Smoke Secures Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) First Points Win

What can you say about Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman? These two gentlemen have set the world of NASCAR racing on fire over the past several weeks. Week in and week out these two drivers seem to do only one thing, that is, run better and better each week. No one thought that at this early that SHR would have two victories two their credit, one of which being a points race. Surely nobody thought that both drivers would be in the top five in the Sprint Cup points standing. Furthermore, did anyone really expect a SHR car to be atop the points chase? Of course nobody realistically saw all of this for SHR so soon into its life of being a Sprint Cup two car race team. But they are, and they are not doing any trash talking in the media either. They are doing all of their talking on the track letting it all hang out each and every weekend pushing their cars to the limit. At this point it would be hard to argue against SHR being the dominant team in the Sprint Cup series right now.

They only thing the future is for this two car race team is bright, likely with a couple of Championships under its belt. It is probably a safe bet to assume as well that before much longer the #39 U.S. Army car of Ryan Newman will be sitting in victory lane. The SHR team performance at Pocono was nothing short of stellar, doing nothing but proving yet again the caliber of race team that they really are.

Over the weekend Smoke was able to start 43 and bring home a win. Not only did he do it from last place but he did it in nail biting fashion, trying to conserve enough fuel to just finish the race. Just about everyone else was also conserving fuel trying to make it to the checkered. But, when you got Carl Edwards behind you, arguably the best in the business at fuel conservation, it probably makes you want to run harder using more fuel than you should. Stewart has garnered 10 top ten finishes so far and has retained the points lead.

Ryan Newman brought his car home in the fifth place after helping the crew diagnose a bad spark plug during the race. Having a driver that can actually help diagnose problems greatly helps the crew have an idea of what is wrong and how to attack the situation once the car reaches pit road. It was Newman's sixth consecutive top-10 finish, with five of the last six race finishes being top-fives pushing him to fourth in the Sprint Cup standings.