Newman's finish position altered
Ryan Newman's broken motor mounts proved to be the least of his problems in a NASCAR post-race that saw him first assessed a penalty then have it lifted.
Newman raced in the top three entering the closing laps of the AMD at the Glen NASCAR Nextel Cup race Sunday. With about 15 laps to go, the motor mounts broke in his car. Then he made contact with Boris Said, and both went through the inner loop.
After the race, NASCAR first deemed that Newman had not stopped - as required - after the slip, and he was docked a 30-second penalty, dropping him to 31st. The call was later reversed, and the finishing order recalculated with Newman in eighth.
Said, meanwhile, dropped from sixth on the initial report to, ironically, 31st in the final rundown.
"The motor was just sitting there flopping around, and the throttle was hanging on me wide open," Newman said of the final laps with his Penske Racing South Dodge. "I was using the kill switch to shut it off. That's why I dropped back those last two laps. It was hanging really bad. I had my hands full.
"Boris got into the back of me. I don't know what I did or what he did. It doesn't matter. I was using up a lot of the race track, and he turned me around. We kept going and finished the race."
Said, running under the Front Row Motorsports banner with his No Fear Racing team, was a little less understanding of the final-lap incident.
"I really wanted fifth, and I was disappointed in Ryan Newman," he said. "He was running out of gas on the last lap, and it's OK to block one way, but he blocked me once and moved twice, and I got into him. I couldn't help it. I was already committed to that side, so I was disappointed in that."
