Johnny Benson

Tony Stewart loves racing at Bristol Motor Speedway. So when the Sprint Cup Series runs under the lights at the Tennessee oval on Saturday night, Stewart’s my pick to make it to Victory Lane.

Working in Stewart’s favor
Stewart dominated but fell just short of winning the March race at Bristol. He led for 267 laps and was in front of the field with just five laps left before a wreck caused him to finish 14th, effectively ending his bid for a second career victory at the track.

Stewart’s overdue for another win at Bristol. His first victory at the tight and fast .533-mile bullring came in 2001. He hasn’t had much good fortune in the 13 Tennessee races that have followed so he’s hoping for a turn of fate on Saturday night.

In the August event at Bristol last year the two-time Cup champion started well back in the field (23rd) but he rallied to crack the top 10 following a restart on lap 378. His comeback landed him a fourth-place finish.

The two-time Cup champion grew up racing go-karts and made a name for himself in the rough-and-tumble United States Auto Club driving on short tracks similar to Bristol, where he has led the most laps in three of the past six Cup races.

At Bristol, Stewart has five top-fives but he also has 11 finishes of 15th or worse. Despite his run of misfortune at Bristol, the oval is still one of his favorite tracks. He knows it’s feast or famine at the short track where just a minor problem can make for a very long night.

The chassis Stewart will drive on Saturday night is one that debuted at Bristol in March when it qualified sixth and led six times before getting caught up in a wreck.

Other drivers to watch
Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Jeff Burton top my list of those who along with Stewart could make the strongest bids at a Bristol win.

In the March race at Bristol Harvick’s No. 29 Chevrolet sent Stewart’s No. 20 Toyota spinning into the wall after a restart with just 11 laps left. While bad blood does not seem to linger between the two drivers, it’s interesting to note that Stewart’s only Bristol win came after he held off the hard-charging Harvick, who finished second in that 2001 race as a rookie.

Harvick has a Bristol victory in March 2005 and three top-five finishes in his last seven starts at the track. He has moved up three spots in the Cup standings to eighth place by putting together back-to-back top-10 finishes.

One driver who does not have to worry about qualifying for the season-ending 10-race Chase for the Championship to decide the Sprint Cup title is Kyle Busch, the points leader and one of Stewart’s teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing. Busch finished second last weekend at Michigan and secured the top seed for the 12-drive field for the Chase.

In seven career starts at Bristol, Busch has recorded four top-10 finishes, including a win in last year’s March race, which was the debut for the Car of Tomorrow at the Tennessee short track. At Bristol Busch will be in the same chassis that he drove to victory at Dover in June.

Don’t lose sight of Kurt Busch, Kyle’s older brother, who has five wins in 15 starts at Bristol (including four straight victories from August 2002 through March 2004). Kurt Busch needs a strong race to remain in the hunt for a spot in the Chase.

The only other active driver with five wins at Bristol is Jeff Gordon, who has also chalked up 12 top-fives and 18 top-10s in 31 career starts at the track. And while the four-time Cup champion has finished outside the top 10 in three of his last five Bristol starts, keep in mind that four of his Bristol wins have come in this event. Gordon also drove to a third-place finish in this event last year.

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Gordon, who is still winless this season, needs to recapture some of that night race magic. He finished 42nd at Michigan last weekend, which caused him to fall three places in the points standings to ninth. Another poor effort could leave the four-time Cup champion in danger of missing the Chase.

No Cup driver is hotter than Carl Edwards, who is second in the points and has won two to the last three races on the Cup circuit, including the Michigan race last weekend. With a finish of 25th or better at Bristol, Edwards locks up a spot in the Chase.

The Stewart-Harvick wreck at Bristol in March overshadowed to an extent Jeff Burton’s winning the race. Burton has run well at this short oval since joining Richard Childress Racing in August 2004. The veteran driver has three top-fives and four top-10s in his last eight Bristol starts.

Burton, a model of consistency for most of the season, has fallen to fifth in points and he has managed just two top-10 finishes in his last 10 starts. At Bristol he’ll be looking to reverse that pattern.