Ryan Newman Finishes 39th After Blowing An Engine For The Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's

Ryan Newman was having a decent run Sunday night at Lowe's Internation Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600 until his engine blew on lap 176. The field was under caution and Newman had just been given the Lucky Dog when Newman started smoking. He immediatly went to the garage.

In an interview Newman stated that the car had not fully blown and that they were going to try and get back on the track in order to just rack up laps.

Newman got lucky a couple of other times during the race. Caution number 2 came out when the field started wrecking right behind him. Jimmie Johnson had a tire going down and had to slow down causing the accordian effect.

On caution number 3 Raines got into Gordon a little sending Gordon into the grass. Gordon then came back across the track after almost saving it in the grass. He got a hard lick when he hit the wall head on and at the same time Allmindinger T-Boned him. Everyone was O.K. After Gordon hit the wall and was coming back down the track, Newman and another driver had to navigate there way through and made it.

Newman led the first 10 laps before reliquishing the position to his team mate Kurt Busch. After that Newman was all over. He fell to 17th one lap down and then got the Lucky Dog right before blowing up.

Thats to bad for Newman and his #12 Alltel Dodge team. They were feeling great after finishing in the top ten for 4 consrecutive races, winning the Pit Crew Challenge and finishing 8th for the All-Star Challenge.

I made the comment before that I did not think engine's blowing would come into effect. I was wrong. But at lap 176...come on. Oh well.

The end of the race was great. It was based on fuel mileage. Stewart had a stong lead but had to come in for fuel with a couple of laps to go. So did most of the other drivers. Except a few conserved and gambled on everyone else having to pit.

It paid off for Casey Mears. He took the checkered followed by J.J. Yeley and Kyle Petty. Who, what....thats right. I love it. 6 of the top 10 finishers have not finished in the top ten yet this year. I think that is awesome even though it was a Hendrick car in victory lane...it wasn't you know who or the other one.

Here is the top 12.

1 Casey Mears
2 J.J. Yeley
3 Kyle Petty
4 Reed Sorenson
5 Brian Vickers
6 Tony Stewart
7 Ricky Rudd
8 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
9 Denny Hamlin
10 Jimmie Johnson
11 Mark Martin
12 Matt Kenseth