Stewart enjoys "the most relaxing Brickyard I’ve ever had"

With the support of his staff, the three-time NASCAR champion coined it, “the most relaxing Brickyard I’ve ever had.”

“And the most fun I’ve had at a Brickyard,” Stewart added. “It was fun to win those two races, but it was stressful to do it. For some reason this weekend, everybody just made my schedule as open as they could to let me enjoy it and we did. We had a lot of fun this weekend from start to finish.”

After qualifying third on Saturday, Stewart led the field around the track on the pace lap and told listeners on the pre-race broadcast he felt the No. 14 Mobil 1 Chevy had a shot at the win.

Stewart easily maintained a presence among the top 10 competitors throughout the early stages of the race. He was 10th when the race went green after the second caution on Lap 59 —and resembled the old Smoke after gaining four positions on the restart. 

Speeding penalty and late-race chaos

But misfortune prevailed 60 circuits later, when Stewart was penalized for speeding entering the pits. As the No. 14 car rolled down pit road, David Ragan cut a tire and crashed into the Turn 3 wall for the third caution. 

"I know they're right, because I didn't know if I got slowed down at the end of the segment,” Stewart radioed to the crew.

Stewart apologized profusely — and repeatedly — to his team after NASCAR forced the No. 14 to drop off of the lead lap and to the end of the longest line. Once the field was reset, Stewart lined up 30th. In the first two laps, Stewart moved up to 24th and set his sights on the lucky dog position. 

With race winner Kyle Busch lapping half the field, the beneficiary was a moving target. However, two cautions later, Stewart returned to the lead lap with 10 scheduled laps to decide the contest. 

On the Lap 154 restart, Carl Edwards made contact with Ryan Newman. Stewart was one of several cars that received damage in the melee.

“I hit pretty good here too, damn it,” Stewart said as NASCAR red-flagged the race for 7:25. 

But the driver of the No. 14 was far from the finish. Although he moved up to 14th and avoided the wreck between Clint Bowyer and Trevor Bayne on the backstretch, when Jamie McMurray changed lanes and cut off Stewart, the eighth caution ensued and collected Brian Scott and Newman. Stewart recovered, lined up 12th and gained one position to finish 11th in his 18th and final start at IMS.

“I really did the team wrong here,” Stewart said after the race. “I got a penalty on the last stop and that is a green flag stop that turned into a yellow and got us a lap down.  But we fought and got our lap back  and got something respectable out of this.  Didn’t leave anything out there.”

Although the Columbus, Ind. enjoyed an extra 25 miles around the 2.5-mile Yard of Bricks when the race was extended by 10 laps of overtime, the three-time Sprint Cup champion wasn’t ready to bid farewell to his home track. He had his spotter Bob Jeffrey find T.J. Majors, who was spotting for Jeff Gordon, so the future Hall of Famers could take one final lap.

“It was cool,” Stewart said. “I knew when we got the checkered we just didn’t want to come in just yet. I wanted to run one more lap and Jeff was around us and before that last green run I told my spotter to go get his spotter and said after this thing is over, we need to go a lap around here together because most likely is the last time we’ll both get a chance to do that. I couldn’t think of a better guy to share that moment with than Jeff.

“I can say that just ranks in the top three coolest moments of my 18 years in this series. To share that moment with Jeff here at Indianapolis I don’t know. I don’t even have the words for it. That is a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life.”

"We're just having fun"

With his 11th-place finish, Stewart has gained 80-points over Chris Buescher who is 31st in the standings. After missing the first eight races of the season, Stewart, who moved up to 27th,  must remain in the top 30 in the standings to maintain his Chase status. 

“We’re just having fun with it and that’s what we said we wanted to do at the start of the year and we wanted to have fun and win a race and we’ve done all that,” Stewart said. “I don’t think we’re quite done yet. So, we’re just going to keep having fun and going for it. 

“I put us way behind today with a penalty that got us a lap down and at the back of the longest line and to battle back to 11th, I’m pretty proud of that for our whole team.”