Stewart ran up front early until a pair of pit-road stumbles knocked him down a lap. Instead of letting the mistakes anger him, Stewart rebounded with a strong run in the second half of the race, picking off other Chase drivers and motoring his way up to an eighth-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
He even moved up a spot in the Chase standings to seventh place, 73 points behind co-leaders Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards.
"To fight back to eighth, I'm pretty happy with that," Stewart said.
Stewart was in second place when he bumped into Johnny Sauter as he left his pit box during a routine stop only 87 laps into the race.
Stewart needed a quick return to the pits to have the left front fender on the No. 20 Toyota pulled back out and fell to 35th on the restart. Stewart was too fast exiting pit road on lap 159 and hit with a penalty for speeding.
"Sorry, guys," he radioed his team.
Sorry? Certainly that was a nice change of tune for crew chief Greg Zipadelli. Stewart snapped at Zipadelli last week at Richmond, telling him over the radio that "we gave another one away" in a second-place finish. Zipadelli sharply reminded Stewart they won as a team and lost as a team.
"Last week it was a mistake in the pits and this week it was a mistake on the driver's part," Stewart said. "We had some bad luck and then I made our problem worse with the speeding penalty."
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JUNIOR'S HOT: Rick Hendrick tried to relax Dale Earnhardt Jr. before the race by pointing out the team had already achieved two preseason goals.
Now, the team owner might need to work on a quicker way to soothe Earnhardt's nerves during a race when the ride gets rough.
"When we started the year, we wanted to win a race and make the Chase. That's two out of the way," Hendrick said over the team radio.
For a while, it looked as if Junior might have knocked off another goal -- winning a Chase race. Earnhardt led a good chunk of the way around the halfway mark at New Hampshire Motor Speedway before he tailed off and finished fifth.
Once Earnhardt's No. 88 Chevrolet started fading from the lead, he became frustrated and started yelling over the radio at crew chief Tony Eury Jr.
Earnhardt said he was tired of his car's handling and then suggested someone was tampering with his tires and said the team needed to beef up security. That's when Hendrick got on the radio to calm him down and suggested Junior "take a deep breath."
"He hasn't told me to shut up yet," Hendrick said after the race. "It's all good."
Earnhardt blamed one set of bad tires for falling off the lead.
"Where are you going to point the finger other than the racing tires we just put on the car?" he said. "We put on another set and were fine."
Earnhardt was all smiles and flashed the peace sign at Hendrick as he walked by the owner in the garage. Hendrick just laughed and said all was well between Junior and his team.
"We're actually having fun teasing each other," Hendrick said. "The fans probably think he really wants to rip Tony apart. Then he gets out of the car and wants to hug him. I just think if he can just focus, he's got a real shot at this thing."
Earnhardt is fourth in the Chase standings, 50 points behind co-leaders Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson.
"We've got to be right there in striking distance," Hendrick said. "He's got so much talent and they've been doing things the way they do them for a long, long time. I'm just trying to give them some old man experience. A little more focus, think about what the car's doing, give Tony the feedback and we'll make the right adjustments."
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CAMPAIGN ON TRACK: John McCain's campaign in the presidential race had him enjoying a different kind of race. The Republican presidential nominee attended the first race in the Chase and gave a short pep talk in the drivers' meeting. His wife, Cindy, joined him later on stage and they shook hands with the drivers during race introductions.
McCain thanked NASCAR for its support of the troops in the meeting and said the drivers were role models for everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"It's remarkable. It's uplifting to these young people," McCain said.
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KENSETH CRASH: Matt Kenseth was already a long shot to win his second Cup title starting the Chase as the 12th driver in the field. Now, Kenseth finds another championship even more out of reach after a late-race wreck knocked him out for his first DNF of the season. He finished 40th and is 177 points behind co-leaders Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards.
Kenseth got caught up on a restart with 71 laps left when Chad McCumbee got loose and spun up the track and plowed into the No. 17 Ford. The 2003 Cup champion gingerly got out of his car with his shot at a possible top 10 finish over.
The five-car crash caused the race to be red flagged for 10 minutes.
"If we would have been running where Greg (Biffle) and Carl (Edwards) were running, we wouldn't have got wrecked to start with, so I always feel it's partially your fault," Kenseth said. "Even though we got caught up in somebody else's mess, if we would have been running better, we would have been ahead of their mess."
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LOGANO'S DEBUT: Joey Logano finished three laps down in 32nd place in his Sprint Cup debut. He started 40th and was penalized only 39 laps into the race for taking the jack with him as he exited pit road.
"Not what I wanted, that's for sure," Logano said. "We tried hard, but it just wasn't there the whole time."
Logano, who will take over for Tony Stewart next season at Joe Gibbs Racing, was scheduled to make his debut last weekend in Richmond before rain washed out qualifying. That car was fielded by JGR.
Instead, he drove the No. 96 Toyota for Hall of Fame Racing. The two teams agreed to move JGR's Home Depot sponsorship to Hall of Fame's car for the 18-year-old Logano's first race.
Logano has two poles, one victory and nine top-10 finishes in 12 Nationwide Series races.
"I didn't think it was a big deal making my first start," Logano said. "I was ready to go as soon as we started."
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