Maybe those wins at Chicagoland and Loudon weren't the customary visits to Victory Lane for a familiar two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion.
After somewhat stalling at Dover with a 25th and a middling 15th at Kansas, Tony Stewart has mounted a charge for this year's title and he did so with a bang by winning Sunday's TUMS 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Starting fourth from the grid, which was set by owner's points due to qualifying being rained out, Stewart didn't exactly dominate the race.
But it didn't matter, as after all, the only lap that all drivers care most about is the final circuit around the track of the week.
Stewart's win on Sunday at Martinsville was his third around the 0.526-mile short track, which meant another grandfather clock in his trophy case.
In Stewart's case, it was a very sweet victory, as he passed five-time defending champ Jimmie Johnson on the final restart of the race with just three laps remaining.
Showing that familiar Hoosier State smile, Stewart exhuberated confidence unlike any point of the season, even giving a playful warning to points leader Carl Edwards.
"He better be worried. That's all I've got to say," Stewart said per AP Sports Writer Hank Kurz Jr.'s article, republished on Yahoo! Sports. "We’re hungry for this. I feel like our mindset into these next three weeks, we’ve been nice all year to a lot of guys, given guys a lot of breaks."
After virtually running most of the season much like a bear hibernating during the winter, as the mercury drops across the country, Tony Stewart has heated up at the right time of the year - during championship season.
Johnson placed second, which somewhat helped in his bid for an unprecedented sixth straight title.
To say the least, he gave it his best to win on Sunday, thinking better of it when battling Stewart towards the checkered flag.
"I just could not get away from him on the restart," Johnson said. "I thought about going in there and leaning on him, move him up, but that is just not the right thing to do."
Jeff Gordon came home in third, snapping a three-race streak of finishes outside the top-10. Surviving the typical paint trading fests that have become customary at Martinsville, Gordon said, "That was crazy. The racing was crazy."
Martinsville was particularly kind to the Chase contenders, as Kevin Harvick finished fourth, while Denny Hamlin came in fifth, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. with a seventh, points leader Carl Edwards in ninth, and Ryan Newman rounding out the top-10.
Probably the only racers who'd like to forget about Sunday's race were Kurt Busch, who finished 14th, Brad Keselowski (17th), Kyle Busch (27th) and Matt Kenseth, whose wrecked machine crossed the line in 31st.
Sunday's race lived up to the typical Martinsville wreck fest, with competitors beating and banging on each other's fenders most of the afternoon.
In some cases, it involved some of the Chasers, like Kenseth and Kyle Busch, who needed good runs but ended up with finishes hurting their title efforts.
Ultimately, it set up what will be an exciting battle for the title with just three races until the road to Homestead-Miami Speedway, as the Cup circuit goes out to the "Wild Wild West" before heading back for some Florida sunshine on November 20th.
Texas Motor Speedway plays host for this Sunday's running of the AAA Texas 500 (Live at 3 PM ET on ESPN), where Denny Hamlin hopes to recapture the checkered flag at "The Great American Speedway."
Here's a look at the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship point standings after 33 races:
- Carl Edwards (Roush-Fenway/Ford/1 win)
- Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas/Chevy/3 wins)
- Kevin Harvick (Childress/Chevy/4 wins)
- Brad Keselowski (Penske/Dodge/3 wins)
- Matt Kenseth (Roush-Fenway/Ford/3 wins)
- Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick/Chevy/2 wins)
- Kyle Busch (Gibbs/Toyota/4 wins)
- Kurt Busch (Penske/Dodge/2 wins)
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Hendrick/Chevy)
- Jeff Gordon (Hendrick/Chevy/3 wins)
- Denny Hamlin (Gibbs/Toyota/1 win)
- Ryan Newman (Stewart-Haas/Chevy)
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