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DARLINGTON, S.C. — Tony Stewart‘s final trip to Darlington Raceway as a Sprint Cup driver ended with a post-race visit with NASCAR officials, but the three-time series champion was smiling as he departed.
“Got to come in and check in once in a while,” Stewart said. “It was a happy visit.”
Officials had requested the presence of Stewart and crew chief Mike Bugarewicz following the race to discuss an on-track incident between the Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner and driver and fellow competitor Brian Scott (No. 44 Ford, Richard Petty Motorsports).
Contact between the two on Lap 204 of the Bojangles’ Southern 500 brought out the caution flag for the third time in the 367-lap race. Scott, who was four laps down at the time, was on the outside of Stewart as the two came off the second turn of the 1.366-mile track. The two cars touched and Stewart’s No. 14 Chevrolet shot briefly to the inside, then darted back up the track and caught the left rear of Scott’s Ford.
The RPM entry spun to the inside where it hit the wall. Unable to return to the race, Scott finished 39th in the 40-car field.
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In the garage afterward, Scott said he was attempting to let drivers on fresher tires, including Stewart, go by.
“I think he got inside of me and got loose there,” Scott said of the initial contact.
“I was pointing him to the inside to let him go. Apparently he got mad at me. … I have a lot of respect for Tony. He has always raced me really clean. … I am not sure if he thought I was trying to hold him up there; I wasn’t. I was trying to let him go. I even pointed him to the inside. Maybe he thought I was giving him the finger or something. I will talk with him. We will figure it out.”
Stewart, who was running 13th at the time, eventually saw his night come to an end when the engine overheated in his No. 14 Chevrolet.
Retiring from Sprint Cup competition at the end of the season, he ends his Darlington career winless in 24 career attempts. It is one of only two current tracks where he failed to score at least one Sprint Cup victory — Kentucky Speedway is the final track on his winless list.
Officially, he completed 317 laps and finished 35th.
“Overheating was the first part of it, and it finally grenaded,” Stewart said of the engine trouble. “It was 375 degrees on water temperature.
“There’s a screen in there that keeps all the trash from getting into the radiator and it got separated from its mount, so all the trash was getting underneath it and going up inside the radiator and it just kept blocking it until we finally lost the motor.”
The meeting with officials after the race was brief.
“We wanted to hear from Tony, get his perspective on what he saw out there,” Kurt Culbert, managing director of racing communications for NASCAR, said. “It was more about gaining information than anything else and to confirm that it will be over with once we leave here.”
Stewart has one victory this season, winning on the Sonoma Raceway road course, and is locked into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Scott is in his first full season of Sprint Cup competition and is 33rd in points.