The name that most often appears when other drivers are asked about superstars at Watkins Glen International is Tony Stewart.
This is quite natural. Stewart has built a reputation as one of NASCAR’s elite road racers, and no one has won more Sprint Cup races – five – at the Glen.
Like his hero, A.J. Foyt, before him, Stewart can drive virtually anything anywhere – and win in it. And he does that frequently on the high-speed road course in New York’s Finger Lakes region.
But what about Stewart? Which drivers does he look out for at the Glen?
“Obviously, Marcos Ambrose is probably the first guy that comes to mind,” Stewart said. “He’s been so close so many times and not been able to finish one off. He’s always been there every year.
“Him and Juan [Pablo Montoya] and Robby [Gordon]. Those are three guys in particular that it seems like every time we’re here at some point during the day, they’re a factor.”
Ambrose has been oh-so-close to nabbing his first Sprint Cup win. He should have won at Sonoma in June but saw the victory slip away in the closing laps as he tried to conserve fuel by shutting down his engine and lost positions refiring it.
Ambrose set himself up for a splendid Sunday on Saturday by breezing to an easy victory in the Zippo 200 Nationwide Series race at the Glen. The win was his third in a row in Nationwide events at the track.
Montoya scored his first – and only – Sprint Cup win at Sonoma in 2007 and has a decorated history on road courses across the planet.
Two of Gordon’s three career wins are at Watkins Glen and Infineon.
Still, Stewart, despite his winless string this year, carries favorite’s status into Sunday’s race.
“It gives you confidence coming in that we know how to win here and we’ve won here before,” Stewart said. “I don’t think we put any pressure on ourselves extra than we do anywhere else. We just go through the motions of what we have to do to make our car fast and run the race according to what we’ve got. I think more than worrying about going backward; we still worry about still going forward.”
Stewart is eighth in the race for the Chase. Ryan Newman, his teammate, is outside the qualifying zone in 15th.
“Obviously, we would both rather be in real nice and comfortable and secure, but there’s nothing we can do but do the same things we’ve been doing every week,” Stewart said. “If you try to do something different and you try to do something extra, you normally force yourself into an unwanted mistake. We just have to go out and do what we’ve been doing and hope we get a little luck on his side. He’s has some miserable luck this year, and that’s hurt us. We’re doing everything we can to help him, but you’re careful to not try to reinvent the wheel all of the sudden in four weeks and get yourself in a worse position.”
Stewart is scheduled to start sixth in Sunday’s 1 pm ET race.
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including “NASCAR: The Definitive History of America’s Sport” and “Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told”. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.