
(Photo Source: Tony Stewart Facebook)
Started: 18th
Finished: 19th
Points: 22, 101 points from 30th
Quote of the race: “Line them up and I’ll run 800 laps right now and not have a problem. There will be a bunch of these guys falling out of the seat if they had to run 800 more laps, but I will not be one of them.” — Tony on the radio after the race, when asked by his crew chief how he was feeling. LOVE IT!

(Photo Source: Mobil 1 facebook)
I have had the chorus from the Welcome Back Kotter theme song stuck in my head since Thursday morning when Tony made the announcement that he would be piloting the #14 Mobil 1 Chevy for the first time this season. That of course later turned to Bill Engvall’s “Here’s Your Sign” routine- except I was stating in my head it was “here’s your fine.” But I already wrote all about the fine and my views on the subject haven’t changed so you can read that in the Welcome Back Tony, Here’s Your Fine post I made. That is all I will say about that whole debacle in this post. Anyway- what better track for Tony to make his “comeback” race at than Richmond. It’s his favorite track after all.
So on Friday I was quite distracted on Friday at work trying to pay attention to practice and qualifying (that was rained out) because I wanted to know how Tony’s first day back in his office was going. Apparently his biggest issue was that he wasn’t use to the new digital dash board they are running in the cars now which I found out via video embedded in a tweet, yet he was obviously still in good humor about it. So it wasn’t that big of an issue. Later on Sunday during the national broadcast they actually talked about what kind of adjustments they can make to the digital dash because how and what the driver sees is customizable and they have to also take into account where the driver sits, and what kind of steering wheel he uses. I found that all fascinating. So the qualifying on Friday had been rained out as I mentioned which meant that cars would be lined up on the grid according to practice speeds- putting Tony 18th on Sunday. There were changes to the Saturday schedule because of the weather issues and that meant the sprint cup teams ended up with one practice on Saturday. (more…)