Ryan Newman Wins After Controversial, Wild Finish in the Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway

What an exciting race at the last old school short track on the NASCAR circuit! The finish was by far the best finish of any races this season. I’m not sure where to begin and if I can even type right now, because I’m shaking from the excitement of this race’s final laps. Obviously we have to begin at the start of the race….

Kasey Kahne and Kevin Harvick led the field to the green. Both would have days they didn’t expect to have coming into the race, especially Harvick who won yesterday’s truck race and last year’s race here at Martinsvillle. The race would go uneventful until Kyle Busch broke a track bar sending his Toyota into the wall. During pit stops under that caution, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman would get called for speeding on exiting the pits.

Meanwhile, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had been racing his way up to the lead, and would pas Aric Almirola with a little payback bump after an earlier incident. Harvick, again who was someone many expected to dominate again, would go down a lap on lap 199 in the 20^th position.  Just a few short laps later on lap 205 Kurt Busch would blow his second tire. David Reutimann who would have a rough day was having issues with brakes. One lap 221, eventual race winner Ryan Newman went down a lap leaving 16 cars on the lead lap. One the same lap, Bobby Labonte would begin a cycle of green flag pit stops and during that cycle Dale Earnhardt Jr. would find Jeff Gordon and take the lead for a few laps before pitting. Jeff Gordon would resume the lead after the green flag cycle ended however.

On lap 245, Dave Blaney would get in the rubble and spin his Chevrolet out barely hitting the wall. During this caution Kasey Kahne’s bad luck hit again. He lost power and suffered engine problems, however, it would not take him out of the race completely, just yet. The crew worked hard to fix the problems behind the wall.

Not too far from that restart, Juan Pablo Montoya brought the next caution out after being spun out by Ken Schrader. He hit the inside wall, but the steering broke (ironic, right?) after that and spun the car back around.

Later on lap 315 after coming back out on the track, Kasey Kahne would blow and engine and spin out coming back to pit road after his tires got slick in his oil that was leaking. This ended the day for Kahne who is a victim of bad luck again. I guess it’s not a good thing to be new at Hendrick Motorsports. As a Dale Jr. fan, I know! The top three coming out of the pits from this caution were Gordon, Johnson, and Jr. Brad Keselowski would get served a speeding penalty after passing Jr exiting the pits, clearly speeding.

Another caution would come out shaking the field up via pit stops on lap 363, when Travis Kvapil spun his Burger King Toyota. Out of the pits the running order for the restart was Hamlin, Gordon, Johnson, Stewart, and Kenseth. Dale Jr. had a slow pit stop that pushed him back to the end of the top 10 after a strong race so far early in this race.

With 107 laps to go, Jimmie Johnson would take the lead after and long, lengthy battle with Hamlin, and would continue to dominate the end of the race while teammate Gordon caught up, until David Reutimann brought out the caution for stalling in turn 3. Reutimann broke a sway bar and continued to slowly pace around the track getting in the way, leaving many wondering when he would go to the pits, but he kept going and eventually it stopped. NASCAR asked David Reutimann and owner Tommy Baldwin to the trailer to discuss what happened.

So we restart with a crazy green-white-checkered. Heading into turn one, Clint Bowyer dove inside Gordon going three wide, would slide up and spin himself, Gordon, and Johnson out with many cars behind them checking up. The race would restart one last time with AJ Allmendinger fighting hard with Ryan Newman who was a lap down most of the race, but Newman would win after Allmendinger quit fighting hard and would take a solid 2^nd place finish after a rough start to his season at Penske Racing.

So who is to blame for caution that took Bowyer, Johnson, and Gordon out of contention? David Reutimann, who stayed on the track with issues that he had to know, could stop his car at any moment? Clint Bowyer, who didn’t let off after going three wide in turn one? Or race winner, Ryan Newman, who pushed Bowyer hard into one, forcing him to go three wide? My opinion stands that while Bowyer could have backed off, Newman pushed him way to hard on the restart.

Bottom line, this was an exciting race and this is the kind of race, Bruton Smith wants to see at Bristol again. Martinsville is the last old school short rack on NASCAR’s schedule, and it was blast! It was a good day for our sport making headlines with the controversial finish and now it’s on to Texas after the Easter holiday.

Unofficial Race Results

CAR

DRIVER

MAKE

SPONSOR

PTS/BNS

139Ryan NewmanChevroletOutback Steak House47/1222AJ AllmendingerDodgeShell / Pennzoil42/0388Dale Earnhardt Jr.ChevroletAmp Energy / National Guard42/1417Matt KensethFordStephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation / Gary Sinise Foundation41/1556Martin Truex Jr.ToyotaNAPA Auto Parts39/0

Point Standings