He knew that Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman were each going to take two tires, he knew that Jimmie Johnson was going to take four. So Dave Rogers calculated his odds and made his decision.
Rogers called for four tires as Kyle Busch came down pit road for the final time Saturday night at Phoenix International Raceway. What the crew chief didn’t know was that four other drivers would also opt for only right-side rubber, creating a bottleneck of slower vehicles up front and burying the No. 18 car back in the field prior to the final two-lap shootout on the 1-mile oval.
“You can only scan so many people and hear what so many people are saying,” Rogers said. “I knew that the 24 [car of Gordon] and 39 [car of Newman] were going to take two. I knew the 48 [car of Johnson] was going to take four. I knew what three other cars out of 40 were going to do. You make a decision on that.”
That decision didn’t work out as Rogers had hoped. Busch restarted in eighth place and finished in the same position, a crushing result for a driver who had led 113 laps and held an advantage of nearly two seconds until Scott Riggs hit the wall with three circuits remaining. The resulting caution brought everyone to pit road, and created a green-white-checkered guessing game that Newman and crew chief Tony Gibson won. NASCAR.com
Newman, who had zero chance of winning before that caution, went to Victory Lane for the first time since the 2008 Daytona 500.
“It’s been a long time coming for me,” Newman said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
No one could. Three drivers led at least 100 laps. Newman wasn’t one of them.
For Busch, it was the yellow flag from Satan. Uh-oh. Decision time on pit road before a green-white-checkered to end it.
“It was a tough deal,” said Jeff Gordon, who finished second. “I was going down the backstretch [heading to pit road] and thinking, ‘I’m glad I don’t have to make this call.’‘’
Newman and Gibson didn’t make that mistake this time. Newman was fifth when the caution came out. They discussed what to do as he came to pit road.
“Tony wanted to do four [tires], but I said put two on,” Newman said. “I didn’t want to have a bunch of cars in front me. But Tony made the ultimate call.”
They went with two right-side tires and beat out three other cars that did the same.
“I was surprised no one took any tires,’’ Newman said. “Why not if you were further back? There were 26 cars on the lead lap. Then on the restart, I really didn’t think I could get to the front from the inside line. It hadn’t worked for me all night. You never know.” ESPN
Busch could not be located for comment after the race, but a post on his Twitter feed relayed his frustration. “Surprise. Surprise,” he wrote. “Another late race yellow that doesn’t go our way. Oh well ... Guys gave me an awesome car. Can’t thank them enough.”
Saturday, Rogers could only shake his head. He knew that Johnson—who led the same number of laps as Busch, giving each driver five bonus points—had won at Bristol earlier this season by taking four tires, using the fresh rubber to make up the difference in track position. He knew that No. 48 crew chief Chad Knaus was trying to do the same thing at Phoenix, and thought it was the way to go.
“We knew we were racing the 48 car,” Rogers said. “We’d been racing each other the second half of the race. We watched the Nationwide race [Friday] night, and we knew that two tires weren’t going to go, and four tires would. We were seeing the 48, knew Chad and Jimmie were going to take four. We figured if he came out with four and we came out with two, he was going to drive right by us. Four tires was definitely the way to go to go fast, but enough people took two that it gave somebody who gambled the chance to win.” NASCAR.com
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