Goody’s Fast Relief 500

  STEWART-HAAS RACING: WEEKEND LINEUP

March 27-29, 2009

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series - Goody's Fast Relief 500  

Venue / Location:    Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (.526-mile oval)

SHR Driver Lineup:  Tony Stewart in the No. 14 Old Spice / Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS

                             Ryan Newman in the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala SS

 Qualifying:                 3:30 p.m. EDT on Friday, March 27 with live broadcast on SPEED

 Time / Date / TV:     1:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, March 29 with live broadcast on FOX (race starts at 2 p.m.)

STEWART-HAAS RACING

Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 Qualifying

Date:                March 27, 2009

Event:               Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 Qualifying (Round 6 of 36)

Series:               NASCAR Sprint Cup Series

Location:          Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (.526-mile oval)

Pole Winner:   None, qualifying canceled due to rain (field set via current car owner point standings)

SHR Lineup:    Tony Stewart (7th)

                     Ryan Newman (27th)                

Rain canceled today's qualifying session for the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.  As a result, the 43-car field for Sunday's 500-lap race was set by current car owner points per the NASCAR rulebook.

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), will start seventh.  The co-owner of SHR along with Oxnard, Calif.-based Haas Automation - the largest CNC machine tool builder in the western world - will look to score his third Sprint Cup victory at Martinsville, as he won in the fall of 2000 and the spring of 2006.

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala SS for SHR, will start 27th.  He has six top-10 finishes in 14 career Sprint Cup starts at the .526-mile oval, with a best finish of second in the fall of 2007.

Jeff Gordon will start from the pole, as his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team leads the Sprint Cup owner standings by 76 points over the No. 2 Penske Championship Racing team of Kurt Busch, who will start on the outside of row one.  Clint Bowyer, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards comprise the remainder of the top-five.  Kasey Kahne, Stewart, Denny Hamlin, three-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth complete the top-10.

Forty-seven drivers were slated to qualify for the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500.  Those not making the cut in the 43-car field were Sterling Marlin, Tony Raines, Dennis Setzer and Derrike Cope.

The Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 gets underway at 2 p.m. EDT on Sunday, March 29 with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 1:30 p.m.

Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 Race Report

Date:                March 29, 2009

Event:              Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 (Round 6 of 36)

Series:             NASCAR Sprint Cup Series

Location:         Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (.526-mile oval)

Winner:           Jimmie Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)

SHR Finish:     Tony Stewart (Started 7th, Finished 3rd/ Running, completed 500 of 500 laps)

                   Ryan Newman (Started 27th, Finished 6th / Running, completed 500 of 500 laps)

Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman each finished among the top-10 in Sunday's Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, marking the first time in Stewart-Haas Racing's (SHR) brief six-race history that both of its drivers finished 10th or better in the same event.

Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala SS for SHR, finished a solid third to score his best finish of 2009.  It was the Columbus, Ind., native's fourth top-10 finish in six races this season and his eighth top-five result in 21 Sprint Cup starts at Martinsville.

Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala SS for SHR, finished an impressive sixth - his best finish at SHR and his seventh top-10 in 15 Sprint Cup starts at the .526-mile oval in southern Virginia.

Stewart continues to lead the SHR driver lineup in the championship point race, as his third-place finish maintained his seventh-place point standing after round six of 36.  Newman made a big gain with his sixth-place run, vaulting nine spots to 18th in the standings.  Stewart is 161 markers arrears series leader Jeff Gordon, while Newman is 334 points out of first.

Jimmie Johnson beat Denny Hamlin by .774 of a second to win the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 and score the 41st victory of his Sprint Cup career and his sixth at Martinsville.  Stewart was third, while Gordon and Clint Bowyer rounded out the top-five.  Newman, Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., A.J. Allmendinger and Jamie McMurray comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 12 caution periods for 66 laps, with just four drivers failing to finish the 500-lap race.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the April 5 Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.  The race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 1:30 p.m.

Newman Charges to 6th-Place Finish in Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. (March 29, 2009) -- A second-half surge by the U.S. Army team lifted Ryan Newman to a sixth-place finish in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway.

Newman's hard-charging performance in the Fast Pain Relief 500 culminated with two passes in the final 10 laps, giving the Stewart-Haas driver his second straight top-10 finish and his best result of the season.

"I knew we had a good U.S. Army Chevy from practice and it was just a matter of getting it right and being patient," said Newman, who finished seventh last week in Bristol, Tenn. "We had the never-quit attitude like our Soldiers and came up strong in the end."

The result gave Newman the biggest leap in the points standings, picking up nine positions. He went from 27th to 18th. Two weeks ago he was 31st.

Newman started the 500-lap event from the 27th position after qualifying was canceled due to rain on Friday, forcing NASCAR to set the lineup according to owner points.

Newman struggled with a tight-handling Army Chevy for the first half of the race. But the second half of the race at the half-mile flat track was a different scenario for the No. 39 team. The turning point came on Lap 257 when a second spring rubber was added to the right-rear spring, which dramatically improved the car's handling.

"It (spring rubber) definitely improved the attitude of the car," said crew chief Tony Gibson.

When the race was restarted on Lap 265 following a caution, Newman was positioned in 20th place. From that point on the 31-year-old driver picked his way through the field and moved into 10th place on Lap 337. He virtually stayed in the top 10 for the remainder of the race. He passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. for ninth place with nine laps remaining and edged by Mark Martin for sixth on the final lap.

"The guys did a good job making adjustments and we did make a lot of changes today," stated Newman. "The pit stops were good -- the bottom line is we stayed headstrong and got our positioning back and got up to sixth."

"The first half of the race the car was really, really tight," added Newman. "There wasn't much I could do with it. There at the end it came to us. We just made the best of it today."

Newman was also pleased about how the No. 39 team has improved its finish in each of the first six races.

"Each race has been better all year long -- there's something to be said for that," noted Newman.

The Martinsville race also marked the first time that the new Stewart-Haas Racing team had both of its cars finish in the top 10. Team owner and No. 14 driver Tony Stewart posted a third-place result.

The race winner was Jimmie Johnson. Rounding out the top five in order were: Denny Hamlin, Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer.

The next event for the U.S. Army team will be Sunday (April 5) at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.