Chevrolet Reasserts Dominance, Stewart Wins Race

By: Anthony Fontanelle

After winning only one out of the last four races going into the USG Sheetrock 400 at the Chicagoland Speedway, Chevrolet teams are looking to once again dominate the field. Although far from a dominating performance since four non-Chevy cars are in the top eight, a win is a win for Chevrolet teams.

Tony Stewart, driving the Number 20 Home Depot Monte Carlo SS, took the win for Chevrolet. His win at the USG Sheetrock is his first victory this season. The win also marked the former two-time champion's 30th Cup career win and the second at the Chicagoland Speedway.

Aside from Stewart, five other Chevrolet drivers finished in the top ten after the race with two Ford and two Dodge drivers completing the list. Roush Fenway Racing's Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards finished second and third respectively. Kenseth and Edwards are both driving Ford cars. Kevin Harvick, driving for Richard Childress Racing on board his Chevrolet Monte Carlo, finished fourth. Casey Mears rounded up the top five on-board his Number 25 National Guard/GMAC Monte Carlo SS.

Kurt Busch, on his Dodge Charger driving for Penske Racing, finished sixth. Seventh after the race was Jeff Burton on his Number 31 AT&T Monte Carlo SS for Richard Childress Racing. Ryan Newman driving for Penske Racing finished eighth. Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon finished ninth and Clint Bowyer finished tenth onboard his Number O7 Jack Daniel's Monte Carlo SS which is designed to go faster than road bound Chevy vehicles, even those equipped with .

Stewart credited his car's condition and his team's performance for his win at the nineteenth race of the season. "It was good," said Stewart of his car. "It was really good all day. The thing about here is you've got to have it so free on the front of a run to be good in the center and the end and we luckily, even with all those restarts, we never got a chance to get enough laps on the tires to really let us get tight enough. We were still just a little bit free there at the end...."

"It was good enough in clean air even though it was free to stay out front. We just kept wanting a long run. We didn't want to see those cautions there at the end. Matt (Kenseth) was really good on restarts, I mean really, really good on restarts. I couldn't make a mistake. If I made one mistake I was going to have a hard time explaining to these guys how I lost the race," Steward added.

As for his team, the veteran driver has to say: "What won us the race is (crew chief Greg) Zippy (Zipadelli) and these guys - the pit crew - did an awesome job today. They kept us the track position at the end and that's what we needed. Track position was so important to let us run our pace and run the line that we wanted to run without having to worry about getting in dirty air. Thanks to these guys around me, that's what got us in Victory Lane again."

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