Newman leads Penske 1-2 in Daytona

Neither the powerful Toyotas of Tony Stewart or Kyle Busch, nor the Hendrick Motorsports army were able to round off their domination over the past few days at Daytona, missing on the ultimate victory of the week to Penske Racing.

Newman broke an 81-race winless drought thanks to some great teamwork in the final laps. He led the race four times but only completed eight laps up front, to give Roger Penske his first ever Daytona 500 victory.

"Don't have the words," said and emotional Newman. "It's awesome. It's probably one of the most awesome things that's ever happened to me.

"To understand all the history of NASCAR, of racing in general, you know, the drivers' meeting, to be looking face to face with all the guys, the greats that were on stage up there, and now to be part of one of those guys and part of that team, it's just awesome."

The Penske driver was full of praise for his teammate Kurt Busch, and publicly admitted his win wouldn't have been possible without his help.

"Without a doubt, he could have easily gone three wide and split us through the centre and made one heck of a mess there going into three, but he chose to be a teammate," Newman added.

"That's the most honourable thing that he could do. I would have done the same thing to him."

For his part Kurt Busch was happy to have helped his teammate win the race, although he admitted to having seen a chance of winning the race on the final lap.

"For one instant, driving down the back straightaway, if Ryan Newman didn't pull up in front of us, I honestly thought we had a shot at winning the Daytona 500," Busch said.

"But, you know, having that mindset all day of just plugging away, working our way up, and if this thing ends and we're tenth or better, that's a victory, for us to come home and push Ryan Newman to victory, I feel like I've got a small bit of that victory within me."

Tony Stewart seemed in position to take his first Daytona 500 win, but his teammate Kyle Busch was not close enough when he needed him and helplessly watched the Penske train go by him on the last lap.

Between Stewart and Busch, they led more than half of the race just like they had done on Saturday on their way to a perfect one-two in the Nationwide Series event. Their tandem was not in place when it most mattered, although Stewart blamed himself for probably making the wrong move.

"It's pretty tough to come in here and say that I'm happy to go from first to third on the last lap of the Daytona 500," Stewart said. "I just made the wrong decision on the backstretch and tried to get down in front of Kyle (Busch).

"I thought we could get a push down there, but the No. 2 (Kurt Busch) got glued to the No. 12 (Ryan Newman). I don't know if I could have stopped them anyway and if I would have changed lanes I think I would have ended up like a bunch of other guys - wrecked."

Although he claimed the Penske drivers made a move outside the rules to get the jump on him on the last restart with only three laps remaining, Kyle Busch said there was nothing he could have done to prevent Newman and his elder brother Kurt from stealing victory.

"You couldn't really," said Busch. "Those guys had such a head of steam. They got ahead of me on that restart. They lagged back and then got a big push. In the NASCAR rulebook that's not right, but they let it go.

"I've had plenty of disappointments here over the years, and this is no different. We just had the dominant car and could hold the car wide open every lap. This car was strong."

Behind Busch, Reed Sorenson rounded up a good week at Daytona and finished fifth for Chip Ganassi Racing, ahead of another three Dodges of Elliott Sadler, Kasey Kahne and Robby Gordon, making it six Chargers in the top eight.

Behind them, Dale Earnhardt Jr crossed the finish line in ninth place after taking a risky strategy in the final part of the race. He grabbed the lead for the first time in the afternoon as others pitted under caution while he stayed out and then stuck to his plan when a further caution came out a few laps later. However, his gamble didn't pay off.

"I would have loved to have had four (new) tyres," Earnhardt said. "Then we would have been able to come back up through there. We hadn't been great all night. We had been OK and we were hanging on really, to fifth place most of the day.

"But I don't think we could have drove up by the 18 (Kyle Busch) or 20 (Stewart), the guys that were out-running us all day. I needed to be in front of them."

The demise of the Hendrick cars started when Jeff Gordon had to go to his garage following a suspension failure. Then Jimmie Johnson spun after getting a tap from Sam Hornish, badly damaging his car, although he still rejoined to finish on the lead lap.

Casey Mears, who looked like the trump card in the end for Hendrick, crashed into the wall after making contact with Tony Stewart only six laps from the end.

Rounding up Penske's great day was Sam Hornish who finished 15th as the best rookie, having run well in the top ten during the first half of the race.

"I was pretty happy with the car all day," Hornish said. "I think we definitely had a better finish in the car but kind of got stuck back in traffic a little bit and kind of were just fighting for our life there for a little while.

"I've got a little bit of work to do, not only getting the draft down but also getting in and out of the pits. We're all trying to work together and do the best we can."

Dario Franchitti crossed the line in 33rd place just behind his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya who ran as high as second before being involved in an incident with Clint Bowyer 15 laps before the end.

The Scot ran most of the day at the back of the back and dropped a lap down early on as the race stayed caution-free for the first 80 laps. One more caution flag in the end would have seen him finish on the lead lap, as he was the first car a lap down on the winner in the end.

"What we did was we were very conservative to start with and it went green for so long," Franchitti said. "When I got in a pack I was so loose I really couldn't hang on so we've got to work on that. We finished, that's about all I can say."

The second round of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes place next weekend at Fontana.

Pos  Driver                 Make       Laps
 1.  Ryan Newman            Dodge       200
 2.  Kurt Busch             Dodge       200
 3.  Tony Stewart           Toyota      200
 4.  Kyle Busch             Toyota      200
 5.  Reed Sorenson          Dodge       200
 6.  Elliott Sadler         Dodge       200
 7.  Kasey Kahne            Dodge       200
 8.  Robby Gordon           Dodge       200
 9.  Dale Earnhardt Jr      Chevrolet   200
10.  Greg Biffle            Ford        200
11.  Bobby Labonte          Dodge       200
12.  Brian Vickers          Toyota      200
13.  Jeff Burton            Chevrolet   200
14.  Kevin Harvick          Chevrolet   200
15.  Sam Hornish Jr         Dodge       200
16.  Dale Jarrett           Toyota      200
17.  Denny Hamlin           Toyota      200
18.  David Reutimann        Toyota      200
19.  Carl Edwards           Ford        200
20.  Martin Truex Jr        Chevrolet   200
21.  Scott Riggs            Chevrolet   200
22.  Paul Menard            Chevrolet   200
23.  Jeremy Mayfield        Chevrolet   200
24.  Clint Bowyer           Chevrolet   200
25.  J.J. Yeley             Toyota      200
26.  Jamie McMurray         Ford        200
27.  Jimmie Johnson         Chevrolet   200
28.  David Gilliland        Ford        200
29.  Michael Waltrip        Toyota      200
30.  Travis Kvapil          Ford        200
31.  Mark Martin            Chevrolet   200
32.  Juan Montoya           Dodge       200
33.  Dario Franchitti       Dodge       199
34.  Kyle Petty             Dodge       197
35.  Matt Kenseth           Ford        194
36.  Regan Smith            Chevrolet   194
37.  Casey Mears            Chevrolet   194
38.  Dave Blaney            Toyota      189
39.  Jeff Gordon            Chevrolet   186
40.  John Andretti          Chevrolet   184
41.  Joe Nemechek           Chevrolet   171
42.  David Ragan            Ford        161
43.  Kenny Wallace          Chevrolet   141