LOUDON, N.H. -- It wasn't quite from the basement to the penthouse, but for Ryan Newman, and Earnhardt Ganassi Racing's Kevin "Bono" Manion, Gary Putnam and assorted crew, Victory Lane at New Hampshire Motor Speedway served just fine Saturday.

Newman, who'll start fifth in Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 Sprint Cup race, made his fifth start in the Whelen Modified Tour pay. He started from the pole, led 28 of 100 laps and beat Northeast Modified hotshot Ted Christopher -- who has 10 career victories on the "Magic Mile" in Modifieds and East Series cars -- by .125 seconds after a last-lap pass.

“

For someone like [Newman] to come down and show us little guys respect like that is pretty cool.

”

-- BOBBY SANTOS III

It was particularly satisfying for Manion and Putnam, the crew chief and car chief, respectively, for EGR's Daytona 500-winning No. 1 Cup Series Chevrolet driven by Jamie McMurray. Two years ago the men, graduates of New England Modified racing, put the car together as stress relief, or a busman's holiday.

Now, in true backyard racers' style, they operate two Modifieds out of Putnam's single-car, tucked-under-the-house garage. They have to put one car in the trailer to work on the other in the "shop."

"This is just so cool," Manion said, before scratching his head and wracking his brain and finally coming up with a number. "The last Modified race I won was in 1995, the Tour race at Thompson, with Steve Park."

Since then he's worked at Dale Earnhardt Inc. and now, EGR. He's made a lot of connections, won some races and at New Hampshire, an Earnhardt Childress Racing Engines powerplant was under his Modified's hood.

And on Saturday a slew of guys in red "Bass Pro Shops/Tracker" uniforms, signifying them as EGR men, surrounded the car in post-teardown. Manion and Putnam, hands full of tools, were right in the middle of them.

"For sure this is team-building, and a lot of guys at our shop, which has a good group of racers, have dirt cars or Modifieds or Late Models," Manion said. "It's really fun and exciting that all these guys pitch in and help, because you can't do this sport alone. It's just fun to see a smile on everyone's face."

Newman, after leaving Victory Lane, maybe had the widest.

"It was a good one, and any time you can race Teddy Christopher and Bobby Santos [III] -- and obviously all the rest of the guys, too -- for the win in a Modified, you're doing something," Newman said. "To have a race, slide-jobbing back and forth at the end there, that's what fans like to see and I was proud to be able to put a show on for 'em -- and for Teddy racing me clean."

Manion and Putnam's Tour car is numbered "7NY" in honor of Sprint Cup owner/crew chief Tommy Baldwin's late father Tom Baldwin, a Modified veteran.

"I'm proud to represent the 7NY -- I know what it represents up here in the Northeast," Newman said. "To be able to come up here with Bono and Gary and all those guys from the 1 car that enjoy Modified racing as much as I do and to get a win is special because we've always had fast race cars."

Although the team has won before, at the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway in Samsula, Fla., it's taken some knocks in the Whelen Series.

Before the race even started, the grass roots, short-track racer's panacea on a major-league playing field had a special twist for bullring aficionados. Newman started on the pole next to Santos, whose young racing legacy matches Newman's own, albeit nearly two decades ago.

Santos, 24, proved worthy of Newman's praise as he changed in his transporter after recording his worst finish in five races this season -- fourth. Santos, who has left a trail of track records and wins behind him since joining car owner Bob Garbarino, now leads the standings, 900-771, over Christopher.

"I can't complain about fourth," Santos said. "I want to be a baby and cry about it, but I can't. I'm happy. It was fun [racing with Newman] because I think he was the only person I went back-and-forth with, without banging any wheels, which was awesome."

Santos went out of his way after the race to let Manion know he wanted a message passed to Newman, who Manion said "was our man for as long as he wants, and whatever he wants to do, because he has a lot of fun and he's a good, hard racer who remembers his roots -- and this is fun for him.

"Cup racing is a job and this is fun to him, it's a hobby; like it is for me, and I think that's how it goes for all the guys here. It's all in a good day's work and it's a lot of fun."

