DARLINGTON, S.C. – Tony Stewart must've needed a new surface to finally break through at Darlington Raceway.
The two-time Sprint Cup champion driver had never won at the track in 19 previous races, four of them Nationwide events, dating to 1996. Yet Stewart was dominant throughout in gliding to a Nationwide victory in his Toyota in the first race on Darlington's slicker, repaved surface last night.
He was about the only one who got away unscathed, with fellow Sprint Cup stars Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin all wrecking.
“We had an awesome race car today,” Stewart said. “This is one of those tracks where history goes as deep as NASCAR, and it's a great honor.”
Stewart, who led 90 of 147 laps, made it through eight cautions, two off the Nationwide's Darlington record, and a green-white-checkered finish for his fourth series victory this year and Joe Gibbs Racing's sixth straight victory.
After David Ragan's hard crash on the backstretch, Stewart easily moved forward on the restart three laps from the end. Right behind, though, was chaos as Martin's second-place car failed to get up to speed.
The stall collected five other cars and brought out the race's second stoppage. The mess took more than 15 minutes to clean up.
“We didn't have enough gas there,” Martin said. “I apologize to everybody who got in that wreck.”
Stewart grabbed the lead for good with 27 laps to go when then-leader Kenseth pitted with a flat tire.
Stewart broke away from runner-up Clint Bowyer to take the checkered flag. David Reutimann finished third, followed by Todd Bodine and Steven Wallace.
Kenseth was involved in the one of the night's ugliest accidents, slamming into the inside retaining wall. But the former Sprint Cup champion climbed out of the broken car and waved to the crowd that he was OK.
Kenseth wasn't the only Sprint Cup star who had trouble.
Pole-sitter Edwards' night ended after he hit the wall twice on his first three laps.
Busch ran among the leaders the first two-thirds of the race. But Busch, who's found his share of trouble in NASCAR this season, spun into the wall after colliding with Brad Keselowski.
An angered Busch afterward called the accident the product of “racing idiots” and vowed to act the same way in future situations.
Denny Hamlin, who won the past two Nationwide Series events at Darlington, hit the wall during qualifying and did not make the race. He will be in the field for tonight's Sprint Cup race.
Biffle on pole
On the fast new surface, 41 of 44 Sprint Cup drivers broke the qualifying record at Darlington earlier in the day. Greg Biffle set the pace in his Ford, turning a lap of 179.442 mph to win the pole for tonight's Dodge Challenger 500. The previous mark was 173.797, by Ward Burton in 1996.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (179.357) qualified second, Jimmie Johnson third (179.206), each in a Chevy.
Johnson crashed two cars during practice. He wrecked his primary car on the third lap of the first practice, then had to replace the splitter on his backup car when he wrecked in the second practice.
