Pocono ups, downs change complexion of standings (cont'd)

Kyle Busch, who wound up 22nd, was three laps short on fuel nearing the end of the race. Crew chief Steve Addington said he and the team have a lot of work to do before returning to Pocono's triangle-shaped track in August.

"The way we are sitting here in the points, 60 or 80 from being out of the top 12 -- so I played it safe," Addington explained. "We didn't figure that a lot of those guys could make it all the way to the end so we tried to do a short-pit deal, put tires on it and try to make up some time."

The team made up time, but so did the competition.

"Those guys made it and I don't know how," Addington added. "Our teammate was getting better fuel mileage than us and he ran out in Turn 3. We wouldn't have made it even if we tried to back it down. We did the right thing -- we finished on the lead lap. It's not a proud day for us, for sure."

On the brighter side of the point standings shuffle, Edwards soared five spots to sixth place, David Reutimann climbed back into the top 12 with his two-spot gain, and Greg Biffle moved up to seventh after gaining two spots as well.

But it was Ryan Newman's hard-fought battle overcoming a bad spark plug that elicited the most praise. Though he only moved up one spot to fourth in the standings, he is proving to be a permanent fixture in the top five week in and week out.

"It's a group effort and you're seeing the results," said Newman, whose car owner/teammate, Tony Stewart, won the race. "When you get both cars in the top five it is not by luck."

Newman said a lot of the credit for his finish in Sunday's race goes to the pit crew.

"The guys did a great job on pit road getting everything changed," Newman said. "We had a spark plug problem and changed it after we changed the distributor cap and wires. We were trying to troubleshoot. I felt like I was driving an old car or something and troubleshooting at the same time."

The team gambled on fuel at the end, but it paid off and they gained a couple of spots to finish fifth in Sunday's race.