Stewart aims for fifth Watkins Glen win

The two-time Sprint Cup champion claimed his record-matching fourth win at Watkins Glen last year, tying with Jeff Gordon for the most victories at the track. Another success this week would not only give him his first win of the season, but also a record fifth victory, which has not been achieved at the track by any driver in any series.

In the previous road-course race of the year at Sonoma, Stewart was running well until being involved in an incident in the closing stages. He feels that this week's race should give him a good shot at finally scoring his first win of the season.

"I feel like we're always a factor at both race tracks, but if you look at the history it seems like if we don't win at Sonoma, then we normally will follow it up with a really good run at Watkins Glen," Stewart says.

"If you look at the records, we're definitely a factor. In nine years, we've won four races. If you can't be counted as a factor after that, I don't know when they do count you as a factor.

"I feel that we're the guys that every time we go there, everybody has to pay attention to us in order to win. There are times we don't win, obviously, but we're still in the hunt every time."

Stewart has finished second three times since last year's event, the last of them last Sunday at Pocono Raceway, where the right strategy coupled with good pace allowed him to score some good points to help secure his top-12 place in the standings as the championship gets closer to the start of the Chase.

The JGR driver, now turned team-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, says neither him nor his team have changed their approach to races since they last won and believes the circumstances have been against them to prevent further trips to victory lane.

"It's not like we're not running well, because we are," Stewart says. "We've just had some circumstances that haven't gone our way. We tend to be a late-blooming team anyhow. We plan on doing the same thing we do every week, we're not changing our approach.

"Every week our goal is to win the race, and that's not going to change. That's how we've won two championships. If we go out and win the race, the points take care of themselves. It's always been that way and it always will be that way.

"We'll try to go out and win the race each weekend, and at the end of the day we'll look at the standings and see where we're at. If we don't win, we'll try to get as many points as possible."