Ty Dillon-Tony Stewart driver swap flawless at Talladega
The Ty Dillon-Tony Stewart driver swap at Talladega Superspeedway turned out to be a huge success, with Dillon wielding the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet to an excellent sixth-place finish in the GEICO 500.
Stewart started the race behind the wheel so he got the points for the race, and he went further than planned but was able to turn the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet over to Dillon without incident.
Stewart started the GEICO 500 in the car with the idea of doing the driver swap on an early caution. But the track stayed green until Dale Earnhardt Jr. spun out at the exit to Turn2 on Lap 50.
When the yellow came out, Stewart was able to bring his car down pit road, and he and Dillon completed the driver change in 77 seconds.
Dillon rejoined the race in 34th place but had an excellent remainder of the race to finish sixth. He managed to avoid the worst of the chaos that saw at least 33 cars damaged in the race.
"We had a really strong car," Dillon said. "Fighting from behind, it's hard to get it up front. I felt like if we could lead a pack at any point, we would have put ourselves up front."
The SHR team had prepped the car for Dillon's setup and he was fast from the get-go.
"Early on, once I first got in the car, we drove right up to into the Top 10 really quick and we had some air on the nose and was able to go," said Dillon. "The team built an awesome race car. I just kind of got mired back. I made some mistakes being my first time here racing. But we were able to dodge crashes and survive here, which is the big thing."
Understandably, Stewart was disappointed to have to get out of his car, but he couldn't risk re-injuring the back he broke in an off-road accident in January.
"It sucks to be honest," Stewart said after climbing out of his car. "I know why we got to do it, but it sucks. It still sucks that you have to do it but if I hadn't broke my back at the end of January; we wouldn't be in this situation."
Stewart ran the entire race last week at Richmond International Raceway and expects to be in the car full-time going forward in this, his final season.
"Good news is this is last time we have to do it and I am back in next week," said Stewart. "I really appreciate Ty (Dillon). He's been a rock star through this whole thing and especially this weekend. He's done all the heavy lifting and I just got in to ride around for 50 laps and turn it over to him."
The good news for Stewart is he moved up two spots to 38th in points and is now just 71 points out of 30th place, the position he will have to reach if he's to qualify for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Of course, to make the Chase, Stewart will almost certainly have to win one of the next 16 races in NASCAR's regular season, which could be a challenge.
