It was all about the fuel as Tony Stewart won Monday for the 5th time at Watkins Glen!

Stewart held off “road course ace” Marcos Ambrose over the final 20 laps of the race, but with 2 to go, Smoke was gone -- finishing 2.969 seconds ahead of Ambrose.

(Photo Credit: Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“I wasn’t worried (regarding fuel mileage),” Stewart said. “From what I understood, I didn’t need to be concerned about it.  Under the green, I think we were more about it if we had a ‘green white checkered’ at the end where we had to run a bunch of laps.  Darian (car chief) can tell you better than I can.  From what I understood, we were good to the end.”

Crew chief Darian Grubb agreed, “Yeah, we should have had about a lap or so cushion to make it to lap 90.”

Starting 13th, Stewart first took the lead on lap 46 of the scheduled 90 laps and led twice for a race-high 34 laps. It was Stewart’s 36th career win and 3rd this season.

With the win, Stewart padded his lead in the point standings to 260 points over 2nd place Jimmie Johnson.

Is he a lock-in for his 3rd championship?

“I’m not sure I feel like we’re a dominant contender yet,” Stewart said during his post-race interview. “It’s hard because there’s so many good teams.  The 48, the 24, the 11, they’ve been really, really strong here in the last couple weeks. I think those are the three guys that we’re worried about the most right now.  But I think, you know, if you look at the past in the Chase here, I don’t think that you can count anybody out that’s gonna make the Chase.  They’re strong and there’s a reason they got there.  I don’t think at any point you can really count anybody out ’til mathematically they’re getting behind.”

Saturday’s Nationwide Series race winner, Marcos Ambrose held on for a runner-up finish, his series-best.

“We missed it just a little bit,” said Ambrose. “I thought our car in practice on Saturday was better than what we had today. It was on the edge the whole time. If I had the perfect line — did everything just right — I could get away with it. But the track was slick. We were slightly aggressive on our setup for it. We didn’t really get a chance to tune on it, either. I think we only changed a quarter-pound of tire pressure all day because we were pitting under green and didn’t have time to do anything to it.”

Carl Edwards was 3rd followed by Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch, Max Papis, Clint Bowyer and Denny Hamlin completing the top-10.

Max Papis ran out of fuel and had to be pushed back to the garage. Papis finished a career-best 8th.

Kyle Busch remains 13th in the standings, but gained a little ground after his 4th-place finish. He went 101 points to 58 outside the top-12 that will become eligible for The Chase For The Sprint Cup.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here.

There were 5 cautions for 13 laps including a major accident involving Jeff Gordon, Sam Hornish Jr., Kasey Kahne, Joey Logano, Jeff Burton and Andy Lally causing a 19-minute and 35-second red flag delay.

Gordon finished 37th.

There were 12 lead changes among 7 drivers: J. Johnson 0; Kurt Busch 1-19; M. Ambrose 20-27; Kurt Busch 28; M. Ambrose 29; J. Johnson 30-33; Kyle Busch 34-45; T. Stewart 46-55; Kurt Busch 56-58; D. Stremme 59; S. Speed # 60-63; Kyle Busch 64-66; T. Stewart 67-90

Rain started to fall at the conclusion of the race. Perfect timing.