KERNERSVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 14, 2011) \u2013 It\u2019s trivia time.<\/p>\n
Question: Name the one driver other than Tony Stewart who has won the season-opening NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in the last six years?<\/p>\n
Answer: Kevin Harvick in 2007.<\/p>\n
Beginning in 2005, Stewart has won the opening round of the Nationwide Series at Daytona every year with the exception of 2007, when Harvick proved victorious. In that race, Stewart finished eighth. Every other year, it\u2019s Stewart who\u2019s been to victory lane, and he\u2019s done it driving for three different car owners \u2013 Joe Gibbs in 2008, Rick Hendrick in 2009 and Harvick in 2005, 2006 and 2010.
\n
\nAs he defends his DRIVE4COPD 300 win, Stewart will do it from familiar confines. He\u2019ll again be behind the wheel of a No. 4 Oreo\/Ritz Chevrolet Impala, and it will again be prepared by Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI).<\/p>\n
Stewart\u2019s history with KHI is strong. After 41 career Nationwide Series starts stretched out over five seasons, Stewart finally scored his first Nationwide Series victory when he won the 2005 season-opener at Daytona driving for what was then an upstart KHI. While it was Stewart\u2019s first Nationwide Series win, it was also the first for the team owned by Harvick and wife DeLana. When Stewart came back to Daytona a year later and successfully reclaimed his victory, it was career win No. 2 for Stewart and career win No. 2 for KHI.<\/p>\n
Now they\u2019re back together at the racetrack that put KHI on the map and provided Stewart his long-awaited Nationwide Series victory. Ironically, Stewart has nine career Nationwide Series wins and KHI also has nine career Nationwide Series wins heading into this year\u2019s DRIVE4COPD 300.<\/p>\n
Coming right out of the box and winning on the Nationwide Series\u2019 biggest stage has become a familiar storyline for Stewart, and if he is to repeat the performance yet again and go for four straight wins in the season-opener, it will be hugely appropriate as Stewart is carrying the colors of two products that always delight right out of the box.<\/p>\n
His representation of Kraft Foods\u2019 Oreo and Ritz brands on the No. 4 Chevrolet fielded by KHI is a byproduct of the company\u2019s holistic partnership with Stewart and the Sprint Cup team he co-owns with Haas Automation founder Gene Haas \u2013 Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR).<\/p>\n
The iconic Oreo cookie and Ritz cracker brands are SHR\u2019s official cookie and cracker, with Stewart and his Sprint Cup teammate Ryan Newman carrying the brand\u2019s colors on their respective uniforms and cars. But adding some flavor to the pairing of Stewart and Kraft Foods is the No. 4 Oreo\/Ritz Chevrolet. Just as it\u2019s the figurative vehicle to carry the partnership of Oreo and Ritz with Stewart, it\u2019s also the literal vehicle Stewart will use in his attempt to put Oreo and Ritz inside Daytona\u2019s victory lane for a second straight year.<\/p>\n
While there are a lot of similarities between last year\u2019s race and this year\u2019s, there is one major difference \u2013 the car. A new generation of Nationwide Series car is running full-time this season after a four-race rollout in 2010. While it\u2019s akin to the kind of car Stewart competes with regularly in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, it\u2019s still an unknown \u2013 at least to Stewart, whose first time in the new-generation Nationwide Series car will come this week in the practice and qualifying sessions that lead in to the DRIVE4COPD 300.<\/p>\n
But with Stewart\u2019s diverse racing background where in more than 30 years he\u2019s driven and won in nearly every kind of racecar imaginable \u2013 from USAC Sprint Cars and Indy cars to NASCAR stock cars and dirt late models \u2013 the change, while substantial, is one that Stewart has quickly and successfully adapted to before.<\/p>\n
So with one shot at a Nationwide Series win this season, for Daytona is the only Nationwide Series race he will contest in 2011, Stewart plans on being \u201cwon\u201d and done when the checkered flag drops on the DRIVE4COPD 300.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KERNERSVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 14, 2011) \u2013 It\u2019s trivia time. Question: Name the one driver other than Tony Stewart who has won the season-opening NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in the last six years? Answer: Kevin Harvick in 2007. Beginning in 2005, Stewart has won the opening round of the Nationwide Series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[15775],"class_list":["post-4401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}