Tony Stewart Wins Crazy 2011 Cup Series Championship ... on a Tie-Breaker?

• In 2011, Tony Stewart would wind up tying Carl Edwards for most points earned in the full 36-race season, including the playoffs, with 2,403 points each.

• For the first time in NASCAR history, because of the points tie between Stewart and Edwards, the series would have to move to the first tie-breaker to determine the champion.

• Edwards would retire from the sport five years later, and without a Cup championship.

Tony Stewart’s NASCAR Cup championship in 2011 wound up being one of the craziest season finales the sport has ever seen.

First, Stewart would win the season-ending race—in front of First Lady Michelle Obama and future First Lady Jill Biden, no less.

While in most cases, Stewart’s win would be enough to clinch the championship, for the first time in NASCAR history, it wasn’t enough.

Stewart would wind up tying Carl Edwards for most points earned in the full 36-race season, including the playoffs, with 2,403 points each. And, again for the first time in NASCAR history, because of the points tie between Stewart and Edwards, the series would have to move to the first tie-breaker to determine the champion.

This one would be a much simpler determination. Including his season-ending win, Stewart would capture five victories in the 2011 campaign, while Edwards earned just one win (ironically, Edwards had led the point standings for much of the 26 races in the regular season, with his lone win coming early in the season in Las Vegas).

As a result, Stewart’s quintet of wins vs. Edwards’ sole win would be end of story when it came to determining the overall champion.

It would be Stewart’s third and final Cup championship (other years were 2002 and 2005). Meanwhile, it would be the closest Edwards would ever come to winning a Cup crown – although in a five-year stretch of also running full-time in the Xfinity Series from 2006 through 2010 (as well as Cup), Edwards finished runner-up four different times and won the championship in 2007.

And then came what was ultimately the strangest aspect ever seen in a Cup championship, period.

For when Stewart, co-team owner Gene Haas and crew chief Darian Grubb all climbed upon the podium in the Homestead-Miami Speedway media center, they all had the longest faces ever seen on any championship winners. If you didn’t know better, you’d have sworn they had just LOST the championship instead of winning it.