Ryan Newman, looking for a new ride for 2014, makes an impressive statement in beating Jimmie Johnson to win the Brickyard 400. The crowd down again, but TV ratings up

Ryan Newman in victory! Now, rescue puppies for everyone? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

   (Updated with TV ratings)


   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net


   INDIANAPOLIS
   Another heart-warming victory on the stock tour, this time for Ryan Newman, winning one of the biggest races in NASCAR, the Brickyard 400.
   Just two weeks after getting a pink slip from the boss, effective the end of the season, Newman added an Indianapolis Motor Speedway victory to his resume, to go along with 16 other career wins on the Sprint Cup tour, including the Daytona 500 itself.
   Newman may have well deserved rep as 'the toughest man to pass in NASCAR,' but his win, considering all the circumstances, is a popular one. His last victory was at Martinsville in the spring of 2012.
   It was the 20th anniversary running of this historic event, which broke with nearly 100 years of tradition here when NASCAR stock cars first arrived. And the weather was picture-perfect, 70 degrees and cloudy-blue skies, although the crowd, as anticipated, was far short of 280,000-plus seen here for so many years. The 257,000-seat stadium was perhaps half-full.

   However  TV ratings for Newman's win: ESPN Tuesday afternoon reported Brickyard 400 viewers up nearly 10 percent from last summer.  The 2-1/2-hour race earned a 3.6 rating, meaning an averge of 5.4 million viewers; last year's 400 earned a 3.3 rating, with 5 million viewers.    Indianapolis itself was, logically, the top market for the race, up 26 percent from a year ago, with a 13.7 rating, compared to the 10.9 in 2012. The rest of the top five markets: Winston-Salem/Greensboro/HighPoint (10.1), Greenville S.C. (9.4), Charlotte (9.1), and Norfolk Va. (8.3).

   Newman took the lead for good in the 2-1/2-hour race following the final series of pit stops, under green. Crew chief Matt Borland gambled on just a two-tire stop with 50 miles to go, while everyone else took four. And Newman held on to beat Jimmie Johnson, the pre-race favorite and the day's dominant driver.

    If this race is a harbinger for the championship playoffs, which open in six weeks at Chicago, then smart money may be on a Rick Hendrick title. Not surprisingly of course. But seven of the top nine finishers Sunday afternoon were running Hendrick engines and six also with Hendrick engineering.
   Toyota's Matt Kenseth finished fifth, and teammate Kyle Busch finished 10th. But neither had a good shot at the win down the stretch.
    Joey Logano, who ran strong all afternoon, had the best-finishing Ford, eighth.

  Jimmie Johnson in the pits at Indy: a slow stop cost him a shot at the win (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

   Johnson had a longer than usual pit stop the last time in, because of a 'mistake.' He came in with the lead but gave it up to Newman.
    "I think we had like a 17-second stop. Catching them and passing them is different. We definitely had a mistake on our stop," Johnson said. "But stuff happens.
    "I hate to let this opportunity slip by; we had a race-winning car.
    "We pitted before he did, so that (Newman taking only two tires) was an easy call."

    Newman, almost breathless after his surprise win, said in the closing laps " I just wanted it to stay green."
    Because double-file restarts after cautions were wild and crazy throughout the three-hour race.
     Newman started from the pole, his first pole in nearly two years. For a man now with 50 NASCAR poles, and the nickname 'Rocketman,' for his qualifying prowess, that dry spell was surprising...and was another example of the slump the Tony Stewart operation has been in.
    "This just caps a great week for us," Stewart said.
   "Matt Borland just made an amazing call," Newman said.
   "I can't wait to get over there to kiss those bricks.
   "It's a dream come true. If it hits you all at once, it's not right. This will probably take a week.
   "A great long-run call..and, boy, what an ending to the day.
   "The main thing here is confidence, confidence for me, confidence for the team."

  Ryan Newman and Jimmie Johnson, 1-2 much of the warm afternoon at the Brickyard (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

    
   "I can't wait to give him a hug," team owner/driver Tony Stewart said, after finishing fourth himself. "Down the stretch I was scared to ask where he was at and what was the lead. I just kept watching the jumbotrons. Finally with three to go I had to ask."

