Tony Stewart has now swept the two Superstar Racing Experience dirt features in the inaugural season, winning at his own Eldora Speedway for his second-straight overall win in his own series.
Stewart defeated five-time USAC Silver Crown Series champion Kody Swanson for the win at Eldora after a restart with five laps remaining. Helio Castroneves finished third and Marco Andretti finished fourth after winning the second heat race.
“Kody found the bottom, I couldn’t roll the bottom as good as he could,” Stewart told CBS Sports after the race. “I was real dependent on being up on the top. I just think that’s what Eldora does, the complexion of the track changes during the race and I thought the top was good at the beginning of the main and Kody got just crushing everybody on the bottom and got rolling through there. But the good thing is … when he went by everybody else they all followed him down there like they were in a parade and left the top open. The longer we went I finally got the momentum going on top and get back by.”
Paul Tracy dominated the feature but made headlines by causing the final caution of the night, getting into Bobby Labonte and destroying the No. 18 car. Bill Elliott continued his hard luck in SRX feature events, hitting Labonte hard and being unable to finish the race. Labonte ended up finishing 11th and Elliott last in 12th.
Tracy was apologetic after the race.
"I got it all wrong," said Paul Tracy of his wreck with Bobby Labonte.
Says Labonte is "super pissed" at him and Tracy will apologize.#CampingWorldSRX | @EldoraSpeedway
— Tom Bowles (@NASCARBowles) June 27, 2021
Tracy finished fifth. Guest driver Scott Speed finished sixth, while Tony Kanaan returned to SRX to finish seventh.
Ernie Francis Jr. finished eighth after spinning Kanaan out around lap 22 of the feature. Willy T. Ribbs and Michael Waltrip finished relatively quiet nights in ninth and 10th, respectively.
Five cautions were called in the 50 green-flag lap feature, with three of them being competition cautions.
Stewart now leads Castroneves by 33 points, more than a feature win, in the SRX standings.
Tony Stewart holds on to win at @EldoraSpeedway!! ? @TonyStewart
He picks up his SECOND STRAIGHT #SRX win. Local legend Kody Swanson comes in second after battling Stewart during the final laps. pic.twitter.com/s5TC4Av3rY
— Camping World SRX Series (@SRXracing) June 27, 2021
Heat One
The first heat ran incident free, although there was a competition caution at the seven minute mark that ran for three minutes. Stewart led most of this heat and outdueled Castroneves, Tracy, Andretti and Labonte in a huge five car battle at the end. Kanaan and Castroneves battled for the lead in the early stages before both were passed by Stewart. Ribbs went for a spin on lap one but continued under his own power and remained green.
Heat Two
The second heat had two major accidents, with the first occurring on the opening lap when Kanaan went low on Francis Jr. and caused a chain reaction crash. Waltrip, Swanson, and Stewart were also involved, prompting Swanson to go to a back-up car for the feature. The second occurred on the ensuring restart, when Tracy, Ribbs, and Stewart spun around on the backstretch with a little over five minutes remaining in the heat.
Can we call this 'The Big One?' Seems pretty big for a short track. 5 drivers involved in the wreck that brings out the yellow. @SRXracing | @EldoraSpeedway pic.twitter.com/ugm8TKOCOG
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) June 27, 2021
The next SRX event is at Lucas Oil Raceway on July 3, airing at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.
About the author
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
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Starting to look like the SRX series’ main purpose is to feed Tony’s ego.
Maybe he needs the money for his honeymoon. Every extra dollar helps for the extras.