Ryan Newman Finishes 14th At Martinsville
| Martinsville, VA – After starting the Goody's Cool Orange 500 in 24th, Ryan Newman and the #12 Alltel Dodge had a good running in Martinsville on Sunday. Newman and his team finished 14th in the race. They ran as high as 8th and as low as about 25. Newman won positions in the pits and gambled with others when rain threatened the race. For the first half of the race Newman was just riding. For the second half Newman turned the rockets on and started trying to get position. Up until lap 250 Newman was floating between 18th and the 25th position. Lap 244 brought out the caution #7 as Greg Biffle made contact with Kasey Kane and spun him. On the restart Ryan Newman was in 12th. By lap 275 Newman was in 10th but fell to 11th when Jeff Gordon passed him. When Robby Gordon blew a tire on lap 306, the 8th caution of the day was brought out. Newman pitted on lap 307 under the caution and had a 14.60 pit stop time. The green flag dropped on lap 312 with Newman in 10th and by lap 319 Ryan moved up to 9th. On lap 322 Dale Earnhardt JR. had a lead over the rest of the field by more than 2.6 seconds and Newman was running in 9th. David Stremme spun in turn 4 on lap 335 to bring out the 9th caution of the day. Rain clouds are threatening the race and half of the leaders decide to stay out and gamble on the rain coming in. Ryan Newman decided to stay out and restarted in 8th position on lap 342. Around lap 351 Ryan Newman was in the middle of a 3 wide situation with Kyle Busch on diving to the inside of Newman. Kyle ended up lightly hitting Newman on the drivers side. This results in Newman going back to 10th. On lap 353 Robby Gordon spun in turn 4 and brought out the 10th caution. Leaders including Ryan Newman decided to stay out because it was becoming very obvious that it was about to rain. While still under caution, rain began to fall on lap 356 and the cars headed to pit row. On lap 357 the red flag was thrown due to rain and the race came to a stop on lap 357 with Newman still in 10th. The rain delay only lasted about a half hour and at 5:21 pm the cars were restarted. Now Newman and the other leaders are in need of a pit stop. For the restart on lap 363 Newman and some of the other leaders did not pit under the caution after the red flag stop and restarted in 8th. On lap 367 Montoya in the #42 passes Newman sending Newman back to 9th. Montoya then ran high and Newman jumped under him on lap 368 and they battled for almost a whole lap until Newman ended up back in 8th. On lap 375 Tony Raines spins in turn 4 after Montoya does a cross over and dives under him for position. Raines came down on Montoya and spins. Newman has to come in and pit. He restarted on lap 382 in 15th because some of the leaders had pitted earlier and Newman had stayed out. Kyle Bush took the green flag as Dale Earnhardt JR pitted also and restarted in 9th. On lap 388 Jimmie Johnson took the lead and Newman had moved up to 14th. On lap 424 the caution comes out again when Dale Jarred lost his right rear tire in turn 2. Newman was still in 14th. Also Kevin Harvick's car caught fire and appeared to be done for the day. Newman restarted in the 14th position on lap 439. By lap 450 Newman fell back to 15th after Clint Boyer got around him. When the 13th caution came out on lap 475 Newman had fallen back to 16th after battling with Montoya and Kurt Busch. When everyone restarted on lap 483 Newman had gone back up to 14th. The race ended with teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson battling for the checkered flag. Jimmie won the battle and barely took the checkered flag over Jeff Gordon.
Mike Pratt
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