Notes: Newman had win, then lost it just as quick

CONCORD, N.C. -- With his first victory in 75 races staring him straight in the face, Ryan Newman ran into trouble in Turn 2. He ended the night not in Victory Lane, but in the garage, wondering what went wrong.

"It's disappointing, to be that close to your first win in that many races, and it's tough to swallow," a subdued Newman said in the garage area. "But when you go out on top, there's no better way."

Lap-by-Lap

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Don Miller, who co-owns Penske South Racing with Roger Penske, shook his head.

"He thought he might have had a tire go down, but with all four of them burned down to the ground, it's hard to tell."

Newman was convinced. "We blew a left-rear tire out," he said. "I couldn't tell if it felt a little spongy before, but obviously the car was plenty fast. We were running away from them after Gordon's little slip there on the restart.

"It blew a left rear and spun around. I felt it pop and it spun around."

Goodyear engineers said later that the tire did not go down, and was still up when the Alltel Dodge limped to the garage area with three laps to go.

Newman made the move of the year on the previous restart with five to go, closing on the high side while Jeff Gordon struggled to get going, trapping Kyle Busch and Clint Bowyer down low in an effort to avoid the sputtering DuPont Chevrolet.

"I went around the outside of the 07 [Bowyer] and the door opened up when the 24 and the 5 checked up on the bottom. It was a great coincidence for me ... it was a good situation for us that turned bad about two laps later."

He sailed off to a good-sized lead before the accident took him down. He finished 28th.

Down and out

It was more bad news for the Chasers at the bottom of the standings on Saturday night as Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Denny Hamlin were all bitten in one form or another.

Just 29 laps into the race, Harvick thought he had a right-rear tire going down and came down pit road under green on Lap 32. That cost him two laps, and then he had to come back when the new shoes didn't make the car feel any better. The crew changed all four tires, and it turned out that a left rear was down.

He wound up 33rd at the finish, seven laps down.

Kurt Busch was another victim of circumstance. Pitting on Lap 190, Busch took fuel only and collided with Mark Martin while leaving the box. That damaged the right front of the car, and the subsequent pit stop to fix it dropped him all the way to 24th. (Continued)