Adding to the prestige of this weekend’s penultimate race before the start of NASCAR’s 2016 Chase for the Sprint Cup playoffs, the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) Chevrolet SS will carry a red-and-gold Coca-Cola paint scheme honoring the 1971 and 1972 racecars driven by Bobby Allison in back-to-back victories at Darlington.
“Winning the Southern 500 is a goal of anyone who ever races in NASCAR,” Stewart said. “We’ve been fortunate enough to win a lot of races and championships, but I’m not going to lie – taking home the trophy from the Southern 500 would be really cool, especially in a really cool car.”
The “cool car” he refers to is part of throwback weekend at Darlington, when teams will honor the NASCAR heritage with special paint schemes and uniforms. Nearly every car in the field will sport a throwback paint scheme. The No. 14 crew will wear 1970s-styled, red-and-white Coca-Cola pants throughout the three-day Darlington weekend.
Stewart’s car will also be emblazoned with Coca-Cola’s tagline of that era, “The Real Thing.” The authentic look from Allison’s race-winning cars have been recreated for Stewart’s Chevrolet this weekend, right down to the gold wheels and cubic-inch displacement boast on the hood. Allison dominated from start to finish in both the 1971 and 1972 races at the 1.366-mile oval. He started from the pole each time and led 558 of the 734 laps available – 76 percent – in the two races. He paced the field for all but 38 laps in the 1971 Southern 500 and led a race-high 229 laps in the 1972 Southern 500. The victories were the first of five premiere series wins Allison earned at Darlington.
“(Allison) was fierce in a racecar,” said Stewart, who remembers watching Allison at a dirt race in Scottsburg, Indiana as a youngster. “You knew that if he was out there, you were going to have to be on your game to beat him that day.”
Five hundred miles at Darlington is normally tough under any circumstances but, for Stewart, “The Track Too Tough To Tame” and Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, added to the schedule in 2011, are the only venues on the Sprint Cup circuit where he has yet to win. He owns a career-best third-place finish in the 2009 and 2012 Southern 500s. He posted four top-five finishes and 12 top-10s and has led a total of 30 laps in his 23 career Sprint Cup starts at Darlington. His average Darlington start is 17.5, his average finish is 12.0, and he has a lap-completion rate of 99.1 percent. One of Stewart’s 11 career Xfinity Series victories came at Darlington on May 9, 2008.
Stewart announced in November that 2016 would be his final season as a full-time Sprint Cup Series driver. He missed the first eight races of the season after sustaining a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra in a Jan. 31 all-terrain-vehicle accident. Brian Vickers and Ty Dillon filled in during his absence. Stewart’s first race in 2016 didn’t occur until April 24 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway. With rookie crew chief Mike Bugarewicz, Stewart has surpassed preseason predictions, winning at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway in June and racing at the front of the field nearly every race since. In the last 10 races, Stewart has scored the fifth-most points of any driver. His 21st-place finish at Michigan Sunday clinched a spot in the Chase, which begins Sept. 18 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois.
Stewart said the next two races are important to Chase preparation for himself, as well as his SHR teammates Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch, who have clinched Chase berths, as well.
“You want to be peaking at that time,” Stewart said. “It’s never that you go to the track and you’re like, ‘Well, we don’t want to peak this weekend, so we’re not going to try to win the race.’ That’s not the scenario you put yourself in. You want to have momentum, you want your team guys to feel like they’re building on something and feel like they’re getting to the top of the pile.
“I feel like we’re in a position like that. Kevin and Kurt are both running well each week, our car has been getting better and better each week, as well. Until the last two races, we were knocking out top-fives left and right here and, if we can have that kind of consistency again, that could carry us a long way in the Chase."
TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Coca-Cola Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing:
What is your first memory of Bobby Allison?
“I can’t remember what I had for lunch most days, but it was at Scottsburg, Indiana. They ran Late Models, Street Stocks and Bombers, or something like that, that night. It was him in a Coke-sponsored car. He was running around the bottom the whole time. I was yelling, ‘Run the top.’ I wanted to see him run the top once. But he was set up for the bottom, I’m sure, and I remember he ran eighth. That was probably 30 to 35 years ago, but I can remember it. I knew Bobby because he was a NASCAR driver. My family, we barely could afford to race the go-karts we were racing, let alone go do something else, so I went with a buddy of mine. I didn’t know Bobby was going to be there that day. But out front of the racetrack, on the marquee, it said Bobby Allison was racing and the date, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s going to be cool.’”
