LOUDON, N.H. -- If misery loves company, Joe Gibbs Racing's Tony Stewart had to pick up a few thousand more fans after Sunday's rain-whacked Lenox Industrial Tools 301.

Because after Stewart dominated nearly half of the event, leading 132 of its ultimate 284 laps, threatening rain clouds and the even more ominous specter of fuel strategy reared up and bit his No. 20 Toyota team.

From what appeared to be a certain first- or second-place finish, Stewart was relegated to 13th; but to Stewart's credit, as he sat in his car awaiting the race-ending call and wearing a clay-like mask of despair, he calmly addressed the situation.

“

It's just been the oddest year I've ever seen for this team. I don't know how to put it into words right now. It's just one of those years where everything that can go wrong goes wrong.

”

TONY STEWART

"I guarantee you there's a crew chief down there that they're hiding sharp objects from right now," Stewart said of his pit boss, Greg Zipadelli. "He gave me the best car I've had since Charlotte. It's just frustrating. There's not anybody that's going to tell you any different than that.

"It's just been the oddest year I've ever seen for this team. I don't know how to put it into words right now. Everybody's worked hard -- it's not for a lack of effort by anybody on this Home Depot racing team by any means."

Stewart achieved a personal milestone by crossing the 10,000-laps-led plateau in his career, but it was little consolation; same as at the Coca-Cola 600 he mentioned earlier, where a sure victory with less than five laps remaining disappeared thanks to a flat tire.

"It's just one of those years where everything that can go wrong goes wrong," Stewart said. "We've had years where we couldn't do anything wrong, too. It's part of racing."

If not for Gibbs teammate Denny Hamlin's crew chief Mike Ford and his opportunistic move that salvaged an eighth-place finish for the event's defending champion, JGR might've been in a position to pick up tens of thousands of new supporters.

When the race's sixth caution flew at Lap 273, Stewart had a couple tenths of a second lead over Jimmie Johnson. As good as Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet looked, it wasn't certain who would've prevailed in the battle of the two former New Hampshire winners.

It was here where three veins of strategy popped up. Eight cars, led by eventual race winner Kurt Busch's No. 2 Dodge, had pitted earlier within their fuel windows and now they stayed out to establish track position. Five more cars took fuel only and lined up behind Hamlin, from ninth to 13th. And everyone after Stewart in 14th took some combination of fuel and tires.

The race restarted and only two laps later, the seventh and final caution flew for a clash in Turn 3 between Chase contender Clint Bowyer and rookie Sam Hornish Jr.

That locked Hamlin into eighth and Stewart in 13th.

"We knew it was coming. If we stayed out we were going to have to pit right about this time so it was going to be a gamble," Hamlin said. "Everyone we're chasing in points is behind us anyway so congratulations to the guys that figured this rain out just right."

Ford took the situation in stride.

"You've just got to ask yourself, how many times has the best car won this year? I don't know of many," Ford said. "You've got to juggle the elements and make the best of it, and we made the best of what we had.

"You've got to play the percentages. I dang near stayed out there, figuring that the rain was pretty close. We'd have been three [laps] short of running out on fuel if we had stayed out -- but we'd have won the race. But it's risk versus reward, and we had more to lose at that point. You can't control these elements. You make the most of it and you guess -- that's what it is." (Continued)