After recording his highest finish since collecting the silver at Atlanta in the fourth week of the season, Stewart could not be happier about finishing in second place.

Stewart who usually expects a finish no lower than first every week, considered his effort to be a win for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team.

“When you get in a slump like we’ve been in this year, when you have had nine years of success, it’s easy to take it for granted,” Stewart said. “Days like today remind you how much you appreciate having a good day.”

"I'm really happy with the way it ended up, obviously," an excited Stewart remarked. "I mean, for us, that's a win. It seemed like our car was an eighth-to-10th-place car the majority of the day. I think the track tightened up a lot during the red. Seemed like our car got better from that point on. We were too loose up to that point."

Crew chief of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Toyota, Greg Zipadelli, notes that the finish was a relief to the team. Zipadelli stated that they simply tried to make adjustments to the car in order to place Stewart in a position to compete, and at the end of the race they were able to achieve that goal.

“It’s a huge relief – I almost feel like we won,” Zipadelli said. “We had a good race car at the end. That is more important than our fuel mileage or our strategy was we had a car that could run with all the guys that beat our butt last week and beat our butt most of the first half of this race. We made a lot of adjustments on it.”

Stewart does not neglect any credit to Zipadelli.

“It’s hard to discipline yourself to [conserve fuel], and it’s a lot easier when you’ve got Zippy on the pit box screaming at you every lap to save fuel,” Stewart said. “He knows what the situation is and he got us where we needed to be today.”