Restarts an issue all race for AMS winner Stewart

HAMPTON, Ga. -- It seemed like everything Tony Stewart tried on Sunday night failed to keep him from spinning his rear tires on restarts. And when the Emory Healthcare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway came down to a couple of late-race restarts, Stewart was rapidly running out of tricks.

"I struggled on restarts all night," Stewart said. "Finally the last two, I hit it a lot closer and kept them from spinning quite as bad."

Stewart ends skid

Tony Stewart held off Carl Edwards at Atlanta for his first victory in 31 races.

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• Video: Race Rewind
• Press Pass: Stewart
• Victory Lane: Stewart
• Final Laps: Atlanta

It got so bad that Stewart flipped through the notebook in his mind containing about 31 years of racing experience and was tempted to try something from his open-wheel days.

"I was almost embarrassed to talk about it, but it's just an old sprint-car trick that you do," Stewart said. "They have got a lot of rear brake and don't really have much front brake and you can drag the brake pedal and keeps you from spinning the tires. I'm not sure it would have worked but I didn't have enough confidence to take the brake balance and just run it to the back like that and drag the brake to help the wheel spin.

"I was afraid I would get going through the gears and get going and not count my rounds back and get myself in a problem at the end of the straightaway. So that was about the only thing I didn't try."

He didn't have to, because of two reasons. One, his pit crew kept turning out perfect stops, putting Stewart up front even when he was losing places on the track every time the green flag fell. And his No. 14 Chevrolet was strong in clean air at the end, allowing him to pull away from Carl Edwards on the final restart with 17 laps remaining.

"When you have a fast enough car like that, every time we lost the spots, we could get the majority of them back within a lap or two laps," Stewart said. "That's stout."

And instead of Edwards celebrating the end to his winless skein, Stewart was the one in Victory Lane.

"The pit crew is who we have got to give all the credit to," Stewart said. "They had an awesome pit stop the last time we came in that got us that track position that I lost on the previous restart. So you know, without that, I don't think we would have a shot to be here."

It's a good thing, because Stewart raved afterwards about the machine that propelled him to the win. (Continued)