By Reid Spencer - Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
HAMPTON, Ga. - Ryan Newman made the most of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut, winning Saturday's E-Z-Go 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway and holding off Kevin Harvick Inc. teammate Ron Hornaday Jr. in the process.
Newman and Hornaday, the defending series champion, traded the lead twice in the last eight laps before Newman passed his teammate on the backstretch of the final circuit. Newman finished .377 seconds ahead of Hornaday, who narrowed seventh-place finisher Johnny Benson's lead in the championship standings from 69 to 31 points.
Denny Hamlin finished third in the No. 15 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota, followed by Germain Racing's Todd Bodine and Scott Speed in the No. 22 Bill Davis Racing Toyota.
Hornaday led by half a truck-length at the start/finish line on lap 129 of 130, but Newman fought back on the outside to make the winning pass when Hornaday slipped in the second corner.
"I just missed that corner off of (Turn) 2," Hornaday said. "If you miss it, you miss it, and you lose three tenths to half a second."
Though Hornaday is racing for a championship, he gave Newman room to maneuver in the closing laps.
"He raced me clean - I got to say that first and foremost," Newman said. "He left me room. He could have pinched me off twice, but he raced me like a gentleman. I really didn't know what to expect. I was pretty loose the whole race. I saw him (Hornaday) slipping, and I started to run him down."
Benson took new tires on his first two pit stops, under caution for Donny Lia's spinning Randy Moss Motorsports truck on lap 16 and under a competition caution on lap 27. The second stop cost Benson track position and forced him into a two-tire call under caution on Lap 59.
Riding on nine-lap-old scuffed tires on the right side of his No. 23 Bill Davis Racing Toyota, Benson restarted second on lap 63 but quickly lost ground. He was in danger of losing a lap when NASCAR called a caution for debris in Turn 2 on lap 89.
"I'm still looking for that debris," Hornaday said after the race.
Armed with new tires following a pit stop, Benson made up 10 positions in the final 36 laps to earn his seventh-place finish and minimize the damage in the points standings, despite a vibration that worsened as the end of the race neared.
"We just didn't run good today," Benson said. "That was the bottom line. I don't understand. We were good and decent in practice, and we thought we were going to be in the race. We started the race, and we struggled with something. We had a huge vibration somewhere, and we just kept making different adjustments."
Notes: The win gave Newman 21 victories in NASCAR's top three series combined. He has 13 wins in Sprint Cup and seven in the Nationwide Series. Newman is the 19th driver to score a victory in each of the three divisions, and he's the fourth to win in his truck series debut, joining Mike Skinner, Robert Pressley and Kasey Kahne. … The victory is Newman's first in a Chevrolet in any of the top three NASCAR series. Next year, after leaving the No. 12 Dodge of Penske Racing, Newman will drive Chevrolet's full time for Stewart-Haas Racing.
http://www.scenedaily.com/news/articles/craftsmantruckseries/Rocketman_Ryan_Newman_rumbles_to_victory_in_first_truck_series_start.html
