It was another vintage finish for Ryan Newman and the U.S. Army Racing team.
The never-say-quit attitude paid off once again as Newman gained 10 positions in the final 22 laps to post a ninth-place result in Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 Sprint Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The top-10 finish gave Newman enough driver points to move into 12th place, which is the final Chase position. There are 13 pre-Chase races remaining.
The key moment for Newman’s ninth-place result came immediately after the final caution waved on Lap 378 of 400. Behind an unanimous team decision to forgo a pit stop and fresh tires, Newman jumped to third when the race was restarted for the final time. He hung on to post his fifth top-10 finish of the season and his third in the last four races.
“I wasn’t happy with the overall performance, but it was a good points night,” said Newman. “When you’re stuck in traffic and dirty air it’s hard to move forward. But when we got in clean air at the end, the U.S. Army Chevy was a lot faster. We wanted to do better for our Army Strong Soldiers on Memorial Day weekend, but I know they would be proud of how we never gave up and charged back to a top-10 finish.”
Newman started on the pole and led the first 11 laps. But as the 600-mile race wore on at the 1.5-mile oval, Newman slipped back in the field due to a tight-handling race car. Until the final 22 laps, he ran in the mid teens to low 20s for most of the second half of the race.
“I am so proud of Ryan and the team for fighting back the way we did, especially on Memorial Day weekend,” said crew chief Tony Gibson. “We just didn’t have a great car tonight, but we made a good call at the end by taking track position over new tires. We didn’t think there was a lot of risk by staying out. But picking up 10 positions in the final 22 laps was huge. Those extra points made the difference of putting us in Chase territory.”
The winner in NASCAR’s longest race was Kurt Busch, who also won last week’s All-Star race at Charlotte. Rounding out the top-five in order were: Jamie McMurray, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin and David Reutimann.
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