Notebook: MBNA All-American Heroes 400

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DOVER, Del. -- When fans with pit and garage passes arrived at Dover International Speedway for the All-American Heroes 400 on Sunday, they found some new restrictions in place.

Fans with pit passes or sponsor stickers good for the race day only were limited to the front stretch of the track to view pre-race pit road activities. Usually, at most tracks, fans can walk right up to war wagons on pit road as crews set up the pit stalls for the race.

In the garage area, there were also tape boundries, but in the normal places.

Stewart has hotfoot top-five finish

	Tony Stewart Credit: Allsport

Tony Stewart finished fifth in the No. 20 Pontiac after leading twice for 34 laps. The finish elevated him up one spot in the standings to third, where he now trails leader Mark Martin by 74 and the second of Jimmie Johnson by 44.

After starting 23rd, Stewart was running second by lap 100.

He might have been feeling good about the finish and points earned, but he was suffering from burned feet after the race.

Visibly exhausted, Stewart sat in the car longer than most drivers did on pit road. He gingerly climbed from the car after doing a radio interview and then sat on pit road.

"My butt is burnt and my feet are burning," Stewart said. "It's a long day out here at Dover. Both of my heels are burned pretty bad. It's hard to walk on them. It must have been a lot hotter than we all thought."

After sitting for a moment, he began wincing in pain before getting up and slowly walking back to his motorcoach with assistance from two team members.

Rusty Wallace wants some good luck -- for once

Rusty Wallace started on the pole and led the race twice for 15 laps. After overshooting the pit stall of the No. 2 Ford team while running up front, he fell back to 14th on the caution restart.

Wallace worked his way up to third behind winner Jimmie Johnson and Dale Jarrett. However, on lap 318, the right front tire went down sending the Ford into the wall in Turns 1 and 2.

He came down pit road, but it wasn't open yet; so Wallace had to circle back around the track in his damaged ride. He returned to the track one lap down in 17th position.

"The car was great, it was fabulous," Wallace said. "I must have run over something there. The three of us were having a great little battle going there and I really thought we were going to bring it home and make a huge gain on the points.

"I'll be a son-of-a-gun if I don't lose another tire. I've been losing tires all year long."

With his 15th-place finish one lap down, Wallace remains in sixth place and trails Martin by 198 points and Jeff Gordon by eight markers.

Not a Kodak moment

On lap 239, Mike Skinner pitted under green-flag conditions while running 13th. After blowing motors in several of the past races and qualifying 34th, it looked the team was on it's way to a good day.

However, on that pit stop, jackman Tony Cardamone was struck by the car as it entered the pit stall. Cardamone rolled across the hood of the Chevrolet, got up and did the pit stop. He was not injured.

Skinner returned to action in 27th and finished the race in 19th place, two laps down.

Tale of two languages

	Hideo Fukuyama Credit: Allsport

Japanese driver Hideo Fukuyama, who is not fluent in English, needed some help communicating with his crew. So the No. 66 Haas-Carter Ford team brought in two translators.

One was positioned with crew chief Teddy Brown in the pits and the other with spotter Keith Roberson. Chizuka Motooka worked with Brown while Robert Yamen worked with Roberson.

Yamen does the voice-over work for many American races that are replayed on Japanese television. The crew gave a list of phrases for Fukuyama to learn regarding handling.

"He's already pretty well acquainted with oversteer and understeer," Brown said. "He pretty well knows loose and tight. So, what we did was to give him a list of things and he could tell us what it was on a scale of one to10, with 10 being the worst.

"He came up with an understeer of four off the corner. That was an accomplishment right there."