Tony Stewart is sixth in the Nextel Cup standings. Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Stewart battles back to top-10 finish at Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- In a race car that looked like a used prop from the movie Days of Thunder, Tony Stewart drove his battle-scarred No. 20 Chevrolet to a 10th-place result in Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Inside the Numbers Tony Stewart at Las Vegas Year Start Finish 1999 20 36 2000 16 2 2001 5 12 2002 15 5 2003 8 5 2004 19 3 2005 23 10 Avg. 15 10 Johnson on his first career Las Vegas win Johnson cruises to his first victory of 2005 Kyle and Kurt Busch crack the top three Gordon finishes fourth despite an altercation Kahne's day takes a turn for the worse Junior and Brian Vickers collide in the early laps Dale Jr. apologizes to Vickers after the wreck Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Getting to that finish was far from easy though, as Stewart had to overcome a spin, some on-track bumping and a pit-road accident to post his second top-10 of this still young Nextel Cup season.

"I think we passed 80 cars today," said Stewart, spent from making 267 laps around the 1.5-mile oval. "We got off to a good start and got ourselves in the top-13 during that first stint before the first round of pit stops. Then we got ourselves in the top-five during that second round.

"On the next pit stop we lost a couple of spots and then out on the racetrack a car spun in front of us. We slowed down to keep from hitting the car that was spinning, and then three seconds after the wreck, somebody plowed into the back of me and turned me around. It was just a first step in a sequence of bad events that kept costing us time and position.

"We came in on the next stop after we'd worked our way back up into the top 10. We followed the '0' car in and his tire carrier decided he was going to walk all the way around on pit lane to get around his tire changers and he runs into our car with the tire and knocks the tire into one of my tire carriers and it tears up our race car."

While the damage to the No. 20 car was significant from that Lap 87 accident on pit road, it paled in comparison to the pain felt by Jody Fortson, rear-tire carrier for the No. 20 team.

The 25-year-old Fortson bore the brunt of the pit road accident, as the tire being carried by the No. 0 crew man bounced hard off the No. 20 car and into Fortson's right-side ribcage. Undaunted by the impact, Fortson picked up his own tire and continued the pit stop, succumbing to the pain only after his work was complete.

Fortson, a China Grove, N.C., native, was quickly transported to the infield care center where an initial evaluation prompted further review at nearby University Medical Center. There, Fortson was diagnosed with a cracked rib before being treated and released.

As Fortson's injuries were tended to, the injuries to the car showed up on the racetrack. The caved-in left front fender and lower A-pillar caused the machine to go from being a strong contender to an ill-handling also-ran. Matters weren't helped any on Lap 110 when Joe Nemechek's Chevrolet made contact with Stewart in Turn 2, crinkling the right front fender.

As such, the new aerodynamic discrepancies made Stewart's Monte Carlo extremely tight. And between efforts to stay on pace and fix the damage during yellow flag caution periods, Stewart dropped to 29th.

The crew remedied the car's handling woes during a caution period that began on Lap 124. In two pit stops before the race went green on Lap 129, crew members fashioned a piece of sheet metal that covered the left front fender damage. Stewart returned to action, where his time at the back was short-lived.

Stewart put on a passing clinic, rising to 15th before a caution on Lap 175. And with new tires, a chassis adjustment and a full load of fuel, Stewart continued his charge toward the front on the subsequent restart, cracking the top 10 on Lap 187.

Through the top 10 Stewart went, passing Scott Riggs for ninth and then Greg Biffle for eighth -- all on Lap 191. And before the caution flag waved yet again, Stewart passed Jeff Gordon for seventh on Lap 193. Then, with some quick pit work, Stewart emerged in fourth when the race restarted on Lap 198.

But the fast pit stop wasn't enough to keep Stewart in the top five, as the battered and beaten Chevrolet no longer had the aerodynamic necessities to keep it planted to the race track. Despite constant chassis tinkering by crew chief Greg Zipadelli during pit stops, the banged-up Home Depot ride was only fixable to a degree.

Stewart slowly dropped back, but held onto 10th with a handful of laps still remaining. Said Zipadelli over the radio once the checkered flag finally waved, "Nice work Tony -- that car's been hit more times than Muhammad Ali."

The effort bumped Stewart up one spot in the championship point standings to sixth, 123 points arrears new series leader Jimmie Johnson. Johnson became the series leader by winning the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, which was his 15th career Nextel Cup victory in 114 starts.