Sunoco Pit Move: M'ville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- The Chase for the Nextel Cup was of no consequence to Ryan Newman in Sunday afternoon's Subway 500 at Martinsville; only winning the race was.

And while Newman proved his spunk by shoving championship leader Jeff Gordon aside with little more than five laps remaining in the original race distance to grab second place, it was a decision by crew chief Mike Nelson on the No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge's final pit stop that put Newman in a position to possibly break a 77-race winless skein.

Coming to the white flag, Newman took advantage of a slip by leader Jimmie Johnson in Turn 3 to pull up to Johnson's left-rear quarter panel at the start-finish line; but a race record 21st caution, for a spin by David Ragan in Turn 1 aborted the green-white-checkered finish that extended the race to 506 laps and secured Johnson's seventh win of the season.

"It was nice to get to the finish line running the way we deserved to be -- or at least to show the effort we were deserving of," Newman said. "Either way, it's not the exact finish that we wanted, but we'll move on."

On Sunday, Newman said even before Nelson's strategic gem, his team had made great strides.s

"We weren't a very good car [Saturday] in practice at any point," Newman said. "We made some changes that worked and the guys did a good job."

Newman had started 12th, but fell back as far as 25th just before halfway in the 500-lap race before he began a march toward the front. His crew made a four-tire stop at about Lap 342, when Newman was in the middle of the top 10.

A little more than 50 laps later, Nelson called for a two-tire stop that elevated Newman to second behind Gordon, and just ahead of Johnson.

"The two tires was definitely a great call, strategy-wise to get us track position," Newman said. "It was tough -- those guys are tough. At one point I think they [three Hendrick Motorsports cars] were all in the top three. You look at that and you think, 'man, I just have to run fourth today at best.'

"It's nice to be able to bounce back and do a little hard racing, come in second and have a shot at the win on the last lap."

Immediately after the race, Gordon and Newman discussed the exchange of paint on pit road, but Newman dismissed it as inconsequential, more than once.

"We had a little bump-and-run there with the 24 [Gordon]," Newman said. "That is something that has happened to me in the past so I didn't feel that bad giving it to him. In the end it was a good finish for us."

And it was a good show for the fans, who saw a non-Chase driver display no mercy to the two leaders of the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Newman said the fact that Gordon and Johnson are contenders for the championship had no bearing whatsoever on the way he'd race them this weekend, or any other time.

"That doesn't matter to me," Newman said. "In my opinion I'm a championship driver and just because I had some bad luck this year [and didn't make the Chase] doesn't mean I should change the way I race for guys that are going for the Cup.

"It's all about winning the race. [Gordon] would have done the same thing to me as I did to him -- we've done it before -- but we'll keep going and it will all be good."

The number of restarts at the end of the race played to his favor, Newman said, but he just ran out of time.

"We were better on restarts than those guys were," Newman said. "They took about eight laps to get going and ours was good right at the restarts. We had two tires versus four tires and were at a little bit of a disadvantage there [but] the restarts kind of equalized our situation.

"From a fan standpoint it might have been a little boring [but] in the end I think they saw a competitive race with two cars running side-by-side for a good finish.

"In hindsight, if our two-tire strategy would have got us out first, I think we could have held off Gordon and had the 24 and 48 [Johnson] race and we would've been sitting real pretty -- but that's all behind us, now."