Second has Stewart happy to keep digging for Chase

Tony Stewart smiling after a second-place finish is the surest sign he's at peace with his current situation while NASCAR charges toward the fifth annual Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.

Stewart, a prohibitive favorite on Sunday to win his fifth Cup race at Watkins Glen International, could only chase his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Kyle Busch, across the finish line in the Centurion Boats at The Glen.

It was Busch's eighth victory of the season and had Stewart experiencing déjà vu -- but also a lot of respect.

Centurion at The Glen
Official Results

Pos. Driver Make

1. Kyle Busch Toyota
2. Tony Stewart Toyota
3. Marcos Ambrose Ford
4. Juan Montoya Dodge
5. Martin Truex Jr. Chevrolet
6. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet
7. Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet
8. Denny Hamlin Toyota
9. Carl Edwards Ford
10. Kurt Busch Dodge

• Results | Points | Lap-by-Lap
• Race Videos | Photo Gallery"I can remember years where we finished second or third and I went home the most miserable person on the face of earth because I felt like we should have won the race," the two-time Cup champion Stewart said. "It makes a [winless] year like this for us -- it makes you respect those years that you have runs like [Busch's] and you have strings where you're in Victory Lane a lot."

Stewart's victory drought has now stretched to 36 races dating to this event in 2007. Even though he missed his chance at a venue where many felt he was a sure thing, he wasn't upset.

"I'm pretty happy with [the day], it was pretty uneventful from our side and we didn't have any big dramas in the race," Stewart said. "The red [flag] there at the end kind of killed us but I'm really happy with the day. I'm proud of Kyle and how he ran, and I saw behind us that Denny [Hamlin, teammate who finished eighth] was having a good day, too, so I'm really proud of the whole organization. It was a good day for us." (Video: Strong day for JGR)

It was far from a good day for the nine drivers that were involved in a brutal crash with seven laps to go that caused a 43-minute, five-second red flag to clear the debris and wrecked cars (read more). Stewart's chances, he said, were wrecked as well.

"The thing that hurt us at the end was just the [length of] the red flag," Stewart said. "That cooled the tires down and dropped the air pressures and it seemed like we were a little bit low on the left-front tire and it seemed like when the pressures were low it really hooked the front-end to the right. But even if we got that fixed, I'm not sure we would have been fast enough to beat Kyle."

It was the second time in Busch's league-leading eight victories this season Stewart's finished second, but he said his No. 20 Toyota was as good as he and his team could make it.

And that fact, along with unofficially moving up two spots in the Sprint Cup standings to seventh and stretching his advantage over 12th-place Matt Kenseth to 116, was enough for this weekend, which leaves four races until the cutoff for the Chase.