Last year's Sprint Cup Champion Tony Stewart started his winning ways early this year by winning  the Kobalt Tools 400 on Sunday. This was Stewart's first career victory at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. started out the first half of the race leading the first 43 laps. Jimmie Johnson showed why he has won 5 Sprint Cup championships by starting in the back of the pack in a back up car and 90 laps later was leading the race for a short time. Johnson had to use back up car because of a crash in practice earlier in the week.

By the 2nd half of the race it was all Tony Stewart. Brad Keselowski would give "Smoke" a run for his money with about 20 laps left but would spin the tires on a restart and lose valuable track position.

With 11 laps to go, Kurt Busch would cut a tire and spin out and crash then his brother Kyle would cut a left rear tire and spin out to cause a caution with 8 to go. Tony Stewart would survive all the restarts and take his first win of the 2012 season followed closely by Jimmie Johnson. Greg Biffle had another good outing finishing 3rd giving him the lead in the Sprint Cup Standings.  Ryan Newman and Carl Edwards rounded out the top 5.

Next week the Sprint Cup Series heads to Bristol for some short track racing. The Green flag drops about 12:30 on FOX.

 

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