PETERSEN MEDIA
– Racing is a cruel sport. It offers the thrill of victory, but it also offers the agonizing taste of defeat, and on Saturday night, Shane Stewart tasted that agonizing taste just after grabbing the lead against the World of Outlaws.
Timing the Joe Gaerte owned No.3G in 12th fastest, Stewart took full advantage of his front row heat starting spot, and picked up the win to earn himself a spot in the night’s dash.
Lining up 10th in the dash, Stewart was able to improve his feature event start spot by a full row, as he finished eighth, but he experienced rear-end trouble at the end of the race, and his team went to work in a hurry.
Focusing on the rear-end, the team noticed they had broke a set of gears, and went to work on getting the situation handled, and getting their All Star Performance/XYZ/Gaerte Engines machine on the track for the feature event.
Starting in the fourth row, Stewart was on the move early, as he cracked the top five at the early stages of the race, and began battling with Jason Sides.
Getting into third, Stewart began hounding Paul McMahan and Donny Schatz, as the two battled for the lead ahead of the Bixby, OK native.
With Schatz working the cushion, he bobbled with just eight laps to go, and Stewart was able to use a monster run to past both him and Mcmahan to take command of the race.
Stewart’s lead was short lived, as the very next lap, his machine began to stumble, and it ran out of fuel, just six laps away from the finish, and his night was over.
“We had a bad fast racecar, but unfortunately when we were going through the rear-end our fuel tank didn’t get topped off,” he explained. “It is unfortunate, but the positive is the last few times I have been racing against these guys (The World of Outlaws), I have been a contender, and that is a really good feeling.”
2013 BY THE NUMBERS- Starts-37, Wins-7, Top 5’s-18, Top 10’s-22.
ON TAP: Stewart will be in action this Wednesday night with the World of Outlaws at the Kokomo Speedway in Kokomo, IN.
STAY CONNECTED: For all of the latest news on Shane Stewart visit his website at www.shanestewart.com or become a fan of his on facebook at www.facebook.com/