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Stewart Wins 5th Sprint Win at The Glen

Tony Stewart took his 3rd win of the season and 5th at Watkins Glen International in a relaxed manner on Monday afternoon and stretched his lead in the overall classification to Hendrick Motorsports duo Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

The Sprint Cup leader managed to recuperate wonderfully in the first part of the race and, thanks to some great driving and inspired race strategy, went on to clinch the lead with only 24 laps remaining in the race. When passing Kyle Busch for the lead, it seemed Stewart would go on to easily secure another win in New York.

However, two more cautions in the last 19 laps of the race caused some late action in the race, but the Stewart Haas driver managed to keep his cool and drive to the limit – in terms of fuel mileage – eventually keeping his 1st place ahead of Marcos Ambrose. Carl Edwards went on to clinch 3rd place at the chequered flag, while followed by Busch and Greg Biffle.

Both on the inside and outside we were able to get good jumps on the restarts. That was really key for us. Especially when we did it the second time on the opposite side after Kyle chose the other side the first time and we still beat him,” said Stewart.

We were able to pull away and get just enough of a gap to run my line, run my pace and then do the things that I needed to do to get my car good,” added the Sprint Cup leader.

Ambrose had to settle for second place, despite being in contention for a race win all afternoon. It would have came just at the right time for the former V8 supercar champion, as he had won the Nationwide event at the Glen a couple of days before.

Hendrick's Jimmie Johnson finished on a disappointing 12th place despite starting from pole position, as he suffered an early spin on Monday.

Only 4 races to the Chase, Stewart now holds a comfortable 260-point lead in the overall standings (to Johnson), while Gordon is placed some 82 more points behind, in third place.
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