Newman's Darlington finish a step on road back (cont'd)

Borland may be gone, but there are plenty of people still on the No. 12 team who remember that eight-win season, and what it was like being one of the elite operations in the sport. On Sunday at Darlington, they came close to ending a winless streak that stretches back to the 2005 Chase opener at New Hampshire International Speedway, a staggering 20 months and 55 race weekends ago.

"You'd have to be a halfwit not to have it wear on you," said Don Miller, president of Penske's NASCAR division and a mentor to Newman. "Our whole business is about performance. In two of the last five races we got a lap down because a caution came out. That didn't happen for five years, and then two in three weeks? But it's coming back. I think we've run well all year long. We didn't have the finishes to show for it. But I think we're going to start seeing the finishes come back. We just want to get in the top 12 and win a couple of races."

Lap-by-Lap

Jeff Gordon stayed out as Jimmie Johnson pitted, and despite driving an overheating car, held the lead en route to the victory at Darlington.

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Things are hopeful all around Penske's 424,000-square-foot shop in Mooresville, N.C., with Nextel Cup driver Kurt Busch following back-to-back top-fives with a 12th-place result Sunday at Darlington, and Helio Castroneves winning the pole for the Indianapolis 500. To the No. 12 team, the recent upswing is all about finishing the job -- something they weren't able to do at places like Daytona, California and Phoenix, where strong cars were wasted by accidents or failures.

"We've been running pretty damn good all season, and just didn't have anything to show for it," Miller said. "You go back to Daytona, we had one of the best cars there, and had a problem with the front end getting caved in and overheating. We ran really good at Phoenix, we ran really good at Richmond, we ran really good at California, but something always happened. So I'm not disappointed at all. It's coming back. We'll be OK."

But the process of getting there can be a humbling one for a team that fell so far so quickly.

"You deal with it like you deal with anything else," Miller said. "It's disheartening. But you've got to have faith in your team and faith in your guys and faith in your driver. I've been doing this for 35 years. You look at it and say, 'Why does it happen?' I don't know. Why does it happen to the other guys? It happens to everybody. You feel like you're not doing anything different, and yet you can't get your arms around it. It's like, here's the brass ring, and I just fell off the horse."

Sunday was another step toward climbing back on it. The next two weeks bring events at Lowe's Motor Speedway, traditionally one of Newman's stronger tracks despite the fact that he doesn't have a points victory there. And then comes Dover and another race in the Car of Tomorrow, a vehicle in which Newman has enjoyed some of his best runs this season.

"We've really built a lot of momentum," said crew chief Mike Nelson, the lead engineer in 2003. "There are a lot of guys who are still here form that eight-win season. It's just a confidence builder for them. They know they can do it. They know that we still have what it takes. The pit crew especially, they really did a great job [Sunday] of stepping up and gaining spots for us. So I think it's just a big momentum builder for a sleeping giant out there."

Sunday brought one more bonus for Newman -- a post-race hug from his mother Diane, one of 14 Nextel Cup driver mothers who gave the command to start engines in the Mother's Day event.

"It's Mother's Day, and I wanted to give my mom the best Mother's Day present possible," Newman said. "But I tried hard. She knows that."