Sunday, November 4, 2007

Ryan Newman Gets Top 5 Finish At Texas

Jeff Gordon, driver of the #24 DuPont Chevrolet, leads against Ryan Newman, driver of the #12 alltel Dodge, during the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on November 4, 2007 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)



Ryan Newman had a good day at Texas Motor Speedway for the Dickies 500 finishing 5th. This was Newman's 6th top 5 finish of the year.

Newman's Top 5 finish takes him 2 postions up in the points standings to 14th. He is only 72 points behind Dale Earnhardt JR in 13th and 67 points ahead of 15th position Casey Mears.

After qualifying for the race, Newman said that Mike Nelson and the team had "de-tuned" the engine a little to make sure that it lasted the whole 500 miles.

My questing is this - Has all the blown engines Newman has had this year been do to "over-tuned" engines?

In front of Newman at the checkered flag was Jimmie Johnson taking the win followed by Matt Kenseth, Martin Truex JR and Kyle Busch.

Newman ran up front for most of the day staying in or near the top 5. The couple of times he was back around 20th was due to pit strategy.

The final caution of the day (the 12th caution) came on lap 298 of the 334 lap race when Gregg Biffle spun in turn 2 and came to a stop with the cockpit was full of smoke. This set up the final round of pit stops.

Newman and crew chief Mike Nelson chose to go with only 2 tires for a quick pit stop. This led to Newman being the first out of the pits.

Newman took the green flag followed by Matt Kenseth, Jaime McMurray, Martin Truex JR and Jimmie Johnson.

One lap latter Matt Kenseth gets around Newman and he starts falling back.

RYAN NEWMAN'S QUOTE ON THE TEXAS RACE -
"It was a good run for us to finish in the top five with the alltel Dodge. Nevertheless, we didn’t have the best racecar on the short run. We had a decent racecar in the long runs. The short runs got us behind and we had a few of those there at the end. The two tire call was a good one to get track position. We just didn’t have a fast enough racecar to stay up front."

The final laps proved to be pretty exciting. I am not a fan of Matt Kenseth or Jimmie Johnson but they had some hard racing at the end. They were side by side a couple of times and Matt Kenseth was getting loose. Jimmie Johnson finally got by him and took the checkered flag.

Top 10 Finishers Where -

1 8 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet Lowe's / Kobalt Tools 190/5 334 Running
2 18 17 Matt Kenseth Ford USG Sheetrock / DEWALT 175/5 334 Running
3 1 1 Martin Truex Jr. Chevrolet Bass Pro Shops / Tracker 170/5 334 Running
4 17 5 Kyle Busch Chevrolet CARQUEST / Kellogg's 170/10 334 Running
5 11 12 Ryan Newman Dodge ALLTEL 160/5 334 Running
6 27 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet AT&T Mobility 150/0 334 Running
7 2 24 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet DuPont 151/5 334 Running
8 6 2 Kurt Busch Dodge Miller Lite 147/5 334 Running
9 24 26 Jamie McMurray Ford Crown Royal Special Reserve 138/0 334 Running
10 4 29 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet Shell / Pennzoil 134/0 334 Running

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