Newman Finishes Sixth at Darlington for Kevin Harvick Inc.

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Returning to the driver’s seat of the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) Chevrolet at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, Ryan Newman looked to tame the Lady in Black and score the win he narrowly missed in the No. 33 Chevrolet at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. With rain canceling qualifying for the Nationwide Series on Friday afternoon, Newman started the race from the second position and finished the race sixth, retaking the Owner’s Point lead for the No. 33 team.

“The No. 33 KHI Chevrolet was good tonight,” said Newman following the Diamond Hill Plywood 200. “We fought a tight car most of the night and had some problems on pit road, but I have to thank Kevin and DeLana (Harvick) for letting me drive the car. They have a great program at KHI and it’s a lot of fun to get in these cars.”

Starting the race from the second position, Newman quickly found that the car was free getting into turn one and tight off the corner of turn four. Continuing to get tighter in turns three and four, Newman slipped to the fifth position on lap 36. The caution flag waved several laps later on lap 42 and the team prepared to make adjustments to the car to help with the handling. Crew chief Ernie Cope made the call for fuel, four tires, an air-pressure and a trackbar adjustment. A setback on the rear tire during the stop, the team dropped to 12th on the lap 47 restart.
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Shuffled in with lead lap and lap down cars, Newman was able to move in to the top 10 on lap 61, but again told Cope the No. 33 KHI Chevrolet was free in turn one and tight off turn four. Continuing to run fast laps, the handling turned to tight all the way through all four turns and picked up a bad push by lap 87 with Newman in the 10th position.

Under the caution on lap 91, Newman again came down pit road for four tires, fuel, an air-pressure and a wedge adjustment. The race restarted on lap 96 with Newman and the No. 33 team in 12th.

Picking off several more positions, Newman was in the seventh position when the ninth caution flag of the night waved on lap 145 setting up a green-white-checkered finish. During the caution, Kyle Busch, who appeared to be on his way to a victory lane after leading 143 laps, ran over debris and cut down his right-rear tire which resulted in an unscheduled pit stop. Coming to a green-white-checkered scenario, Newman restarted the race from the sixth position on lap 151, but the final caution came out on the same lap and froze the field. The No. 33 team finished the race in the sixth position, the eighth top-10 finish this season and regained the Owner’s point lead by seven points over the No. 18 of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Matt Kenseth won the race followed by Jason Leffler, Carl Edwards, and rookies Erik Darnell and Justin Allgaier. [nichemate]0,1,4,’Ryan Newman’,,US,,,,,,,,[/nichemate]