Monday, March 8, 2004 | 10:05 a.m.
Tony Stewart remained a fan of the new Goodyear tire following Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but he said the true test of NASCAR's new rules package may not come until next weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Stewart was unable to track down Matt Kenseth or hold off a charging Kasey Kahne in the closing laps when he wore out his tires and had to settle for a third-place finish.
"The tire that Goodyear brought has made this racing fun again," Stewart said. "You can't go out and just run real hard; that's how we lost second (place) to Kasey Kahne there.
"I busted the tires off trying to get by (Kevin) Harvick ... but the car was pretty good all day."
Although Sunday's race featured numerous passes for the lead -- last year's race had only one such on-track pass -- and 18 lead changes among 10 drivers, Stewart said he wasn't sure if NASCAR has hit on the right combination of softer tires and shorter rear spoilers.
"I think I'm going to wait one more week for sure to know," Stewart said. "This track has always been a track where the tires give up. I felt like I could race better with guys today than I was able to do in the past. It used to be that you could only get up so close and you were done; there was just nothing you could do.
"Today, you could move around on the racetrack a little more, you could do things driving-wise to keep yourself close. There were still times when Matt (Kenseth) had a straightaway lead on us and we had half-a-straightaway lead on third but as far as the guys in the pack, it seemed like you saw guys all day in groups that were a lot closer than what we've seen here with the other tires."
"A long green (flag period) at the end was just what the doctor ordered for this piece," Martin said. "We had a good, long-run setup in it. We struggled to get going on the restarts with all that traffic and those lapped cars racing so hard (but) it was really strong at the end of the run.
"It was easy to pass guys at the end, but we didn't get enough long runs. I knew (we were going to be strong). The race got going and I didn't know if we were going to get to show it because of all the cautions, but later on the pit crew started stepping it up and we started getting it done. They made it better and better as the day went on."
"We pulled out a top-10 finish but I think we really had a top-five car," Wallace said of his 10th-place finish. "We just need to work on our pit stops; we got way behind on one of them today.
"The guys did a great job giving me a good car but we've got to work on those pit stops if we're going to break this losing streak."
Elliott, driving the No. 91 Dodge that was racing on a chassis built by Evernham Motorsports, started 10th but battled an ill-handling car for most of the day.
"Our car was pretty decent," Elliott said. "Our team worked hard to make us competitive but we just couldn't get any traction. The new Evernham chassis was pretty good. We learned a lot about it, so we can go do some more work on it."
Elliott, who is running a limited schedule this season for team owner Ray Evernham, is scheduled to make his next start at Texas Motor Speedway on April 4.
Las Vegas native Kurt Busch moved up two spots, to fifth, on the strength of his second consecutive top-10 finish.
Matt Kenseth leads the standings while Tony Stewart is 88 points behind in second place.
Rookie Scott Wimmer tumbled 12 spots in the points, to 16th, as a result of his 39th-place finish Sunday.
The team, Hall of Fame Racing, has not yet landed a sponsor or named a driver.
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