Srx Winner Tony Stewart In Victory Lane
Tony Stewart in victory lane Saturday night at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55. (Don Figler photo)
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Stewart Gets SRX Win At I-55 Raceway

July 16, 2022

Tony Stewart held off Marco Andretti in a two-lap shootout to win Saturday night’s SRX race at I-55 Raceway in Missouri.

Stewart, like Bobby Labonte last weekend at the Nashville Fairgrounds, led all 70 laps of the main event.

Stewart claimed the win after having to hold off charges from Andretti and Ryan Newman over the course of four restarts within the last 10 laps (caution laps don’t count inside 10 to go).

It’s Stewart’s fourth main event SRX win and he’s won all three events that were held on dirt. The three-time NASCAR Cup champion is the only repeat winner in SRX to date.

“This place is pretty awesome, Kenny Schrader and these fans are die hard race fans and you’re not going to find fans that are more die hard in this country,” Stewart told CBS after the race. “It’s hard .It’s been a 90-degree day, sunny, windy, everything that kills dirt tracks. Their staff did an awesome job giving us an awesome race track. I love when it gets up close to the wall like that. That’s when I’m having the most fun.”

For Andretti, it was his third consecutive runner-up finish in the SRX series.

Schrader, who was making his SRX debut, finished fourth. The top five was completed by Greg Biffle.

There were four cautions in the final 10 laps.

The first was with seven laps to go for a spin by Ernie Francis Jr. as he exited Turn 2. On the next restart, Labonte spun after contact with Ryan Hunter-Reay.

The third caution came right after the initial white flag when Kanaan turned Hunter-Reay, resulting in him hitting and sending Labonte around again.

The next came with two laps left when Kanaan went for a spin.

Kanaan and Hunter-Reay, both former IndyCar drivers, apparently weren’t happy with each other after the race.

After starting from the pole, Stewart would lead the first 25 laps unchallenged before the “fun flag” competition caution.

Francis Jr. quickly got by Kanaan for second after the initial start.

The race resumed resumed on Lap 33, only for Paul Tracy and Matt Kenseth to bring out the caution immediately for a crash.

During the caution, Hailee Deegan visited the infield for a heating issue to be looked at. A lengthy attempt at trying to diagnose and remedy the problem resulted in the race not going back to green until there was 17 laps left in the 70-lap event.

Andretti passed Schrader and Francis Jr. at the same time on the outside with 14 laps to go to take second.

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The first heat race was won by Schrader under caution after Newman and Tracy suffered damage when they made contact with each other. Tracy pinched Newman into the outside wall. They both had to go to the infield for repairs.

Tracy wouldn’t take part in the the second heat race due to overheating issues, but returned for the main event.

In the second heat race, the caution came out two minutes in for debris off Michael Waltrip’s car. The damage was incurred after Waltrip clipped a strip of railing that made up a section of the outside wall.

With just under five minutes left, Andretti quickly dove into the infield after he suffered damage.

Kanaan took the lead from Kenseth with about three minutes left, only to be be passed by Stewart with a slide job out of Turn 4 with two minutes remaining.

Stewart wound up winning the heat race by one second over Kanaan.

Stewart would start from the pole of the main event after gaining 13 spots in both heat races.