Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Newman and Gordon get together, then go separate ways on blame

Ryan Newman lost a potential top-three finish when he and Jeff Gordon tangled in the final stages of Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Gordon and Newman were running second and third when Newman tapped Gordon from behind in Turn 1 with 34 laps remaining in the race. Newman came out of the scrape in fifth place and Gordon slipped to sixth before recovering and finishing fourth.

Newman, on the other hand, finished ninth and was seething about the incident.

"(I) went down into (Turn 1) trying to take the air off him and did," Newman said. "He got loose and checked up and that's when I hit him. He's pretty proud of himself still. He changed the way he drove the racecar when he was up next to me, so I changed the way I drove the racecar when I was up next to him. That's the way he wants to race so that's the way I'll race him.

"He hit me hard enough to jack the rear end up off the ground and spin the rear tires. Obviously, he had more horsepower than he could handle. I think that was an ego draft; I think that's what you call that."

Gordon, on the other hand, said he felt he had made a clean pass on Newman.

" I raced him clean (but) he kept fighting me and I was doing everything I could to get by him. I finally did get by him ... and he got on me and got me loose and then he just hit me. I feel fortunate that we've got a car in one piece and a top-five finish.

"I've got to go find out what's wrong with Ryan Newman, but I guess a bunch of other guys do, too. I felt like I passed Ryan pretty good. We were being aggressive and everything and, I don't know, he just drove down into the back of me."

STREAK BUSTER: Matt Kenseth didn't notch his third consecutive Nextel Cup victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, but he was pleased that he was able to end another streak in the process.

His eighth-place showing Sunday snapped a streak of 11 consecutive races in which he failed to record a top-10 finish.

"I don't know what the streak is because I hate to talk about streaks, but it's been like 10 races or something since we've had a top 10, so we've got to crawl before we can walk," Kenseth said.

"At least we finished today and got a decent finish for how bad we ran, so if we get our performance back to where it was at California -- hopefully at Atlanta -- and have decent luck, hopefully we'll get another good finish."

Kenseth climbed eight spots to 28th in the Nextel Cup standings despite falling two laps off the pace when he cut a tire 78 laps into the race after making contact with Elliott Sadler. Kenseth eventually made up both laps.

"I made a dumb mistake and got into Elliott; I just didn't expect him to swap lanes," Kenseth said. "He came from the lap-down lane in front of me and I couldn't get slowed down. I spun him out and ended up wrecking our own fender.

"That messed up his day a little bit, but I'm glad it wasn't worse. It was a dumb mistake and just bad judgment (and) that got us behind and we just had an uphill battle all day."

LVMS ADDING SEATS: Las Vegas Motor Speedway owner Bruton Smith announced Sunday that the speedway would add a 14,000-seat grandstand above the existing grandstand in Turn 1 in time for next year's race.

Similar to the Dale Earnhardt Terrace near Turn 4, the new structure will include stadium seats and extra amenities such as dedicated restrooms and concession stands.

The new structure will be named in honor of Richard Petty, NASCAR's seven-time Cup champion, and will increase the speedway's permanent seating to about 146,000.

NICE GESTURE: Before Sunday's race, Nextel Cup driver Michael Waltrip presented a check in the amount of $923,626.73 to Kyle and Pattie Petty's Victory Junction Gang Camp in North Carolina for chronically and terminally ill children.

Waltrip raised the funds through his seven-month-long "Operation Marathon" program in conjunction with the Las Vegas Marathon.

BRIEFLY: Jimmie Johnson earned $428,066 for his victory Sunday while Kyle Busch took home $244,800 for second and Kurt Busch $249,125 for third. Johnson earned a $30,000 bonus for winning the race and leading the Nextel Cup points standings. ... Kyle Busch was the highest-finishing Raybestos Rookie of the Year contender for the second time in three races. His second-place finish was a career-high in nine starts in the Nextel Cup Series. ... Mark Martin, who finished 30th after encountering engine problems early in the race, has been running at the end of 25 consecutive races, the longest active streak in the series. ... Owner/driver Robby Gordon dropped out after 57 laps with an engine failure. It was the third consecutive race in which he has suffered a blown engine.

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