    The race was quite uneventful and was slowed only three times for cautions, all three for cars stalled on the track. The final 42 laps -- 105 miles -- were run under green, with a gas-mileage pit window of about 30 laps.
    So the field was strung out much of the day. Aerodynamics, third-place finisher Kasey Kahne said, are one issue; tires, he said, another.
    There were no tire issues; but at these speeds, well over 200 mph into the corners, this flat track is essentially a one-groove track.

 "In '04, my first year here, it was pretty easy to pass," Kahne said. "In '04 and '05. Since then it's been difficult.
    "I know the tires have changed, the cars have changed." The track too, with its diamond-grind grooves.
   "Right now a lot of the race you're equal," Kahne went on. "It's hard to be behind a car and carry that speed off the corner running in their tracks.
   "Right now we can't move around enough."
   Johnson: "I definitely agree. This year's (Indy) 500 was unusual, with so many passes for the lead (a record 68, compared to Sunday's 20 passes here). In general on a flat track, it's just tough to pass. You need a second lane, with some banking.
   "These corners aren't really that long; four 90-degree turns. That puts a lot against this track for side by side racing."
    However when NASCAR raced at Ontario (California) Motor Speedway (1971-1980) there were several races with incredible passing, and the Ontario track was a flat square-shaped track built to exactly mirror Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

   It's been an emotional two weeks for Ryan Newman and his family, wife Krissie and daughters daughters Brooklyn Sage (L) and Ashlyn Olivia (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

 
    However Stewart, who has raced here in Indy-cars as well as stock cars, took offense at questions from journalists here about what NASCAR could do to create more passing at this track. Sunday's race, aside from the restarts and pit stops, featured few passes for the lead on the track under green, a form that this track is well known for.
      "Look up 'racing' in the dictionary, and look up 'passing,'" Stewart shot back at the questioners.
   "What we're doing here is racing. It's racing, not passing.
    "If you want to see passing, we can go out on I-465 and pass all you want to.
    "If you can tell me that's more exciting than what you see here....
    "This is about racing.... This is about cars being fast.  It doesn't have to be two and threewide racing all day long to be good racing.
    "Racing is about figuring out how to take the package you're allowed and make it better than what everybody else has and do a better job with it.
   "I've seen races that were won over a lap, I've seen 20second leads here.  For some reason in the last 10 years, everybody is on this kick that you have to be passing all the time.  It's racing, not passing.  We're racing."

   Stewart's feelings aside, this race was relatively uneventful, more of a strategy race than an action race.
    
    Drivers all said passing was difficult. Carl Edwards said it was more difficult this 400 than last summer's race: "But there were cars that were able to get up front and stay up front. I can't say everybody had the same problem but we had a lot of trouble."
   Brad Keselowski agreed: "It is a difficult track to pass on....and it was probably slightly more than usual."
   Edwards pointed to Wednesday's Eldora dirt track race: "If you're not racing aerodynamic devices, and the tire and track can interact so the car can slide around, I think you will see more side by side racing. I have been preaching that a long time."

   Tony Stewart congratulates Ryan Newman on winning the Brickyard (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

   Newman, in victory, talked of the rollercoaster of emotions he's been through the past few weeks.
   "Loudon was an absolute disaster," Newman said of the last tour stop, the weekend he learned Stewart would not be keeping him on the roster at the end of the season.
   Stewart had agree last year to hire Kevin Harvick for 2014, and at Loudon Stewart said he just couldn't expand to four teams next season and keep Newman. That move has been seen critically by some, who point to Stewart keeping controversial racer Danica Patrick as teammate yet dumping Newman. Patrick finished 30th Sunday and ran no higher than 29th.
   "I know this track very well, but I didn't feel like I knew it in this car," Patrick said. "So I definitely didn't feel extremely comfortable. More time would have probably helped; that's where experience comes in."

   "We knew we had to do something to win the race," Borland said. "We looked at what everybody else had done with just two tires, and how far we had to run. It really didn't have anything to do with what Jimmie did."

   Kenseth never led a lap and was something of a surprise in not being more competitive. "We were a little off," he said. "Jason Ratcliff made a great call to get us some track  position at the end; from there, we were just hanging on to what we had."
   Teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin were less effective than expected too. Hamlin said his car was just bad. Busch
never led a lap; crew chief Dave Rogers said the pit road work wasn't what he's hoped for. "At this level it's tough to play catch-up," Rogers said.
   

   Double-file restarts Sunday at Indy were wild and crazy...and the best action of the afternoon, albeit all too briefly (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)