In a night full of chaos and carnage, Tony Stewart held on through several late race restarts to lead every lap and win the Camping World SRX Series Race at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 on July 16.
He led every single lap in the main event.
Stewart has now won every SRX main event on dirt — he also won the two dirt races in 2021 at Knoxville Raceway and Eldora Speedway.
Stewart’s near-perfect night started by winning the pole for the main event after a phenomenal heat one and two, finishing second and first. Starting next to him was Ernie Francis Jr. Things stayed relatively calm and status quo through the SRX Fun Flag, which came on lap 25 of the 70-lap feature.
The caution came back out on lap 34. Paul Tracy looped his car and collected Matt Kenseth, damaging both cars heavily. Under the caution, Hailie Deegan experienced mechanical issues and came to pit road. SRX officials tried to hold off restarting until Deegan could rejoin, but eventually threw the green with 15 laps to go, 21 laps after the caution was thrown.
Tracy brought out the caution yet again with 10 laps to go. Since the last 10 laps must be run under green flags, the race lap count was paused until the green flag flew again.
Francis Jr. was spun around with seven laps to go, leading to another caution. Tony Kanaan then brought out another caution with three laps to go.
As Stewart went to take the white flag, yet another caution came out for Ryan Hunter-Reay and Bobby Labonte spinning, setting up SRX’s version of an overtime, two-lap shootout.
Finally, Stewart was able to take the checkered flag after a greatly extended race.
Heat One
Marco Andretti started on pole with guest star (and I-55 Raceway track owner) Ken Schrader to his outside. Andretti broke out to the lead quickly, but Schrader quickly got around him to take the lead, one that he would not relinquish the rest of the heat. After a caution for Tracy, Schrader had to fend off a challenge from Stewart, but ultimately Schrader took the heat one victory, albeit under caution as Tracy ran into Ryan Newman and they both tagged the wall. A frustrated Newman backed into Tracy as the cars went to pit road on the cooldown lap.
Heat Two
The inverted field for heat two meant that Hunter-Reay would start first, next to Kenseth. Kenseth used the outside to his advantage and took the lead early. Michael Waltrip smacked the wall early and brought out a caution. Kenseth continued to lead as Andretti tore the nose off his…
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