NSCS: Dillon Hands Stewart a Top-10 Finish

For the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet had two drivers as Ty Dillon took over the car for Tony Stewart as relief driver.        

Dillon practiced the car and qualified the car in 14th position. Stewart also practiced the car and would start the race so that he would be awarded the points for the race.

The Columbus, Indiana native would race for the first third of the race before the first caution of the day came out and he would come into turn the car over to Dillon. The swap would take them just 64 seconds.

“ I know why we got to do it, but it sucks,” said Stewart. “It still sucks you have to do it but if I hadn’t broken my back at the end of January; we wouldn’t be in this situation. Good news is this is the last time we have to do it and I am back in next week.

“I really apperciate Ty (Dillon). He’s been a rock star through this whole thing and especially this weekend. He’s done all the heavy lifting and I just got in to ride around for 50 laps and turn it over to him. Fortunately we got the lucky dog and kept him on the lead lap. The change went pretty smooth – no drama there so we got him so he could go out there and race now.”

Dillon would drive the remainder of the race and drove his way up into the top-10 and went on finish the race in sixth place when the checkered flags flew.

“We had a really strong car,” said Dillon. “Fighting from behind, it’s hard to get it up front. I felt like if we could lead a pack at any point we would have ourselves up front. Early one, once I first got in the car, we drove right up into the top 10 really quick and we had some air on the nose and was able to go.

“The team built an awesome race car. I just kind of got mired back. I made some mistakes being my first time here racing. But we were able to dodge crashes and survive here, which is a big thing. We made some good moves at the end to get us into the top six or seven.”

Next up is the Go Bowling 400, at Kansas Speedway on Saturday May 7th.