Reading, PA – Stewart earned his fourth win in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. His three previous wins came at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas, the North Central Division Race in Indianapolis, Indiana and the Northeast Division Race in Reading, Pennsylvania.

With the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals win at Maple Grove Raceway, Stewart took over the Top Alcohol Dragster championship standings.
In addition to a national championship, Stewart is also vying for a regional championship in the North Central Region. He’s leading the North Central Region championship point standings with a total of 309 points, 75 points ahead of teammate Mike Coughlin.

“I’ve raced a lot on Mondays in the past with NASCAR, IndyCar, or sprint car races. It’s different when you are drag racing. You get into a cadence and rhythm of the day because you have your adrenaline going up and down all day long. The rain that we had yesterday interrupts everything and gets you out of sync. This morning, you wake up, take a shower, and come warm up the car. Then you get dressed and run in the Final. It’s definitely not the way you want to have to go into Monday, but I’m glad we made it to Monday and I’m glad we pulled this off.

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Reading, PA – Tony Stewart earned his third win in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. His two previous wins came at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas and the North Central Division Race in Indianapolis, Indiana.

With the Northeast Division Race win at Maple Grove Raceway, Stewart takes the lead in the Top Alcohol Dragster championship standings.

In addition to a national championship, Stewart is also vying for a regional championship in the North Central Region. He’s leading the North Central Region championship point standings by a healthy margin with a total of 266 points.

Tony Stewart, Driver of the Mobil 1 Top Alcohol Dragster, talks about Maple Grove.  “The weekend was a polar opposite compared to what happened last race in Columbus (Ohio). The whole team made a conscious decision to try and be on the other side of it. Even though we made it to the Finals, we felt like we were a little too aggressive in Columbus and it bit us. We came into Reading with a plan to make sure we made a solid lap the first round of qualifying and we could press from there. We kept it in a good, safe zone.

My teammate, Matt Cummings, had the fastest car. He was just a little quicker than us all weekend. I was able to have really good reaction times both days and that was a big key to getting us here. You hate to win a race at the end against your teammate due to a mechanical failure, but unfortunately it happens. Being able to win the race and take over the national points lead is something we’re extremely proud and happy about. You don’t want to beat your teammate with misfortune like that, but it could happen to us too. I was really proud of the McPhillips Racing team. They did a great job of giving Matt and I two cars that were dominate all weekend. It came down to the two of us. We’re gelling with this team and now that we have the points lead, the plan is to keep it. We don’t want to let it get away from us. We’ll stick to the plan and stay the course. We’ll keep executing run after run.”

Qualifying:
Earned No. 3 provisional qualifying position in Q1 on Friday (5.331 ET at 272.67 mph)
Earned No. 2 provisional qualifying position in Q2 on Friday (5.272 ET at 270.86 mph)
Secured No. 2 qualifying position in Q3 on Friday (5.266 ET at 273.16 mph)

Elimination results:
Round 1: 5.294 ET at 273.72 mph, defeated Mike Hepp (5.519 ET at 258.52 mph)
Round 2: 5.276 ET at 272.39 mph, defeated Dan Page (5.739 ET at 216.13 mph)
Finals: 5.291 ET at 271.90 mph, defeated Matt Cummings (Didn’t cross the finish line due to a sheared fuel pump drive)
Currently leading the Top Alcohol Dragster national championship standings, 32 points ahead of Julie Nataas

Las Vegas – Tony Stewart earned his first win in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series in his fifth start. It marks the 43rd consecutive season he has earned a motorsports victory. Stewart has now won an event on all tracks at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway property:

He won his first USAC Silver Crown event at the Las Vegas dirt track on October 18, 1997. Captured his 1997 IndyCar championship at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Won in a USAC midget in 2002 at the Las Vegas Bullring pavement short-track also won in a sprint car in the same night. Won the 2010 Las Vegas Sprint Car Nationals at the Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Earned the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series event win at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway oval track.

Stewart also earned a victory as team owner with Funny Car driver Matt Hagan for Tony Stewart Racing in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series.

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To Run Top Alcohol Dragster for McPhillips Racing

BROWNSBURG, IN – After making his NHRA driving debut in a Top Alcohol dragster at last year’s NHRA Nevada Nationals, Tony Stewart is ready to compete full-time in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series for McPhillips Racing.

Stewart advanced to the Finals in his first NHRA event at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last October, where he finished second to Madison Payne by two-10,000ths of a second. Stewart’s 5.258-second, 271.57 mph run in the Finals came up just one inch short out of 15,840 inches on the quarter-mile long drag strip, which made his desire to return to the seat even stronger.

“I am super excited about the season,” Stewart said. “It’s been a long winter and I think what’s made it feel even longer is the fact that we’ve been working on putting this package together with the McPhillips family to expand on what we did at Las Vegas last year and get back in the seat. I want to keep learning about the sport and have the opportunity to go compete more this year with a team I really enjoy. To be able to go to Vegas last year with the McPhillips family was really special. Pops (Rich McPhillips) and Richie (McPhillips Jr.) are an unbelievable family to drive for. Everyone on the crew is a fun group of guys to race with. It’s nerve-wracking to try and do something different, but when you have a team like what the McPhillips Racing team has, it makes everything a lot easier.”

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