Tony Stewart Nearly Pulls off a 'Rocky' Moment at NHRA Sonoma Event

Rather like the fictitious boxer Rocky Balboa, Top Fuel racer Tony Stewart prepared for days and days to go the distance at the Denso Sonoma Nationals.

Ultimately, he fell short—about 10 feet, or 0.0214 seconds, to 77-time winner Antron Brown. But Stewart landed some bruising blows along the way at Sonoma, where Brown, Bob Tasca III (Funny Car), Aaron Stanfield (Pro Stock) and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) all came away victorious.

Stewart, a Top Fuel rookie with extensive motorsports experience in a handful of other racing series, entered the weekend with four first-round exits in the previous six Mission Foods Drag Racing Series events.

Stewart, the No. 11 qualifier, upset No. 4 qualifier and title contender Shawn Langdon in the opening round. Then he pulled off a mini-coup, recording a better reaction time than top leaver Justin Ashley to advance to the semifinals, and reached the final round by outlegging upstart Ron August, who had qualified last among the entrants.

“This was a much better weekend than I anticipated. We knew after last week’s Seattle race that we were in big trouble. We sat around for hours after that race to work on a plan for this weekend. Dickie Venables from Matt’s (Hagan—Funny Car) team offered to help us, and we walked through many things with our Top Fuel guys and Dickie,” he said.

“We were trying to see if there was a ‘smoking gun’ we were missing. Really appreciated Dickie this week and through the weekend. We needed a day like today for the team guys. We didn’t really win anything, but we didn’t lose today,” Stewart said. “In the final, we did everything we could as we left on one of the best Top Fuel leavers. To leave on Antron (Brown) in the final is very big for me as a driver. We spit a couple of (spark) plugs out at the far end and, if they had any problem, we were right there for the win. It’s a way better weekend than I thought.

“Actually, I was thinking we would go out in the first round because we had to regroup. We went two steps back on our setup and then went forward for the weekend. I’m so proud of the Rinnai team,” he said, “and the morale is great. That was the key to the success today. No one got down.

He said, “We gained speed this weekend and ran three 330s (mph). We are checking boxes one at a time. We’ll take want we learned this weekend and try to make it better. We kept Antron honest in the final, and we made improvements with the car. It was my first two-car final, and I’m proud how the weekend went overall.”