Ryan Newman drove to an unexpected overtime win at Phoenix Sunday, ending a 127-race winless streak for the Richard Childress Racing driver.
Newman was shuffled to the front of the pack after he elected to stay out on old tires as the majority of the field pitted under caution. The yellow flag, which was the eighth of the day, had come out after Team Penske’s Joey Logano lost a tire and went into the wall hard with 5 laps to go.
When the grid went back to green, Chip Ganassi’s Kyle Larson drove down on Roush Fenway’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr., upsetting both drivers’ cars and allowing Newman, who had restarted on the outside, to pull out a sizeable lead. Now in clean air, the Team Chevy driver easily drove away from the pack to take the win.
Larson slotted in .312 seconds behind Newman to take second, with Kyle Busch, who appeared the favorite to win, finished third. Busch was none too happy when the caution came out, especially after having missed out on a good finish last week due to he and Logano’s coming together, but was ultimately happy to take a good points finish.
“We really needed the outside like Larson had,” Busch told NASCAR.com. “Overall, we should be proud of our run today and we will move on.”
NASCAR heads to Auto Club Speedway next for the Auto Club 400. Click here for full results from Phoenix and here for a full schedule of next weekend’s NASCAR festivities.
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