Notes: Newman had win, then lost it just as quick

CONCORD, N.C. -- With his first victory in 75 races staring him straight in the face, Ryan Newman ran into trouble in Turn 2. He ended the night not in Victory Lane, but in the garage, wondering what went wrong.

"It's disappointing, to be that close to your first win in that many races, and it's tough to swallow," a subdued Newman said in the garage area. "But when you go out on top, there's no better way."

Lap-by-Lap

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Don Miller, who co-owns Penske South Racing with Roger Penske, shook his head.

"He thought he might have had a tire go down, but with all four of them burned down to the ground, it's hard to tell."

Newman was convinced. "We blew a left-rear tire out," he said. "I couldn't tell if it felt a little spongy before, but obviously the car was plenty fast. We were running away from them after Gordon's little slip there on the restart.

"It blew a left rear and spun around. I felt it pop and it spun around."

Goodyear engineers said later that the tire did not go down, and was still up when the Alltel Dodge limped to the garage area with three laps to go.

Newman made the move of the year on the previous restart with five to go, closing on the high side while Jeff Gordon struggled to get going, trapping Kyle Busch and Clint Bowyer down low in an effort to avoid the sputtering DuPont Chevrolet.

"I went around the outside of the 07 [Bowyer] and the door opened up when the 24 and the 5 checked up on the bottom. It was a great coincidence for me ... it was a good situation for us that turned bad about two laps later."

He sailed off to a good-sized lead before the accident took him down. He finished 28th.

Down and out

It was more bad news for the Chasers at the bottom of the standings on Saturday night as Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Denny Hamlin were all bitten in one form or another.

Just 29 laps into the race, Harvick thought he had a right-rear tire going down and came down pit road under green on Lap 32. That cost him two laps, and then he had to come back when the new shoes didn't make the car feel any better. The crew changed all four tires, and it turned out that a left rear was down.

He wound up 33rd at the finish, seven laps down.

Kurt Busch was another victim of circumstance. Pitting on Lap 190, Busch took fuel only and collided with Mark Martin while leaving the box. That damaged the right front of the car, and the subsequent pit stop to fix it dropped him all the way to 24th.

After a pit stop on Lap 224, Busch made up seven spots in the pits and was back in the mix, only to have a cylinder go down 51 laps later. He pitted to fix that and lost two laps, eventually finishing 26th.

"We had a fast car, dropped a cylinder and finished in the high 20s," Busch said. "We can't expect much out of tonight if we don't finish the deal."

Hamlin, already disadvantaged in the Chase, lost more ground on Saturday after experiencing transmission troubles in the final 15 laps. He went from fifth on Lap 324 to 20th at the finish.

Welcome to Hendrick

Jeff Gordon nearly caused a riot early on, bumping Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the low line and nearly spinning him out.

"Dale Jr. was running that high line, and he had so much momentum," Gordon said. "I went down into Turn 3 trying to get all the momentum I could out of it, and he came down off the top right in front of me."

Gordon said he went back to the gas on his marks, but Earnhardt wasn't there yet.

"He was still on the brakes," Gordon guessed. "I hit him and went, 'whoops!' I was able to get by him. It wasn't anything I was doing to get past him."

A bullish performance

A.J. Allmendinger was on pace for his first top-10 finish with 15 laps to go, but the final spate of restarts got the better of him and he faded to 15th at the finish.

"That was by far our best race," Allmendinger said. "On the last stop, [crew chief] Ricky [Viers] made an awesome change and that thing was hooked up. Heck, if the yellow hadn't have come out, I think we would have been eighth or ninth."

It was a solid run for the Red Bull Toyota driver, whose best finish of the season came over Labor Day at California, where he was 18th.

"The car was really good at the start and we started driving up through the field," he said. "We were tight all day, and we had two runs that really hurt us. We got the lucky dog one time, and the other time we were around 20th and the yellow came out."

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

It's a pretty good idea not to make Greg Zipadelli angry on pit road. But that's what the No. 15 Menard's crew of Paul Menard did on Lap 176. Zipadelli's driver, Tony Stewart, had taken off after a fuel-only stop, only to catch Menard in the driver's side door. Menard continued on, and so did Stewart, only to collect Kasey Kahne on the other side.

"I know when we were working on our car, I looked over and the No. 15 crew was clapping at us," Zipadelli said. "I'm a firm believer in what goes around, comes around.

"Maybe someday, if he's lucky, he'll be in that position and that will probably happen to him because he didn't show respect or give and take with other people. We can't control how other people act."

Zipadelli was sending a message, too.

"The kid in the 15 car, I don't know, but I do know his crew was clapping when we were working on our car. That is kind of uncalled for and unprofessional. With us rolling out, it would have been real easy for him to give us the go-ahead, not that he has to; it's a give and take. If you have respect for people and they are racing for something you are not, you kind of usually do that."