-place finishes.

Newman has been the highest-finishing rookie 17 times. He extended his streak of top-15 finishes to nine.

Getting Rusty
By finishing 17th, Rusty Wallace has gone 59 races since his last victory at California Speedway in April 2001, tying the longest drought of his career. He also went 59 races without a win from March 2, 1997 at Richmond to October 25, 1998 at Phoenix.

Until this year, Wallace had won at least once each year since 1986 and shares the modern era record with Ricky Rudd (1983-1998). There are three races left, including next week at Rockingham, where Wallace has five wins in 37 races but none since February 1994.