RICHMOND, Va. — Tony Stewart picked track position over new tires with 35 laps to go Thursday night. He just barely made it pay off.

        Taking the lead when Kevin Harvick and the other four leaders pitted for tires, Stewart took a big lead and held off the hard-charging Harvick to win the Virginia Is For Lovers 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

        “We basically ran our race knowing we had made our last pit stop with 104 laps to go,” Stewart said after winning in only his second start in the series, and keeping Harvick 0-for-74 in his truck racing career.

        Stewart had pitted for tires and fuel under caution on the 96th lap and decided along with the crew of his Andy Petree-owned Chevrolet to run in clean air as much as possible and plan not to return to the pits again.

        “The truck was awesome,” the Winston Cup star said. “It wasn't a surprise when we were able to get to the lead that we were also able to hold those guys off.”

        It almost didn't work out that way.

        Stewart's strategy was challenged one last time when Adam Clarke spun in Turn 4 with just over eight laps to go, bringing out the eighth caution of the night and setting up a five-lap dash to the checkered flag.

        At the time, David Starr was second, series points leader Mike Bliss was third and Harvick was fourth with the fastest truck on the track.

        Harvick pulled alongside Bliss on the first lap of green and passed him with three to go. The Winston Cup driver nudged Starr out of the way in Turn 3 with two to go and tried to go after Stewart, but the winner of three Winston Cup races here held on to win by 0.259 seconds.

        “This is getting old, running second,” Harvick said.

        Bliss finished third, followed by Rick Crawford, Terry Cook and Coy Gibbs. Bliss added 10 points and now leads Cook by 44 points in the championship race. Crawford moved into third, followed by Ted Musgrave.

        The final lap also was marred by a spectacular crash in Turns 1 and 2. The accident started when Bobby Hamilton and Starr got together, and at least three other trucks got caught in it trying to pass.

        Hamilton was taken to a hospital as a precaution after the race complaining of a sore right shoulder, left wrist and other aches.

        Bliss was in the thick of the late battle for the lead, but when he saw how much Stewart and Harvick were battling, he decided to protect his standing in the points race and thought, “You guys just go ahead.”

        Earlier, pole-sitter Jason Leffler got a taste of that, too.

        He led the first 85 laps, but lost the lead coming out of a caution on the front stretch. Harvick, running third, tried to squeeze under Leffler's Dodge, and Crawford, running second, went under Harvick.

        Crawford led the next 59 laps, but never by much.

        Harvick finally went against the wall at the start-finish line, passed Crawford on the outside and quickly began weaving through traffic.

        During the duel for the lead, Stewart surged to seventh place after a series of bad pit stops had put him deep in the field. But Stewart's climb stopped there, for a time, as he was unable to get higher than sixth.

        Then came the crash on lap 165, the caution, and the finish.

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