LAT PHOTOGRAPHICRyan Newman gets a champagne shower after winning the Sprint Cup race in New Hampshire on Sunday.
By AL PEARCE on 7/17/2011
Chevrolet teammates Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart were 1-2 on the grid when Sunday afternoon's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 began at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Slightly more than three hours and almost 320 miles of racing later, they were still 1-2 but more nose-to-tail than side-by-side.
It wasn't nearly as simple as that, but the Stewart-Haas Racing drivers finished 1-2 for the first time in the two-plus years of the organization. Newman, in a Chevrolet sponsored by the Army, beat Stewart, in a Chevy sponsored by Office Depot, by almost three-quarters of a second. Newman led twice for 116 of the 301 laps (including the final 72), and Stewart led twice for 48.
NASCAR's 19th Sprint Cup race this season dissolved into a fuel-economy run down the stretch. Because of late-race fuel concerns, half a dozen drivers finished much worse than they'd run all afternoon. Third-place Denny Hamlin, in fact, admitted he was in such a conservation mode that he didn't even go after Stewart or Newman.
“Obviously, I was running down the 39 [Newman], but then crew chief [Mike Ford] was screaming to back off,” said Hamlin, who drives a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. “At that point, you think about risk versus reward. If we try to win, we get about 10 points more than if we coast and finish third. If we go for it and run out, we end up with minus 20 or 30 points. As bad as I wanted to race those guys, I had to make the smart move and finish the race.”
New England native Joey Logano finished fourth and five-time and defending series champion Jimmie Johnson was fifth. The rest of the top 10 were Kasey Kahne, Bobby Labonte, Martin Truex Jr., Marcos Ambrose and Kurt Busch. After running among the top five in the final laps, Jeff Gordon faded to 12th. Similarly, new points leader Carl Edwards went from a likely top-five finish to 13th because he slowed to save enough fuel to finish
The win was Newman's first this year (his 15th in 351 career starts) and the first this year for Stewart-Haas Racing.
“This is huge for us,” said Stewart, the team's lead driver and co-owner with Gene Haas. “It's no secret we've been struggling this year. It's been one of the weirdest years as far as weird things and bad luck happening to both of us. But this shows the depth of the people in our organization. That's probably what I'm most proud of.”
All told, 14 drivers led but only five of them for more than 10 laps. Busch led twice for 66 and Johnson and Gordon once each for 19. Logano, Kahne, Ambrose, Edwards, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Jamie McMurray, presumptive rookie of the year Andy Lally and Clint Bowyer divided the other 30 laps.
Newman and Stewart went to the grid confident that they had the cars to beat. They'd run well in all three practice sessions and qualified 1-2, another first for the organization. Except for a few rouge moments or during service stops, they stayed among the top 10 (and mostly in the top five) all afternoon.
“This was the perfect weekend to have Ryan on the pole and me on the front row, and to get our first 1-2,” Stewart said. “It's just an awesome day for Stewart-Haas Racing. These cars have been good. We just needed one weekend where we didn't have something stupid go wrong, and it happened for both of us today.”
Newman couldn't resist a slight dig at some who publicly acknowledged him as a great qualifier but not necessarily a great winner.
“From my standpoint it's just a great day,” he said. “We backed up what everybody said we couldn't back up, and that was our qualifying effort on Friday. I had won three for 46 [from the pole]; now it's four for 47.
“And this is huge for our team and even bigger for our organization. Let me say it this way: [Crew chief] Tony Gibson said before the race, ‘This is our race.' I wanted to tell him, ‘This is not our race until we make it our race . . . and we did. All the guys came together and made it happen.”
Gibson said he was sweating the final few laps, worried that his front-running car might run out of fuel or have to slow to finish.
“Our strategy was to stay up front and keep Ryan in clean air,” he said. “We knew if we could do that, we had a shot to win. We gave up track position the middle of the race to put on four tires. We had to do whatever we had to do to keep our track position.
“And he did an awesome job of saving fuel. I never believed we'd make it; we were definitely a solid two to three laps short. I was hounding him on the radio and I'm sure he got tired of hearing it. But he did an awesome job. He's done that several times for us over the past three or four years.
“It was time to showcase what he can do as far as driving and saving fuel. I'm glad I didn't chicken out on him today.”
RESULTS
1. Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 301 laps at 104.100 mph; 2. Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, 301; 3. Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 301; 4. Joey Logano, Toyota, 301; 5. Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 301; 6. Kasey Kahne, Toyota, 301; 7. Bobby Labonte, Toyota, 301; 8. Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, 301; 9. Marcos Ambrose, Ford, 301; 10. Kurt Busch, Dodge, 301;
11. Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 301; 12. A. J. Allmendinger, Ford, 301; 13. Carl Edwards, Ford, 301; 14. David Ragan, Ford, 301; 15. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 301; 16. Jeff Burton, Chevrolet, 301; 17. Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 301; 18. Greg Biffle, Ford, 301; 19. David Reutimann, Toyota, 301; 20.Matt Kenseth, Ford, 301;
21. Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 301; 22. Mark Martin, Chevrolet, 301; 23. J.J. Yeley, Ford, 301; 24. Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 301; 25. David Gilliland, Ford, 301; 26. Landon Cassill, Chevrolet, 300; 27. Scott Wimmer, Dodge, 300; 28. Andy Lally, Ford, 300; 29. Dave Blaney, Chevrolet, 300; 30. Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 300;
31. Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 300; 32. Mike Bliss, Ford, 299; 33. Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 298; 34. Brian Vickers, Toyota, 283; 35. Brad Keselowski, Dodge, 257; 36. Kyle Busch, Toyota, 224; 37. David Stremme, Chevrolet, 159 (engine); 38. Casey Mears, Toyota, 83 (brakes); 39. Erik Darnell, Chevrolet, 72 (brakes); 40. Michael McDowell, Toyota, 46 (brakes);
41. Joe Nemechek, Toyota, 37 (brakes); 42. Mike Skinner, Toyota, 17 (electrical); 43. Jeff Green, Ford, 11 (brakes)
TIME OF RACE: 3h 03m 33s
MARGIN OF VICTORY: 0.773s
PURSE: $5,202,458, winner's share: $268,050
POLE STARTER: Newman, 28.165s (135.232 mph)
PROVISIONALS: Wimmer
DID NOT QUALIFY: Tony Raines, Dennis Setzer and Scott Riggs
STARTED AT REAR: None
LEAD CHANGES: 21 among 14 drivers
CAUTION PERIODS: 10 for 44 laps
POINTS LEADERS: 1. Edwards, 652; 2. Johnson, -7; 3. Kurt Busch, -11; 4. Harvick, -15; 5. Kyle Busch, -20; 6. Kenseth, -26; 7. J. Gordon, -65; 8. Newman, -66; 9. Earnhardt, -75; 10. Hamlin, -82
NEXT: Indianapolis, July 31, (1 p.m. Eastern, ESPN)
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