RELATED: Recap all of Stewart’s wins
Greg Zipadelli sat high atop Tony Stewart ‘s pit box, nervously watching his long-time friend and teammate work the field over the final laps of Sunday’s Toyota – Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
Zipadelli spent 10 years as Stewart’s crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing, and together they won 33 races and a pair of Sprint Cup championships. Now, he is the vice president of competition at Stewart’s own Stewart-Haas Racing team.
As he watched Stewart lead the field in the closing laps, then get passed by Denny Hamlin midway through the last lap and then see Stewart dramatically re-take the lead in the final corner, Zipadelli was visibly balancing that deep and long friendship with Stewart with his genuine excitement for the organization’s success.
When it was over, it was time to exhale and reflect — and be genuinely happy.
After three years of Stewart’s off-track challenges, including a serious back injury the three-time champ suffered in January, this victory was as emotional as it was validating.
“Personally, it’s just unbelievable to me he did it,” Zipadelli said while watching Stewart take photos in Sonoma‘s Victory Lane.
“I’m just so proud of him and his effort, especially in the last three to four weeks. You’ve seen him turn a corner with his efforts, his attitude, learning these cars and running up front.
“I’ve been telling these guys forever: He’ll turn it on like a switch and you’ll sit back and go, ‘What in the hell?’ It just happens. I’ve seen it for 18 years. Hopefully this is the switch and he’ll have a good, strong run the rest of his career.”
RELATED: Stewart in his own words post-victory
Stewart is coming off his first back-to-back, top-10 runs since 2014 with a seventh-place finish at Michigan in the previous race. He now has that required victory for an automatic position in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship, but is still nine points out of the necessary top-30 points position as the series heads to Daytona International Speedway for Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola (7:45 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
But Stewart – who missed the first eight races this year recovering from that back injury suffered in an off-season all-terrain vehicle accident — has until the final race of the regular season Sept. 10 at Richmond (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) to get into the top 30 in points.
Zipadelli couldn’t be more encouraged.
“I’m really proud of this group,” Zipadelli said. “[Stewart’s crew chief] Mike [Bugarewicz] has done a great job this year keeping this group together and slowly picking away at it, unloading with race cars with more speed, learning what Tony wants.
“They got a little bit behind, but played the pit calls right. We had a bad pit stop, we took it away from him and he went back and got it back for us.
“We think about [Stewart winning] every day, we talk about it. It’s huge for our company having three cars most likely going into the Chase.
“It’s a big hats-off to all the guys back at Stewart-Haas, building these cars and allowing us to race. They’re back there grinding sun up to sun down. We’ve got a lot going on with our company and they haven’t taken their eye off the ball, so I couldn’t be prouder of our people.”
RELATED: Rookie crew chief Bugarewicz reflects on Stewart’s win