NASCAR At Martinsville: Ryan Newman Wins After Late Crash

For the fourth straight week, Roush Fenway Racing driver Greg Biffle left a racetrack with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points lead.

And because of the upcoming NASCAR off-week, Biffle will get an extra week atop the standings – thanks to his 13th-place finish on Sunday at Martinsville. But there’s a new second-place driver, and he took a chunk out of Biffle’s lead on Sunday.

But instead of being the turning point to getting his year back on track, Sunday’s NASCAR race was just the latest where Kahne was left feeling disappointed and unfilled.

After running in the top 10 for first 150 laps, everything was going to plan. But a faulty engine which later expired in a ball of smoke just past halfway put Kahne in the garage permanently, and he ended up 38th in the final rundown.

Team owner Tommy Baldwin walked through the garage toward the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series hauler, summoned there by officials after one of his cars caused a race-altering caution near the end of Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

In his hand, Baldwin carried a broken part wrapped in a white towel, and said driver David Reutimann did nothing wrong when he stopped on the track with three laps to go in the race.

Ryan Newman spoiled an afternoon of Hendrick hegemony with an opportunistic victory in the Goody’s Fast Relief 500 Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.

After Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson dominated the action for 497 laps, an untimely caution flag flew on Lap 497 and sent the race to overtime, after David Reutimann stalled on the frontstretch.

Baseball has Wrigley field, football has Lambeau Field and basketball has Madison Square Garden. Those magical iconic places that take you back to the sport’s roots, when everything seemed much simpler.

For NASCAR, that place is Martinsville Speedway.

Is Kasey Kahne the new Rocket Man?

Ryan “Rocket Man” Newman has long held the reputation of being NASCAR’s fastest qualifier in the Chase era, but another pole position for Kahne on Saturday might mean the newest Hendrick Motorsports driver needs a nickname of his own.

In effort to jumpstart his season, Kahne will be working with a new spotter in Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Out is old spotter Kole Kahne – Kasey’s cousin – and in his place is Shannon McGlamery, the former spotter for Kahne’s teammate Jeff Gordon.

Mother Nature is expected to play nice this weekend at Martinsville Speedway. The only weather concern we have is for possible scattered rain showers and isolated storms Saturday. Weather WILL NOT be a factor for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.

Weak storm system will push through the Ohio Valley dragging a cold front across western Virginia on Saturday. This could result in a few scattered showers or isolated storms during the morning and possibly the afternoon. The threat is low but because there is no way to know where a storm or shower may pop up, it could only take one to delay or threaten any of the days activities.

The best stretch of racing Tony Stewart has ever experienced was in 1995 when he was running USAC cars – at least according to Stewart.

That was the year Stewart won USAC’s “Triple Crown,” which consists of national titles in Silver Crown cars, Sprint cars and Midget cars.

But Harvick’s days as owner came to an end last fall when Harvick and his wife DeLana – who ran the organization on a day-to-day basis – announced they were selling the Nationwide portion of KHI to Harvick’s Cup owner Richard Childress and the Truck Series teams to Eddie Sharp.

So does Harvick miss owning a team?

Even if you can’t remember who won last October’s Martinsville race (it was Tony Stewart, by the way), you probably remember Brian Vickers being involved in five cautions – including a spat with Chase contender Matt Kenseth.

Vickers was a wrecking ball that day, and many have speculated his Martinsville performance may have hurt his chances at landing a full-time Sprint Cup Series ride this season.

The two most dominant drivers in recent memory at Martinsville Speedway are still smarting from last season’s uncharacteristic Victory Lane shutout. If the 2011 blanking has made Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson even more motivated, the rest of the field could be in trouble.

Hamlin and Johnson will get their chance to scratch the win column again when the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series makes its first stop of the year at its shortest track for the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 (FOX, 1 p.m. ET).

Following a one-race internal suspension for a DUI arrest, John Wes Townley will make his official return to NASCAR next weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

Townley will race in the Camping World Truck Series event for RAB Racing, his former team that offered another shot at NASCAR only to see him crash a new BMW into a telephone pole while allegedly under the influence.