Newman Endures at The Winston

Ryan Newman survived everything thrown at him Saturday night to become the second rookie to win NASCAR’s All-Star race.

Newman endured a qualifying race, two elimination rounds, a helmet being thrown at him, two restarts and a furious battle with Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win The Winston--dubbed “Survival of the Fastest” this year--at Concord, N.C., and earn the $750,000 grand prize.

“Man, I had to drive the wheels off of it to win this thing,” Newman said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Newman, 24, joined Earnhardt as the only rookies to win the event, and Michael Waltrip as the only drivers to take the title after making it into the field through the qualifying race.

Earnhardt, the 2000 winner, finished second and Matt Kenseth was third, followed by Kurt Busch and rookie Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson, locked in a battle with Newman for rookie-of-the-year honors, won the first two segments of the event and earned $100,000 in bonuses.

Newman had to win a qualifying race to make the field at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Then he survived two rounds of cuts under the new format and shrugged off Elliott Sadler throwing his helmet at his car in an earlier round.

He wasn’t done yet.

Newman started the 20-lap shootout in fourth place and wasted no time running down leader Tony Stewart, passing him in Turn 4 three laps into it. He had opened up a three-second lead on the field and was on his way to victory when caution came out on Lap 84 when Kurt Busch spun out Robby Gordon.

It bunched the field with five laps to go. Newman got a tremendous jump on the restart, but NASCAR waved it off and made him come back and try it again.

So he had to do it again, duplicating the start and again pulling away to victory.

Earnhardt could have won the race by spinning Newman out, but backed off, allowing Newman to win the race.

*

Santa Clarita’s Ben Walker kept his racing season alive by going wire to wire in the 75-lap Jani-King Super Late Model series feature race in front of 5,842 at Irwindale Speedway.

Walker, who had said early in the season that his racing team needs to finish no lower than third, easily held off Nathan Wulff and Brandon Loverock for his second win of the season.

Todd Burns won the 75-lap Southern California Auto Club Late Model feature race after an accident between Mike Price and Tim Huddleston knocked out Price and sent Huddleston to the back of the pack with seven laps left.

David Hartsock won the 50-lap Mechanix Wear Speed Truck feature race and Guy Tripp won the 30-lap Modified 4’s feature race.