COLUMN: Team Tony takes one on the noggin

            LOUDON, N.H. - As Tony Stewart sat in his car after the Lenox 301, he didn't appear angry. He appeared heartbroken. Tony the Tiger looked as if he could barely hold back the tears.

            That's understandable, and both to his credit and detriment, Stewart is nothing if not emotional.

            This wasn't a bad break. This was a waste of a great effort. It wasn't Stewart's fault. Crew chief Greg Zipadelli told him to pit, and he followed directions. Had he been the prima donna that some allege him to be, he would've refused to pit and won the race. He didn't do it because he didn't have the knowledge his team had.

            On pit road, crews now have enough state-of-the-art equipment to launch a satellite. The fact that a storm was about to hit New Hampshire Motor Speedway was common knowledge in the press box. The storm was visible on both radar and to the naked eye. The fact that it wasn't common knowledge on pit road, apparently, is astonishing.

            One of Stewart's favorite clichés is "it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out ..."

            It didn't take one to figure out it was going to rain, either. Rocket scientists, in fact, were nowhere to be found near the front of the field. Maybe, if it hadn't rained, Stewart would have lost the race because he didn't have enough fuel to make it to the end. By pitting, though, and changing tires, Stewart would have left himself mired deep in the pack even if the final 16 laps of the race had been run.

            But the clouds over the track were more black than gray. Lightning was popping nearby even before the precipitation (TV analyst Wally Dallenbach Jr. kept referring to it, McReynolds-like, as "humidity") fell.

            In a year of cruel misfortune, this time Team Tony gave one away.

            Second-place Michael Waltrip, whose finish was even more a gift than Kurt Busch's victory, kept saying the rain didn't have anything to do with it, but Waltrip kept prattling on about how his best finish of the season - by 21 positions! - was a triumph of strategy.

            It was a triumph of opportunism, not just over the mindless course of Stewart's team but also those of half the cars running on the lead lap. Fuel wasn't the issue. Weather was.

            "At that point, we were rooting on it not to rain because we had the fuel to make it to the end," insisted Busch's crew chief, Pat Tryson.

            Maybe Busch, or someone else, would have won had the race gone to the end, and maybe Stewart would've lost the same way he's been losing all year, as a victim of inexorable fate. A flat tire with two laps to go cost Stewart the Coca-Cola 600.

            That was a painful way to go. This one was senseless.

            You can reach Monte Dutton at mdutton@gastongazette.com.