Second has Stewart happy to keep digging for Chase

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Tony Stewart smiling after a second-place finish is the surest sign he's at peace with his current situation while NASCAR charges toward the fifth annual Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.

Stewart, a prohibitive favorite on Sunday to win his fifth Cup race at Watkins Glen International, could only chase his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Kyle Busch, across the finish line in the Centurion Boats at The Glen.

It was Busch's eighth victory of the season and had Stewart experiencing déjà vu -- but also a lot of respect.

"I can remember years where we finished second or third and I went home the most miserable person on the face of earth because I felt like we should have won the race," the two-time Cup champion Stewart said. "It makes a [winless] year like this for us -- it makes you respect those years that you have runs like [Busch's] and you have strings where you're in Victory Lane a lot."

Stewart's victory drought has now stretched to 36 races dating to this event in 2007. Even though he missed his chance at a venue where many felt he was a sure thing, he wasn't upset.

"I'm pretty happy with [the day], it was pretty uneventful from our side and we didn't have any big dramas in the race," Stewart said. "The red [flag] there at the end kind of killed us but I'm really happy with the day. I'm proud of Kyle and how he ran, and I saw behind us that Denny [Hamlin, teammate who finished eighth] was having a good day, too, so I'm really proud of the whole organization. It was a good day for us." (Video: Strong day for JGR)

It was far from a good day for the nine drivers that were involved in a brutal crash with seven laps to go that caused a 43-minute, five-second red flag to clear the debris and wrecked cars (read more). Stewart's chances, he said, were wrecked as well.

"The thing that hurt us at the end was just the [length of] the red flag," Stewart said. "That cooled the tires down and dropped the air pressures and it seemed like we were a little bit low on the left-front tire and it seemed like when the pressures were low it really hooked the front-end to the right. But even if we got that fixed, I'm not sure we would have been fast enough to beat Kyle."

It was the second time in Busch's league-leading eight victories this season Stewart's finished second, but he said his No. 20 Toyota was as good as he and his team could make it.

And that fact, along with unofficially moving up two spots in the Sprint Cup standings to seventh and stretching his advantage over 12th-place Matt Kenseth to 116, was enough for this weekend, which leaves four races until the cutoff for the Chase.

"When you know that your car was really close -- if we were off then I think we would be more disappointed," Stewart said. "I'm pretty happy with the run [Sunday]. I know that we were just a little bit off, but the guy that won never made a mistake and didn't bobble."

It didn't even make Stewart envy Busch's ability to go all-out for wins, to pad the bonus point cushion he'll have -- currently 50 points over Carl Edwards -- when Busch clinches a spot in the Chase, which he can do next weekend at Michigan if he leaves there with a 585-point lead over 13th position.

"I'd love to be in that spot, but I'm afraid we're probably not going to be in that spot to have that just go-for-broke attitude," said Stewart, who won three and five races, respectively, in his 2002 and 2005 championship seasons. "The things that you do to get yourself in the Chase, you don't do things different -- you kind of stay in that mode. If you have a chance on fuel mileage or pit strategy or something on a day that you might be a fifth- or 10th-place car and you've got a shot with pit strategy to win, you definitely take it -- and in [Busch's] situation, you can take that chance.

"But I think the important thing for our team right now is just the fact of getting back in the top five consistently each week, and if we can do that, then that's the important thing for our team. Right now, we're just not in a position where we can take those gambles and take those risks right now."

Stewart had nothing but good words for his young teammate Busch, 23, who'll have 14 more races teaming with Stewart, who leaves to become half-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009. And Busch returned the favor.

"I knew he was going to be hard to beat," Busch said of the final restarts, when Stewart was dogging his tracks. "I was racing against the same stuff, so I knew it was going to be hard to beat Tony.

"He's such a great friend and such a great teammate and I'm really going to hate to see him leave at the end of the year and wish he would have stayed. He has been so fun to work with this year."

And despite his recently selected status as a "Legend of The Glen" for the most recent decade in the track's history, Stewart said beating Busch was never a possibility.

"He never made a mistake, he had a really, really good car [Sunday] and he was fast in all of the right spots that he needed to be fast in," Stewart said. "And so I think he ran a perfect race. I never really got that close to passing him, unfortunately. I never could get the runs in the right spots and that was the key, really."

Busch said Stewart was better than him around the "bus stop" chicane at the end of the backstretch, but nowhere else.

"He had me beat getting into the inner loop and to the middle of the inner loop," Busch said. "From there on out I think we pretty much had him covered everywhere else. We were able to get off the corners real well and we were able to get the car whoa'ed up really good with some brakes. That's what it takes here -- you have to be able to stop and you have to be able to go."

Added Stewart: "I thought we were real close. I mean, we're talking nit-picking stuff to get our car perfect, so I was real proud of our guys, our pit stops were good and I thought Zippy [crew chief Greg Zipadelli] had good pit strategy and it's days like this that you want every week -- uneventful."