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Pass with two laps to go gives Stewart IROC victory

DAYTONA BEACH -- Tony Stewart is getting comfortable at Daytona International Speedway.

Who would have thought?

Stewart, who grew up racing open-wheel midgets on tiny Indiana dirt tracks, has newfound confidence steering stock cars around the 2.5-mile superspeedway. Any kind of stock car.

Stewart won the International Race of Champions opener Friday, deftly passing the series' all-time winner, open-wheel star Al Unser Jr., with two laps to go.

"I'm gaining more confidence every day, I can tell you that," said Stewart, competing in his fourth IROC series. "I hope I'm not gaining so much confidence that it's going to turn around and bite me."

A contender for the 2002 Winston Cup championship, Stewart is having a busy week.

He won the Budweiser Shootout all-star race Sunday and finished second in his 125-mile qualifying race on Thursday. He starts sixth in Sunday's Daytona 500. Several open-wheel stars made strong showings in IROC, which puts 12 drivers from various forms of motorsports in identically prepared Pontiac Firebirds.

Indy Racing League champions Sam Hornish Jr. and Scott Sharp were second and third, respectively. Unser, who hopes to land a full-time IRL ride this season, was fifth.

"Today the IRL shined," said Unser, in his 15th IROC series and tied with the late Dale Earnhardt with 11 victories. "I would have had to wreck the car to stay in front of Tony."

In his fifth season driving stock cars, Stewart is applying techniques he learned from the Daytona master.

Earnhardt won 34 races of various forms at Daytona, the most by any driver.

"It's hard to learn when you're on lesson 1-A and he's on 3-C and you're trying to catch up," said Stewart, yet to win a Winston Cup points race at Daytona. "He was teaching us by beating us, and now we get a chance to apply what we've learned. I feel comfortable trying things."

At Daytona, of all places.

DRIVER CHARGED: NASCAR driver Samuel Potashnick faces charges of illegally possessing cocaine and prescription drugs after what authorities say was a near head-on collision with a Flagler County sheriff's deputy.

Potashnick, second last year in the Winston West series, was arrested Thursday and released on $10,000 bail, authorities said.

The 27-year-old from Sikeston, Mo., was driving on the wrong side of the road after 4:30 a.m. when a patrol car spotted him and had to swerve to avoid a crash, according to a police report. The deputy pulled him over and found crack cocaine hidden inside a pack of cigarettes and four hydrocodone pills.

FORMULA ONE: Ferrari will start the season with the same car it used to win its third straight constructors championship last year. Ferrari decided to use the F2001 March7 at the Australian Grand Prix though the F2002 set two track records at Fiorano in Italy during testing.

- Information from Times wires was used in this report.

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