Stewart holds off Ambrose for fifth win at The Glen

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Tony Stewart's dream season continued unabated in Monday's rain-delayed Heluva Good! at The Glen.

After a major adjustment early in the race got Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet handling the way the Sprint Cup points leader wanted, Stewart held off Marcos Ambrose during a 17-lap run to the finish and crossed the finish line 2.969 seconds ahead of the Australian road-course ace.

Heluva Good! at The Glen

Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet
2.	Marcos Ambrose	Toyota
3.	Carl Edwards	Ford
4.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
5.	Greg Biffle	Ford
6.	Juan Montoya	Chevrolet
7.	Kurt Busch	Dodge
8.	Max Papis	Toyota
9.	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet
10.	Denny Hamlin	Toyota

• Results | Lap-by-Lap | Photos

Race Video

• Final Laps: The Glen
• Victory Lane: Stewart
• Post-Race Reactions
• Hornish, Gordon crash
• Junior loses brakes
• Crewman hit by Montoya

The victory was Stewart's Cup-record fifth at Watkins Glen International, his third of the season and the 36th of his Cup career. It was Stewart's seventh road-course win of his career, second to Jeff Gordon's NASCAR-record nine. Stewart has seven consecutive top-two finishes at The Glen, also winning in 2002, '04, '05 and '07 and finishing second in '06 and '08. He also has finished first or second in eight of the past 11 road races; he was second to Kasey Kahne at Sonoma in June.

Stewart opened his lead in the series standings to 260 points over pole-sitter Jimmie Johnson, who finished 12th after spinning off the course in Turn 1 late in the race.

The second-place finish was Ambrose's best to date in the Cup Series, improving by one position over his results at The Glen last year and at Infineon Raceway in June. Carl Edwards came home third after a strategic run from the 33rd starting position.

Kyle Busch ran fourth, and though he remained 13th in the Cup standings, he trimmed his deficit in points to 12th position -- now occupied by 14th-place finisher Matt Kenseth -- from 101 to 58 points with four races remaining before the field for the 12-driver Chase is set Sept. 12 at Richmond.

From Stewart's point of view, making changes to the car under caution on Lap 19 was a critical juncture in the race.

"Our crew did an awesome job on the pit stop," said Stewart, who led the last 24 laps after outbraking Busch into Turn 1 after a restart on Lap 67 of 90. "We had asked for a lot of changes there -- and a lot of lengthy changes. Our guys did a great job of getting us in and out of the pits there, and we never lost very much track position, so we were able to make it up. We had a fast car [Monday]."

Stewart's car was fast enough to withstand pressure from Ambrose, who dogged Stewart until the final two laps, when the driver of the No. 47 Toyota backed off to conserve fuel.

"I was watching him," said Stewart, who will clinch a spot in the Chase when he takes the green flag Sunday at Michigan. "There were parts of the track where we were stronger than he was and parts where he was stronger than us. But I think we were stronger in the parts of the track that we needed to be to hold him off, if he got any closer."

Ambrose said the setup of his car wasn't quite right for a track that became hotter and slicker Monday, after rain Sunday washed the rubber from the racing surface.

"We missed it just a little bit," said Ambrose, who was trying to complete a double at The Glen after winning Saturday's Nationwide Series race. "I thought our car in practice on Saturday was better than what we had [Monday].

"It was on the edge the whole time. If I had the perfect line -- did everything just right -- I could get away with it. But the track was slick. We were slightly aggressive on our setup for it. We didn't really get a chance to tune on it, either. I think we only changed a quarter-pound of tire pressure all day because we were pitting under green and didn't have time to do anything to it."

Ambrose started fourth and ran up front early. But pit strategy dropped him deep in the field midway through the 90-lap race. He stayed out when the rest of the leaders pitted for the first time and was running 22nd on Lap 50 after making his first stop. He ducked into the pits on Lap 55 for fuel and made up 10 seconds on leader Busch.

By the time of a red flag for a violent crash on Lap 63 involving Gordon and Sam Hornish Jr., Ambrose was in third.

Stewart cleared leader Busch on the restart on Lap 67. Busch chose the outside line as the leader and Stewart took advantage, getting past him on the first turn and holding him off up through the high-speed esses.

Stewart needed every lap of caution he could get to make it to the end of the 220.5-mile race, and the fifth caution helped. A yellow flag came out on Lap 71 for debris, setting up another double-file restart, this time with Ambrose alongside.

Ambrose dived low inside to start Lap 74, but Stewart blocked him and maintained the lead, with Busch and Edwards in close pursuit.

Ambrose, running on older tires, never mounted a challenge as Stewart maintained a lead of more than a second over the final 10 laps.

"I threw everything I could at him," Ambrose said. "We got stuck in the back of the pack and had to make a gamble. The extra laps we had on the tires hurt. I closed in on him, could see him make a few mistakes, but we couldn't quite close the deal."

Kasey Kahne precipitated the hard crash between Hornish and Gordon when he dived inside of Hornish coming out of Turn 9 on the 11-curve track and sent his car into the grass on the left side. Hornish's No. 77 Dodge caromed off a tire barrier and back onto the track, and Gordon's No. 24 slammed head-on into it, spinning violently around into the Armco barrier lining the track. Both Gordon and Hornish climbed from their cars uninjured.

The accident, which also involved Jeff Burton, Andy Lally and Joey Logano, caused a 19-minute, 35-second stoppage while track workers cleaned debris from the crash.

• Press Pass: Tony Stewart | Marcos Ambrose | Carl Edwards

The Associated Press contributed to this report.