Stewart suffers broken right shoulder blade
Defending Nextel Cup champ wrecks 33 laps into Coca-Cola 600
 Mike McCarn / AP Tony Stewart holds his arm as he is helped into an ambulance after a crash during the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday. |
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CONCORD, N.C. - Tony Stewart was in desperate need of a clean and easy race. The reigning Nextel Cup champion ended up breaking the tip of his right shoulder blade.
Stewart wrecked 33 laps into the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday night, apparently because of a flat right tire, and his Chevrolet slammed hard into the wall. It took safety personnel several minutes to help Stewart get out of the car, and he was wincing in pain and favoring his right side when he finally made it through the window.
Stewart was taken directly to the hospital for evaluation. He was seen and released, and a team spokesman said he broke the tip of his right shoulder blade.
Stewart — who slipped to fourth in the standings, 209 points behind Jimmie Johnson — already was nursing a bruised right shoulder from a hard crash Saturday night in the Busch Series race that sent him to the hospital for X-rays. They were negative and Stewart was cleared to compete in the longest race on the NASCAR schedule.
“He’s going to be sore — it’s the same spot he hit last time,” team president J.D. Gibbs said. “There isn’t much you can do about it. He needs rest and need to take care of it, ice it, wrap it up real well.”
Crew chief Greg Zipadelli was concerned about Stewart’s health and stamina before the event began.
“They thought that he had chipped or cracked his scapula bone, but it wasn’t that, it was just a bad bruise and swollen,” Zipadelli said. “Like a cracked or bruised rib, it just takes time to heal.”
So the team put Mike Bliss on standby in case Stewart couldn’t make it to the end. With physically demanding tracks on the upcoming schedule, Zipadelli wants Stewart at full strength.
“We’ve got to look at the big picture right now, and the big picture is that we keep him healthy and in the top five in the points,” he said.
Miscommunication
Dale Jarrett’s race didn’t even last a full lap because of an apparently miscommunication with his new spotter.
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Jarrett apparently didn’t understand a command to “hold your line” and was hit from behind by Robby Gordon. It sent Jarrett spinning into the wall, and out of the race with a guaranteed 43rd-place finish.
He left the track without commenting.
It’s been a rough year for Jarrett, who is leaving RYR at the end of this season to drive a Toyota Camry for Michael Waltrip next season. His crew chief is serving a four-race suspension for an infraction found earlier this month in Richmond, Va., and the Yates organization appears to be in a current state of disarray.
Jarrett came into the race 12th in the standings.
Wind tunnel
Car owner Gene Haas said Sunday he plans to build a $40 million wind tunnel on property adjacent to the Concord Regional Airport.
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The rolling road will be 10.5 feet wide and 29.5 feet long and can accelerate from zero to 180 mph in less than a minute.
It will be the first wind tunnel in North Carolina, and the only one in the country with a rolling road system involving a continuous steel belt running under the vehicle to simulate the road beneath a car traveling on a speedway.
Pit stops
Veteran driver Mark Martin used the pre-race driver meeting to plead with his fellow competitors to show patience with a slippery track surface. ... NASCAR officials put a limit on air pressure adjustments before the start of the race, when they told teams they would only be allowed to tinker with the levels behind the pit road wall.
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