NEWS ARTICLE
NEWMAN KNOCKED OFF BALANCE AT DARLINGTON
DARLINGTON, SC. (May 14, 2012) -- Driving the No. 39 WIX Filters Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), Ryan Newman finished 23rd the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Southern 500 on Saturday night at Darlington (S.C) Raceway.
Newman fought an ill-handling racecar for much of the evening but was still in pursuit of a top-15 result with five laps to go. However, an incident involving Newman, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola pushed Newman back to 23rd once the checkered flag fell.
“We were chasing it for much of the night,” Newman said. “With that said, we were in good shape to finish 15th or so. But Busch spun in front of me coming around turn four, and when I checked up Almirola just got into the back of me. It’s unfortunate the night had to end that way.”
After starting fourth, Newman had his racecar go from being too tight to too loose to too tight throughout the race.
“For some reason, we couldn’t get the balance right,” Newman said. “We certainly tried a lot of things, but it seemed that when we got it good on one end of the track, the other end wasn’t good.”
At one point, just past halfway, Newman was two laps down to the leader, but he was able to grab the “Lucky Dog” and return to the lead lap where he rode until his late-race meeting with Busch and Almirola.
“We got ourselves back in position to mix it up a little with the guys up front,” Newman said. “But it all went bad there at the end. We’ll just try to get back to where we need to be the next couple of weeks in Charlotte.”
Newman’s teammate and team co-owner, Tony Stewart, finished third in the No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala for SHR.
Jimmie Johnson won the Southern 500, marking the 56th Sprint Cup victory of his career and his third at Darlington. It also brought Hendrick Motorsports its milestone 200th Sprint Cup win.
Denny Hamlin finished .781 of second behind Johnson in the runner-up spot, while Stewart, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. rounded out the top-five. Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Kasey Kahne, Marcos Ambrose and Joey Logano comprised the remainder of the top-10.
There were eight caution periods for 38 laps, with seven drivers failing to finish the 368-lap race, which was extended one lap by a green-white-checkered finish.
The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race Saturday, May 19 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. The non-point-paying event begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT, with live coverage provided by SPEED beginning with its pre-race show at 7 p.m. SPEED’s RaceDay” will begin at 4 p.m.
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