What are your thoughts on Darlington?
“Races at Darlington have been pretty tough for me. We’ve had some decent runs there, but it just seems like you really have to put everything together the whole day. If you can say you won a race at Darlington, that’s a feather in your cap because you conquered something that’s very difficult to obtain. That’s something to be proud of, knowing that you’re in a group of drivers with names like Allison and Pearson and Petty, the pioneers of our sport.”
BOBBY ALLISON, NASCAR Hall of Famer:
What are your thoughts after seeing the No. 14 Coca-Cola Chevrolet SS?
“Those red-and-gold Coca-Cola cars were very good to me. From 1970 through 1975, Coca-Cola was on my car and we won a lot of races. We won 11 races in ’71 – the most I ever had in a single season – and then we came back to win 10 more in ’72. And that first win at Darlington, it was such a tough track and such a long race, it meant so much. Tony Stewart is a real racer who would’ve fit right in during the time I raced in NASCAR. He’s a perfect fit for this Coca-Cola Chevy. I know what car I’ll be watching in the Southern 500.”
Tony Stewart Darlington Record
| Year | Event | Start | Finish | Status/Laps | Laps Led | Earnings |
| 2015 | Southern 500 | 17 | 15 | Running, 367/367 | 10 | $125,249 |
| 2014 | ×Southern 500 | 23 | 9 | Running, 374/374 | 0 | $136,873 |
| 2013 | Southern 500 | 20 | 15 | Running, 367/367 | 0 | $139,855 |
| 2012 | ×Southern 500 | 17 | 3 | Running, 368/368 | 0 | $209,415 |
| 2011 | ×Showtime Southern 500 | 9 | 7 | Running, 370/370 | 6 | $141,758 |
| 2010 | Showtime Southern 500 | 24 | 23 | Running, 366/367 | 5 | $116,923 |
| 2009 | Southern 500 | 18 | 3 | Running, 367/367 | 1 | $171,696 |
| 2008 | Dodge Challenger 500 | 4 | 21 | Running, 366/367 | 0 | $125,061 |
| 2007 | Dodge Avenger 500 | 26 | 6 | Running, 367/367 | 0 | $145,961 |
| 2006 | Dodge Charger 500 | 13 | 12 | Running, 367/367 | 0 | $133,386 |
| 2005 | ×Dodge Charger 500 | 15 | 10 | Running, 370/370 | 0 | $131,586 |
| 2004 | Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 | 8 | 17 | Running, 293/293 | 1 | $101,118 |
| Mountain Dew Southern 500 | 6 | 17 | Running, 366/367 | 0 | $109,678 | |
| 2003 | Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 | 28 | 10 | Running, 293/293 | 0 | $103,158 |
| Mountain Dew Southern 500 | 20 | 12 | Running, 367/367 | 0 | $109,503 | |
| 2002 | Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 | 36 | 36 | Accident, 225/293 | 7 | $83,233 |
| Mountain Dew Southern 500 | 4 | 8 | Running, 367/367 | 0 | $100,528 | |
| 2001 | †Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 | 14 | 16 | Running, 293/293 | 0 | $53,735 |
| Mountain Dew Southern 500 | 33 | 4 | Running, 367/367 | 0 | $93,900 | |
| 2000 | Mall.com 400 | 9 | 4 | Running, 293/293 | 0 | $68,230 |
| *Pepsi Southern 500 | 29 | 9 | Running, 328/328 | 0 | $55,735 | |
| 1999 | *TranSouth Financial 400 | 10 | 6 | Running, 164/164 | 0 | $44,240 |
| *Pepsi Southern 500 | 19 | 12 | Running, 270/270 | 0 | $46,620 |
* Race cut short due to weather.
× Race length extended due to green-white-checkered finish.
† Qualifying canceled due to weather, starting position set via car owner points.
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