NASCAR At Martinsville: A Look At The Weekend’s Winners And Losers

Who came away from Martinsville as a winner and who was a loser? The answers are below.

Stewart-Haas Racing

No organization has won more races this season than Stewart-Haas Racing, as the two-car team has a .500 winning percentage six races into 2012. While other teams have struggled with consistency and reliability, that hasn’t been an issue for SHR as both Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman have been to Victory Lane and both are within the top 10 in the driver standings.

AJ Allmendinger

Lost in the bedlam that was the closing laps of the Goody’s Fast Relief 500 was the fact that AJ Allmendinger finished second – a career-best finish for the Penske Racing driver.

Martin Truex Jr.

Everyone keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop on Martin Truex Jr.‘s hot start to 2012, but it continued Sunday at Martinsville, where he picked up his third straight top-10 finish (fifth) and moved up two spots in the standings to third.

Kevin Harvick

Hendrick Motorsports

Hendrick Motorsports may have led 86 percent of the laps, but it didn’t win, only one car finish in the top 10 (Dale Earnhardt Jr., third) and saw Kasey Kahne’s dreadful start to his tenure with Hendrick continue as he ended the day in the garage with blown motor. Also, for the first time since 2008, the team has failed to score a win in one of the season’s first six events.

David Reutimann

No matter what followed afterward, it’s inexcusable for a car multiple laps down to stop on the race track with two laps to go when it was evident to everyone the No. 10 wasn’t going to be able to make it to the finish. That his gaffe resulted in the carnage that it did only compounds David Reutimann’s blunder.