Penske Racing Race Report: NASCAR NEXTEL CUP

Newman eventually finished 18th, the last car on the lead lap in the 325-lap race. That allowed him to gain one position in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings, moving him to 17th. Newman is now 50 points behind 10th, the cutoff point for the "Chase for the Championship."

Busch led three times for 22 laps before being a victim of two lapped cars. On the restart following the fourth caution period, Busch was third when the lapped cars of David Stremme and Kevin Harvick made it three wide. Stremme was on the inside, Harvick in the middle, and Busch on the outside. Stremme and Harvick collided and that knocked Harvick into Busch, forcing his Miller Lite Dodge into the wall.

"That was such a shame and it's pretty hard to take," said Busch, who dropped five positions in the points to 27th, 63 points behind 20th. "I really didn't know exactly what happened there, except that the 29 car [Kevin Harvick] just ran over me and put me into the wall. It just took us out of the thing. My spotter [Jeremy Brickhouse] later came over the radio and explained that the 40 car [David Stremme] stacked it three-wide by getting under Harvick. He ran into Harvick and Harvick ran into me.

"Regardless, that's such an unnecessary deal right there. We had a car that could have won here today - at worst, a top-five car - and here we are with another terrible finish. It's so disappointing."

After leading once for two laps, Newman's effort to obtain his first victory at the 1.54-mile track ended on lap 15 when Denny Hamlin's car clipped the left rear of Newman's Alltel Dodge and sent it spinning in turn four. Newman lost a lap, but regained it on the second caution period. Newman fought an ill-handling race car throughout the event. It went from tight for most of the event to "wicked loose", and then lacked grip in the closing laps.

"I'm really proud of the Alltel team for the job they did today," Newman said. "The handling of the car was not what we wanted, but Matt [Borland, crew chief] and the guys kept working with it all day today. We corrected it a few times, but it didn't seem like the adjustments would stick. There in the end, like at California, we figured some things out. The Alltel Dodge was the best it had been all day in the last 30 laps or so. If that had happened earlier, or if we had had about an extra 50 laps, we may be talking about a top-10 finish today."

Additional race information and photos available at http://www.penskeracing.com