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While fuel mileage remained a mystery for many teams, Newman conserved enough gas to hold off his teammate/owner, Tony Stewart, by 0.773 seconds at the line in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Newman was in the early stages of a burnout when he radioed to his crew, "That's it. She's out."
But the celebration didn't end there.
As Newman humbly acknowledged after ending a 24-race winless drought for Stewart Haas Racing, "This is huge for the team and even bigger for our organization.
"(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.'
"We did make it our race. All the guys came together and made it happen."
Considering that Newman entered New Hampshire Motor Speedway ninth in the points standings, it was imperative he bolster his 11-point cushion in the battle for a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Newman was able to accomplish that task by executing "the perfect weekend."
The team was fast right off the truck. Newman lived up to his moniker, Rocketman, by posting a pole-winning lap for the first time in 41 races. Then, for recreational purposes, Newman ran the Modified race on Saturday -- and won that event from the pole, too.
On Sunday, he used the benefit of the first pit stall to gain track position throughout the race. His final stop for fuel was on Lap 217 and Newman restarted sixth. After the ninth caution on Lap 230, Newman maneuvered past Clint Bowyer for the lead.
Although Stewart pitted nine laps later and had plenty of fuel to go to the finish, Newman skillfully held off his teammate to score his 15th career Sprint Cup victory and his third Cup win at New Hampshire. Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top five.
Despite Stewart closing in quickly on Newman, the driver says he was never "nervous."
"I'd rather have Stewart behind me than anybody else," Newman said. "I have a lot of respect for him. I know the way he races. If we were side by side coming to the checkered, we'd have smoke coming off the fenders . . . We're not going to crash each other, but that's the kind of guys we are.
"Looking in the mirror seeing that Mobil 1 Chevy was music in my ears. I know he's going to respect me, respect our situation. It never came down to it, but I'm glad that it didn't, but he was one I didn't mind seeing in my mirror."
The win also enabled Newman to leapfrog over Dale Earnhardt Jr. for eighth place in the points standings, 16 points inside the Chase group and 66 points behind leader Carl Edwards, who finished 13th Sunday. But the momentum Newman gains before heading to Indianapolis, his home track, for one of the most prestigious races of the season, will be invaluable.
With the Army sponsorship renewal on the line, this was also the perfect time to lock down a win for the sponsor that has supported the No. 39 car since the Stewart-Haas Racing organization debuted at Daytona in 2009.
Gibson has noticed a change in morale within the company. But despite Sunday's success, the veteran crew chief believes there's room for improvement.
"The biggest thing I've seen is the company as a whole pulling back together," Gibson said. "We're one team now. There for a while we were heading (in) two different directions. We've kind of put our arms around it here in the last month or so and said, 'If we're going to get this together, we have to pull together as one big team.' That's how we'll make ourselves stronger. We haven't fixed it, but we're on our way."
Staying tough Denny Hamlin's day went from disastrous to delightful as he recovered from a spin on Lap 171 to finish third at New Hampshire on Sunday.
Hamlin was running in the top 15 when a chain-reaction incident between Juan Pablo Montoya and AJ Allmendinger sent the No. 11 Toyota spinning in Turn 2. Although Hamlin restarted 31st on Lap 175, he fought through the field for a third-place finish to retain 10th place in the standings.
Hamlin said it was sheer "perseverance" from the Fed Ex team that triggered his comeback.
"They don't ever want to give up and they push me when I want to give up," Hamlin said. "It's just one of those days where we had to battle back, obviously. Third is a good day, but we just fought this car all day long and right there at the end we made one adjustment that really woke it up. Obviously, we were able to make moves there at the end toward the front."
Hamlin said crew chief Mike Ford was "screaming that we got to back off" because the car was right in the fuel window to make it to the finish. At that juncture, Hamlin knew the strategy was "risk versus reward."
"If we go out there and try to win the race, we get about 10 more points than what we get if we coast and get a third-place finish, or if we go for it and miss, run out of fuel, we end up with minus 20, 30 points.
"It's just risk-versus-reward racing with these fuel-mileage things. As bad as I wanted to go up there and race those guys, I had to make the smart move and finish the race."
The conservative route allowed Hamlin to maintain 10th place in the points standings. While he and Stewart have the same number of points, Hamlin's win at Michigan gives him the advantage.
Survivor: New Hampshire The Hendrick Motorsports driver took every challenge the Magic Mile presented its four drivers on Sunday and managed to survive.
Jimmie Johnson collided with Earnhardt earlier in the race, the pit crew missed a lug nut on Lap 217 that forced the No. 48 to return to pit road and on Lap 240, he spun out all by himself. Still, Johnson managed to finish fifth and jumped from fifth to second in the standings, seven points behind Edwards.
Earnhardt showed signs of brilliance Sunday. But his in-race issues ranged from tire and engine issues to contact with competitors to pit-stop woes. Earnhardt was forced to start at the end of the lead-lap cars on Lap 244, restarted 33rd and gained 18 positions in the final 67 laps to finish 15th. He dropped to ninth in points.
Mark Martin led three circuits starting on Lap 62 but blew a tire on Lap 184 to bring out the seventh caution at NHMS. NASCAR then penalized the No. 5 car for pitting too early, dropping it out of the top 30 in running order. He eventually finished 22nd.
Jeff Gordon did everything but wreck the No. 24 Chevrolet. Although electrical issues plagued Gordon's car throughout the race, he still led 19 laps and remained a contender until the last lap when he blew out a right front tire.
"Oh, my goodness," Gordon said. "What didn't happen today? It was a pretty crazy day for us. But certainly a lot to smile about with how great our car was. My goodness, the car was so good. I could tell at the beginning of the race that we just had to be patient and try to get track position.
"I thought that (crew chief) Alan (Gustafson) made some great calls there when we took four (tires) and others took two; it was a little risky, but it really paid off for us. That got us a big lead. I think all we really had to do was maintain that toward the front and I think that the results might be a little bit different today.
"But that's what you have to do. You have to survive these races in a lot of different ways and we had a lot of obstacles thrown at us with the alternator issue, which caused me to have to turn my A/C off and brake blowers, which probably ultimately blew that right front tire there at the end."
Gordon salvaged an 11th-place finish and remained seventh in the points standings. He called the day "challenging," but the organization set a solid baseline for the Chase race in September.
"We're excited about coming back here later in the year to this racetrack," Gordon said. "Our car was fast.
"From a performance standpoint I think today we showed everybody what we're capable of doing -- and for that I'm very excited. I know the guys feel really bad about the issues that we had, but it was a great lesson for us to go through this and understand how to deal with it and how we reacted to it."
Numbers game 22: Years since an organization had teams start and finish first and second.
13: Different winners in Sprint Cup this season.
119: Laps led by winner Ryan Newman
Say what? Crew chief Tony Gibson on his driver Ryan Newman:
"Look, there's no neck here," he said, grabbing Newman. "It's connected. He reminds me of Cale Yarborough. He sits in a car, he's like this. He's a physical guy. He gives you 150 percent every lap whether we're five laps down, a lap down, 10th, fifth. He's physically and mentally in the game. There's nobody I'd rather have in my race car with 10 to go if he can see the leader because we have a shot to win it. He went from seventh to fourth in a lap. We know when Ryan Newman is in there we have a shot. The biggest thing he contributes is his driving ability, his mental ability, keeping us headed in the right direction."
Source: http://network.yardbarker.com/all_sports/article_external/newmans_win_builds_team_confidence/5585275
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