The story all year in NASCAR has been on the young drivers and for good reason.
It’s been on Sprint Cup rookie Chase Elliott, driving like a seasoned pro at 20 years old. It’s been on Joey Logano, fulfilling his wealth of talent again at 26. It’s been on Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon and Ryan Blaney, forming a wave of young talent in a sport that needs it.
They’re not the story this time, however. Not this week.
This week is for the old guys.
This week is for Tony Stewart, making his return to his home state of Indiana and his home track of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It’s for Jeff Gordon, who’s making his return to the sport as a whole after being called in to replace Dale Earnhardt Jr., still out with concussion symptoms.
This whole season has felt like an embracing of the future. Go figure – a trip to NASCAR’s oldest track will feel like a trip down memory lane.
Start with Gordon. Last seen on a track soaking in the adoration from fans during his final season as a NASCAR full-timer, and last seen at all breaking down the sport he left for the broadcast booth, one of racing’s greatest winners is making the mother of all relief appearances.
Once it became a possibility, and then a likelihood, that Earnhardt couldn’t recover in time to race, team owner Rick Hendrick called on the four-time Cup champion to take over for NASCAR’s most popular driver. It’s a move worthy of the buzz it generated – given the long-standing rivalry between the Earnhardt and Gordon fan bases, the idea of Gordon climbing into the 88 Chevy years ago would have rubbed many the same way as the notion of Derek Jeter throwing on a Red Sox uniform, or Peyton Manning slipping on a No. 12 Patriots jersey.
But there Gordon was Friday, in a situation that looked so familiar, yet so alien. He was back in a firesuit, back rocketing through the turns at his home track, back talking with reporters about how he went from out of the mix to back in the race in only a week.
The questions that brewed when the rumors started in New Hampshire continued with the scene shifting to Indianapolis. Can Gordon compete? How different will this car feel? How rusty will he be?
Could he … could he win?
“I’m certainly a little overwhelmed with everything that’s happened over the last week,” Gordon said. “My goal is to come here and give this team the best effort that I can, and the best result. Hopefully it’s a good one.”
Gordon made sure to emphasize the temporary nature of his return (“This is his team,” Gordon said of Earnhardt’s crew, while adding that he’s made no plans to race beyond next week at Pocono), but ESPN analyst Ricky Craven said driving a car with 88 on it instead of 24 won’t be the only shock he faces in his comeback.
“Jeff can do all the training he wants, but you can’t replicate the 130-, 140-degree temps inside the car,” Craven said on SportsCenter Saturday. “You’ve also got to find the limits of the race car. This is a different race car than what Jeff Gordon competed with in 2015.”
That’s what practice and qualifying has been for, to shake off the cobwebs and see if Gordon can find any of the magic of yesteryear.
“I’m having fun working with (crew chief) Greg (Ives) and all the guys in this 88 team,” he said after qualifying 21st Saturday. “I feel like I’m much calmer than I was (Friday). … We’ve got some work to do, and I look forward to the challenge (today).”
NASCAR has rarely, if ever, seen a driver as outspoken as Tony Stewart. And few topics get “Smoke” as fired up as the state of both his birth and his residence.
Stewart is a Hoosier, and he wouldn’t want to be anything else.
“I grew up my whole life in Indiana. I didn’t move to Indiana. I didn’t move away from Indiana,” he said following the New Hampshire 301. “I’m the only NASCAR driver in the Cup Series that’s from Indiana that still lives in Indiana, and I’m proud of where I was born. I’m proud to be back.”
In more ways than one. He returns to Indiana with the rest of the Cup field, but if recent results are any indication, Stewart is back. After a three-year run that represented the lowest stretch of his career, the signs are in place that the three-time champion known as “Smoke” may be finding his form in time for an emphatic finale to his farewell season – one that Stewart is hoping will be as free of pomp and circumstance as possible.
“It’s flattering. It’s very flattering,” Stewart said, according to USA Today. “They don’t do that if they don’t like you and it’s flattering to have people do that. I appreciate that, but I want to focus on racing.”
For the first time in years, that last statement can induce more shivers than snickers. Stewart has found his stride, posting more top-fives in the past four weeks than he had in the previous 72. Buried season after season by struggles with new rules, injuries and personal travails, Stewart is again a name to watch – just in time for a homecoming at a track where he’ll start third today and where he’s claimed two wins before.
Stewart’s run started in Michigan, where he turned a third-place start into a seventh-place finish. But what was thought to be a flash of the old “Smoke” was just laying the groundwork for what was to come.
Stewart won in Sonoma, essentially guaranteeing him a Chase spot if he could climb into the top 30 in points. That question was answered quickly; Stewart recovered from a Daytona crash to place fifth in Kentucky, then navigated a tricky sequence of restarts to salvage a second-place finish in New Hampshire.
He’s still only 28th in points after missing eight races with broken vertebra, but more and more it looks like Stewart could be a factor in his final year – and that a special moment in Indy might be within reach.
“I have no doubt it’ll be the most emotional (race this year),” Stewart said, according to NASCAR.com. “It’s your home track, your home race. My family comes. My friends come. It would be impossible to think it’s not going to be an emotional weekend.”
Tony Stewart: With back-to-back top-fives, Stewart has shown an ability to run with the pack and save some late speed that had been missing for years.
Brad Keselowski: Even though a better-than-it-looked 15th-place finish at Loudon slowed the 2 team a bit, wins in the two races before it have Keselowski looking like a weekly favorite.
Greg Biffle: If you’re not winning races, you’d better do what Biffle’s been doing. Three straight top-10s have him in Chase contention, albeit with work to do.
Jimmie Johnson: Six-time got the pole in Loudon and still managed only 12th. With one top-five since late April, six-time needs an answer fast.
Chase Elliott: Is the rookie coming back to Earth? After six straight top-10s, he’s been 20th or worse in four straight weeks. With his, Johnson’s and Earnhardt’s woes, times are tough in the Hendrick garage.
Kyle Larson: Two straight weeks of lackluster qualifying and finishing. It doesn’t matter if you get a win, but until you do, those high-teens results hurt.
(Drew Bonifant can be reached at 369-3340, abonifant@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @dbonifant.)