Tony Stewart scored his second win of the Camping World SRX Series season on Saturday night in front of a full house at I-55 Raceway, a 1/3rd-mile dirt track in Pevely, Mo.
Stewart finished second in Heat 1 and won Heat 2 to earn the pole for the the 70-lap Main Event with the best average finish of the heat races. He then held off Marco Andretti to score the win.
Andretti finished second for the third week in a row followed by Ken Schrader — the NASCAR veteran and owner of I-55 Speedway — who was making his SRX Series debut.
.@TonyStewart IS THE MAIN EVENT WINNER 👏
What. A. Race. @SRXracing pic.twitter.com/LYtBS5OgiD
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) July 17, 2022
“This place is pretty awesome. You aren’t going to find fans that are any more diehard in this country for late models, modifieds and sprint cars than here at Pevely,” said Stewart. “Appreciate Kenny and all his staff, just everybody that works hard at this racetrack. It’s hard — it’s been a 90-degree day, sunny, windy, everything that kills dirt tracks and their staff did an awesome job giving us an awesome racetrack. I love it when it gets close to the wall like that, that’s when I’m having the most fun.”
The pain of another runner-up finish was eased a little for Andretti by the fact the IndyCar veteran took over the points lead heading into next week’s sixth and final round, ahead of Ryan Newman and Stewart.
“This place is so fun. I was taking care of the tires, but then we went yellow for (Hailie) Deegan for so long that I had the better tires at the end but ran out of time,” Andretti reflected. “I think if I wasn’t thinking about the championship, I would have had a better go at Tony there at the end.”
The SRX series will conclude its season next Saturday on the Sharon Speedway dirt track in Hartford, Ohio. Father and son duo Dave and Ryan Blaney will join the field to compete against title contenders Stewart, Andretti and Newman, along with Greg Biffle, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Bobby Labonte, Paul Tracy, Michael Waltrip, Tony Kanaan, Matt Kenseth and Chase Elliott.
Main Event Results at I-55 Raceway
Finishing Position |
Driver |
Car Number |
1 |
Tony Stewart |
14 |
2 |
Marco Andretti |
98 |
3 |
Ken Schrader |
52 |
4 |
Ryan Newman |
39 |
5 |
Greg Biffle |
69 |
6 |
Ernie Francis Jr |
99 |
7 |
Michael Waltrip |
15 |
8 |
Paul Tracy |
3 |
9 |
Hailie Deegan |
38 |
10 |
Tony Kanaan |
6 |
11 |
Bobby Labonte |
18 |
12 |
Matt Kenseth |
5 |
13 |
Ryan Hunter-Reay |
1 |
Comments