And it's an eye opener for those in the developmental series, like Santos, who watched Christopher knock Newman out of his way to take the lead on lap nine.

"For someone like [Newman] to come down and show us little guys respect like that is pretty cool," Santos said. "It means a lot to me that he can race us like that."

Santos said his perspective on the incident was that "Teddy passed Ryan, and it wasn't the politest pass; so Ryan, under yellow let him know he didn't appreciate the way he passed him.

"I was running in third at the time and saw it with my eyes. Teddy just run him up [the race track] a little bit. That's typical of the way most of the Modified people race. And Ryan, obviously, doesn't race like that."

Manion seconded that view, despite watching from pit road. And he also knew that Christopher had said afterward he enjoyed racing with Newman and respected him too much to knock him out of the way for the win.

"The way a lot of these guys race, they do a slide-job on you, and if they don't clear you, they just bump you -- they hit you out of the way and that's exactly what Teddy did to Ryan," Manion said. "And under the next caution, Ryan drove up and let Teddy know, 'I know you're the king around here, but I'm racing here today and I race clean.'

"If Ryan hadn't done that earlier, Teddy might have moved him out of the way [on the last lap, to win]. There's nothing wrong with a little bumping with a couple to go, but I'm just glad it was a good, safe race for the fans and a clean race."

"I know Teddy is one of the hardest racers out there, especially in a Modified, and he'll run it in hard on you, and he's not afraid to use the nerf bars," Newman said. "I don't race these cars enough to be able to race that way, and when he nerfed me up out of the way I didn't appreciate it a whole lot.

"In saying that he didn't do it at the end -- that takes a lot of man to go back and say -- and I know he told Bono this, 'I didn't like what I did to [Newman] in the beginning and I wasn't gonna do it to him at the end.'

"I respect him more for that, and that's what's cool about Teddy."

In the morning Santos -- who in many corners is seen as one of the most talented youngsters in the sport, given his success in Midgets, Sprints and now, Whelen Modifieds -- talked about how enthused he was about the opportunity to lead the field to the green with a guy who, nearly two decades before, was fashioning a career foundation in roughly the same manner -- in open-wheel cars on pavement.

"It's exciting and I'm looking forward to racing with Ryan," Santos said. "I've raced with him in the past, in Sprint and Midget cars. I really like him and he's definitely a classy person to look up to -- but you look at him and I'm sure he looks at it the same way; he's just another one of us out here to win.

It's a good challenge [when Sprint Cup guys drop down]. I've raced with him, I've raced with [Tony] Stewart, I've raced with Kasey [Kahne] -- I've raced with a bunch of these guys in all the races I'm doing and I just look at them as other racers.

"I think I might be a couple wins up on those guys, when we've raced each other. And honestly, if you want to be the best you have to beat the best, so I'm happy he's here."

After the race, Newman had the same high praise for the driver eight years his junior. Santos said he spoke with Newman for about a half-hour Thursday after qualifying, where Newman denied Santos his fourth pole in five starts this season -- two of which were track records -- at Thompson and Stafford, which are Modified strongholds.

"Bobby Santos is a heckuva race car driver, he's real smooth, he's real aggressive and he's pretty mild-mannered, from what I've seen," Newman said. "He's a pavement specialist, like I was in USAC Sprints and Midgets, and he's building quite a resume for himself as a good, clean race car driver, so it's fun racing with him."

It remains to be seen where Santos, even after three wins, a second, a fourth Saturday and his qualifying prowess, goes. He said he's only focused on winning another Modified championship for Garbarino.

"Right now we're just concentrating on what we're doing this year, we're having a great year and it's an awesome team I'm driving for," Santos said. "Great teamwork is the biggest thing, I think -- that everybody likes each other and works together well.

"As far as other stuff, I haven't really gotten any phone calls. I think it's just that the economy is so bad, but I don't know. I'm just having fun racing with these guys right now, and doing the best that we can. I'm just thinking about that and if anything happens down the road, from that, then great."

Saturday afternoon, for Manion and Putnam and their gang, "great" was the visit to Victory Lane.