 |
| Ryan Newman Wins the Goody's Fast Relief 500 Photo via Nascar.com |
All of the puzzle pieces were intact for a
spectacular historic 200th NASCAR Sprint Cup victory for Hendrick Motorsports
in Sunday's Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. The team won its
very first race in 1984 here and were looking to capitalize on this beautiful
sunny day in Virginia. Mr. Hendrick was all smiles watching his stable of
drivers have a great run. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon already have 13
Martinsville victories between them. The
duo was a force to be reckoned with again today leading 440 of the scheduled
500 laps.
Then the proverbial bottom fell out.
 |
| The beginning of the end for this race for the Hendrick Team Photo courtesy of Nascar.com |
A late race caution came just as Gordon had
taken over the lead from Johnson. On the green-white-checkered restart, Johnson
was on the outside and Gordon on the inside with Clint Bowyer behind who got
shoved by Ryan Newman. Bowyer made the “wtf” move of the race deciding to go three-wide
under Gordon in Turn 1. Johnson inevitably squished into Gordon, who in turn got
into Bowyer. Goodbye victory lane for all three of them as they could not
recover from the resulting wreck. Ryan Newman, in the Outback Steakhouse
Chevrolet came out of virtually nowhere and held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. and AJ
Allmendinger on the next and final restart. Gordon, who had led 328
laps, finished the race 14th, two positions behind Johnson, who led 112 laps.
Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamelin, Matt Kenseth,
Eric Almirola, Newman’s team mate/owner Tony Stewart rounded out the top ten.
Although Jr. had a fantastic showing once
again, karma does not seem to be on Kasey Kahne’s side! Kahne, who had been
racing in the top five, drove into the garage during the caution and later
parked his car with engine failure, continuing what has been a gut wrenching
season for the Hendrick driver.
Needless to say as a Team Hendrick fan this
was not a good race. Martinsville has always been a sentimental place as this
was the track that Rick Hendrick’s son Ricky, along with his brother John and
his twin daughters along with 6 others died in a plane crash enroute to the
track. The team always tries to pull together a win here in honour of all those
lost. Today was not the day.
While many were angry with Bowyer’s
bonehead move, many more were angry with the #10 driver David Reutimann.
Following several laps of him hobbling around at ridiculously low speeds, he
inexplicably drove past pit road and stalled on the front stretch. It
was this move that caused the chain reaction mentioned early that took out the
race leaders - all in the name of points.
Reutimann himself was genuinely unimpressed
with his actions stating, “I don't even know how the race ended up finishing,
but I just hate that I was involved in anything that changed the complexion of
the race so I got to apologize to the guys that it affected.” He should have
gotten out of the way and pitted. If nothing else, safety of all things comes
to mind!
All that aside, congratulations to Ryan Newman on his 16th victory in 374 career race starts. The last time Ryan won was in New Hampshire July 2011. Tony Stewart probably has a smile a mile wide tonight and rightfully so!!
Greg Biffle is still sitting on top of the
leader board with, *GASP* Dale Earnhardt Jr. in SECOND place! I cannot believe
my eyes! It’s about time we see him start to shine again!
Next week is an off week so that the teams
may celebrate Easter with their families, then its on to the land of ten gallon hands
and lots of bull (well riding anyway)...TEXAS!!!
 |
| Ryan Newman does a victory burnout in the #39 Outback Steakhouse Chevy Photo via Nascar.com |
 |
| Ryan Newman winner of the Goody's Fast Relief 500 Photo via Nascar.com |
By Sherri Breaton
Agree? Disagree?
Drop me line at In Play! Magazine on Facebook
