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But Stewart wasn't about to give up. He raced his way back toward the front, and after a good battle with Jimmie Johnson, grabbed third place in the waning laps. And when Kevin Harvick slowed because he was out of gas, Stewart took second place at the checkered flag.
"I'm very, very tickled to death about the way our weekend went," Stewart said. "I'd be happier if I was in victory lane, but I've had a pretty doggone good weekend, and I'm pretty happy with that."
Stewart would've liked a long green-flag run down the stretch, instead of the three cautions in the final 58 laps.
"We would've had a shot at it, for sure," Stewart said. "Our car was so fast there at the end of the race. We just needed to get through lapped traffic. We needed to get clears and race the guys that we were actually racing for position and not race guys that were a lap or two down on the inside that were holding everybody up."
From last to ... third
Johnson almost completed a magnificent comeback by rallying from 43rd to finish third. Johnson had to start at the rear of the field because of a blown engine, but he still charged through the field and led 25 laps.
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Like Stewart, he would have liked to have won, but third is OK, too.
"It was obviously a great run for us," Johnson said. "We had a lot of problems throughout the weekend with a blown engine and brakes hanging up. All kinds of crazy things went wrong with the race car. But I'm thankful that my guys have such great attitudes about things, and we just laughed it off.
"We started at the back today and ended up third. So we're real happy about that."
Another bad result for Busch
While Stewart and Johnson were pleases with their top-five finishes, Kurt Busch left Chicago a thoroughly frustrated driver. His weekend started off poorly when he wrecked in Friday's practice, and then he qualified a backup car poorly.
Sunday's race didn't go any better, as he blew an engine and finished 39th.
"This weekend started out to be a long weekend from the get-go," Busch said. "Mom said we'd have days like this. Hopefully, we haven't worn out our luck."
"We're pretty good at finding ourselves in a big hole and then digging out of it. I wish we could be more consistent and just generate our consistent runs like (Matt) Kenseth's doing. He's the guy that's putting heat on every week."
After winning at Michigan to hold on to fifth place in the points, Busch has slipped to ninth with three straight bad finishes. He was 28th at Sonoma and 36th last weekend at Daytona.
"I love Chicago," Busch said. "We had two top-10 finishes here before. It's tough. I hate doing bad at the tracks we can excel, which are Sears Point and Daytona and Chicago. And now, we've had three bad finishes in a row."
Burton's back-to-back top-10s
Busch's Roush Racing teammate, Jeff Burton, backed up his second-place finish at Daytona with a sixth at Chicago. While Daytona's result may have been earned on a fuel-mileage gamble, Chicago was earned -- period.
"It was a pretty good day for us," Burton said. "We were good (Saturday) morning, and we lost a little bit. We weren't as good in the afternoon and just kind of went back to what we had, and the car drove pretty good, but not as good as we needed to be.
"But we're making gains, and feel good about where this team is headed. The second half of the year looks pretty promising to me."
Mears' weekend ends poorly
Casey Mears was having a fine weekend, until lap 235 Sunday. Mears won the Busch Series pole and qualified fourth for the Winston Cup race Friday, and then finished fourth in the Busch race Saturday.
Sunday, Mears ran well, but with 32 laps to go, he spun and slapped the wall.
"I don't know if something broke or the right-rear tire blew," Mears said. "As soon as I turned into the corner it just went backwards and into the wall hard. It's really, really a shame. I know that people say that a lot. We've had tough races all year long, and finally we were having the best race all year and had a really good car. We were in contention to run up front.
"It's been really good, and we're getting better all the time. This is a good weekend, but we just couldn't bring it home. It's too bad."
Earnhardt Jr. leads most popular driver standings
 | VIDEO CLIPS |  | Newman celebrates his third win of the season
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|  | Stewart finishes second after leading 80 laps
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|  | Newman holds on for his fourth career victory
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|  | Junior takes a hit on the track and in the points
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|  | Labonte walks away from a fiery crash at Chicagoland
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to lead voting for the NASCAR Most Popular Driver award as vote totals went over the 1.3 million mark last week. Exact totals weren't released, but Earnhardt Jr. leads Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Steve Park and Tony Stewart.
Fans can vote at www.mostpopulardriver.com through Nov. 17.
Allison teams up with Arnold Motorsports
Former Winston Cup champion Bobby Allison will return to NASCAR as vice president and team owner of Arnold Motorsports, the team announced in a press conference Sunday morning. Don Arnold, a Florida land developer, is the team's owner.
Arnold plans to enter Bill Bigley Jr. in six Winston Cup races in 2003, starting with the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis next month. Also on tap are Bristol, Richmond, Dover, Martinsville and Homestead. Arnold Motorsports intends to run all races next season.
The team will use Dodge Intrepids, with engines built by Joey Arrington. Doug Howe is the crew chief.
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