Sunoco Pit Move: Sonoma

For Tony Stewart, three of the past five races have been futile efforts at playing the fuel-mileage game.

Just like Charlotte in May and Pocono two weeks ago, Stewart was contending for the win Sunday at Infineon Raceway when he was forced to stop to fill the tank five laps after the rest of the leaders because crew chief Greg Zipadelli knew the No. 20 Chevrolet couldn't make it the rest of the way on one tank of fuel.

"We did exactly what we planned because our fuel mileage was what it was," Zipadelli said. "That's what dictated our race."

Things could have been worse. Jamie McMurray ran out of gas on the final lap and went from second to 37th. But that was little consolation to Stewart, who finished sixth in the Coca-Cola 600, fifth in the Pocono 500 and sixth in Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350.

"It's tough to be so good but not have the finish to show for it," Stewart said.

Stewart pitted on Lap 15, getting out of sequence with many of the lead-lap cars, which allowed him to take the lead for the first time on Lap 41 when teammate Denny Hamlin dove onto pit lane for service. Stewart then pitted the next lap.

However, while other teams were gambling that they could go the distance with just two fuel stops, Stewart would need three. Once again, it was a matter of timing: Just like Casey Mears and Jeff Gordon in the previous fuel-mileage races, Juan Montoya had it -- and Stewart didn't.

When Reed Sorenson brought out what would be the final caution of the day on Lap 67, Zipadelli knew his car was going to end up six laps shy of having enough fuel to go the remaining distance.

"Sometimes you catch the cautions and sometimes you don't, and [Sunday] the last caution fell about six laps too soon," Zipadelli said. "If it fell a little bit later, it wouldn't have been a big deal. We would've been in really good shape.

"But what it did was give all of the slow cars an opportunity to come in and put tires on and save fuel. And there's no way in the world we could've saved that much, unless there was another caution. It's just disappointing."

Stewart passed Robby Gordon for the lead soon after the race restarted but had to give it up five laps later. That dropped him back in the field, but as other cars were forced to stop or ran out of fuel, the No. 20 moved back up into the top 10.

Stewart's only chance was to hope all of the cars in front of him would need a splash of fuel. However, Montoya, all three Richard Childress drivers and Greg Biffle were able to conserve enough fuel to get to the finish line, leaving Stewart sixth and still searching for his first win of the season.