Newman comes up short again, but sees big picture (cont'd)

"It's just the way it worked out," he said. "Obviously, we were four feet short, but there is no controversy about it. There was no way to get the race started back again. We felt like we had it all figured out until they called it."

Lap-by-Lap

Jeff Gordon and Steve Letarte looked to the skies for their gameplan at Pocono. See just how the No. 24 team played their cards perfectly to win.

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A debris caution on Lap 64 turned out to be the deciding factor. Knowing no one could make it to the halfway point without another stop, Newman and crew chief Mike Nelson went ahead and pitted for two tires and fuel, as did many of the lead-lap cars. However, Gordon rolled the dice and stayed on the track, taking the lead with Newman restarting seventh.

"[Gordon was] in position track position-wise to stay out and get some clean air," Newman said. "They did what they could. They did what they had to do. Their car was still fast enough to stay out front even when they were off sequence."

Even though Gordon pitted on Lap 83, handing the lead back to Newman, it was just a matter of time before the No. 12 would have to head down pit road -- which happened eight laps later. That put Gordon back in front with more than enough fuel to hang on, but struggling to get around Tony Raines.

That gave both Newman and third-place Martin Truex Jr. some hope that they could complete the pass before the rains came.

"The 96 [Raines] was holding the 24 [Gordon] up pretty good for both of us," Newman said. "Jeff cleared him in Turn 1 and I had a run on both of them coming off. It just wasn't quite enough by the time I got to Turn 2.

"Jeff saw the rain for the first time the lap the caution came out. He checked up because he didn't know how hard it was raining. I just kept the pedal to the metal and came up four feet short or whatever."

All in all, Newman was also pleased with the long-term view. With his second consecutive second-place finish, Newman advanced to 13th in the standings -- 22 behind Mark Martin for what would be the final spot in this season's Chase for the Nextel Cup.

"[The rain] was unfortunate for us, but looking back at this come Chase time, you can't kick about one spot, maybe two spots, I hope, when it comes to making the Chase," he said.