Stewart had a rough day at best at Martinsville, fighting an ill-handling car throughout the race as no adjustments could give him what he needed to get around the track. Stewart finished 27th, two laps down to the leaders.
“No matter what we did to the car – and we made a lot of adjustments – it didn’t do anything to make it better,” said Stewart on the SHR website.
Credit: Katy Lindamood/Skirts and Scuffs |
“It was a good rebound by our Quicken Loans team,” said Newman after the race on the website. “Our car was entirely too tight, and it wasn’t working from about the second run of the race on. We made wedge and track bar changes, and it didn’t help. We made air-pressure changes, and it didn’t change anything. Nothing was working, but we kept taking big swings at it, and we kept trying to fix it. We got two laps down, but we were able to use the wave-around to our advantage and get back on the lead lap and drive up to 11th there at the end. It would have been nice to have gotten a top-10 in my first race back with Borland, but I’m proud of what we did as a team today. It’s a good start for us.”
Stewart’s rough day cost him spots and points in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, falling from seventh to 10th in the standings; Stewart is now 71 points behind new points leader and Martinsville race winner Jimmie Johnson. Newman remains 15th in points, 70 points back of Kyle Busch.