Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman: 'When it’s not your day, it’s not your day'
Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman led 17 laps but finished 29th in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Scene
LOUDON, N.H. - Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman had the right idea and the right call from crew chief Tony Gibson when it came to strategy in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He just didn't have enough fuel to make it work.
Newman knew that rain was coming to the track. He and his team decided to push the envelope, thinking they had enough fuel for just a few more laps.
Newman led for 17 laps, but ran out of fuel on lap 263 - just five short of the caution flag and 10 short of the final distance at the 1.058-mile track.
“We had a good strategy, but for some reason, we didn’t have the mileage that run there," Newman said. "Coulda, woulda, shoulda, we could have been leading at the end. The bottom line is we didn’t have the fuel mileage on that last run, ran out of fuel and lost a couple of laps on pit road. It was unfortunate. We had planned on doing two tires and at least get some track position back. It just didn’t work. I told the guys on the radio when it’s not your day, it’s not your day. It didn’t work.”
Newman had trouble restarting the car on pit road and ended up finishing 29th, three laps down. He lost only one points position, dropping to seventh overall.
"We just came up short," he said. "We ran out of fuel there. Not really sure why. We shouldn't have ran out of fuel based on the numbers. We'll go back and refigure out what we didn't figure out and see what we can do to try to do this all over again and win."
