HAMPTON, Ga., March 10 (UPI) -- One of the few things missing from Tony Stewart's impressive list of NASCAR accomplishments was victory in a 500-mile race and he added that to his resume Sunday by winning the MBNA America.
Stewart's Pontiac Grand Prix was able to hold off the charging Chevrolet Monte Carlo of Dale Earnhardt Jr. to capture his 13th career Winston Cup win. Rookie Jimmie Johnson was third in a Chevrolet and was followed by the Ford Tauruses of Matt Kenseth and Ricky Craven.
It also was Stewart's first win on a superspeedway in more than a year.
Stewart made the winning pass 22 laps from the finish when he drove by Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton.
"We had an awesome car today," Stewart said. "We came here last fall and tested and didn't spend any time working on qualifying setups. It was all race setups. The team did an awesome job on pit stops and as long as we could get up front, we were in good shape.
"I'm just the lucky guy who gets to drive these things on Sunday."
"The car was awesome, but we tried to screw it up today on one of our pit stops," said crew chief Greg Zipadelli. But the guys kept us in the game all day. Everybody was asking when we would win a 500-mile race, but we just did it."
Stewart defeated Earnhardt by .376 seconds and drove to victory at an average speed of 148.435 miles per hour.
"It was fun," Earnhardt said. "Tony had a great race car, we were just too tight to catch him at the end. It's real hard to get the car to turn when somebody is knocking a hole in the air in front of you. A lot of guys drove smart today, it was a lot of fun."
Stewart led 13 times for 143 laps in a race that featured a record 34 lead changes involving eight drivers.
