Newman's Darlington finish a step on road back

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- When the 500 fast, physical miles at Darlington Raceway finally ended with Ryan Newman's third consecutive top-10 finish, there were no exultations or whoops of celebration over the radio. There were only a few muted congratulations, and one hoarse, tired voice.

"I need some Gatorade, please," the driver asked his crew.

Ryan Newman

2007 results

Site	Start	Finish
Daytona	16	38
Fontana	19	12
Las Vegas	39	8
Atlanta	1	23
Bristol	22	39*
Martinsville	24	14*
Texas	20	32
Phoenix	19	38*
Talladega	28	9
Richmond	30	6*
Darlington	29	4*

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With good reason. The grudge work of rebuilding Penske Racing's once-great No. 12 team continued Sunday, when Newman came close to ending a victory drought nearly two years in length. He led 39 laps, stood second behind eventual race-winner Jeff Gordon on a restart with 13 remaining, and held on for a fourth-place finish. Newman's best result since this past October capped a three-week run that's seen him jump from 26th to 14th in Nextel Cup standings.

"Our guys are doing a great job," he said. "The Hendrick guys are obviously at the top, but we're showing what we're capable of. We've just got to keep following through. It's not championship Chase right now, it's working our way to it. So let's just keep working on it, keep building on it."

Newman limped home on old tires, following Gordon's lead and staying out of the pits when David Stremme's engine expired and dumped oil on the track with 17 laps remaining. He restarted second, but with seven laps left was overtaken by Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who had each stopped for fresh rubber and restarted further back. But fourth was continued progress for a team that had finished ninth April 29 at Talladega and sixth at Richmond last week.

How close is Newman to winning? "It's going in the right direction," he said. "It's just a matter of time, in my opinion."

Winning is something the Penske organization, and Newman's team in particular, once did with regularity. The No. 12 outfit won a series-high eight races in 2003, the high-water mark of a stretch that saw Newman finish seventh or better in final championship points in four consecutive seasons. Now, after separating with longtime crew chief Matt Borland and missing the Chase for the Nextel Cup last season, it's time to regroup.

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."