Stewart, Newman revel in 1-2 finish on Sunday

Associated Press

LOUDON, N.H.

Tony Stewart called New Hampshire a perfect weekend for his organization. And with good reason.

Ryan Newman’s first victory of the season from the pole and Stewart’s second-place finish gave Stewart-Haas Racing its first 1-2 start and finish.

Think Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon did that at Hendrick Motorsports? Nope. No set of teammates started 1-2 and finished 1-2 since Darrell Waltrip and Ken Schrader did it at the 1989 Daytona 500.

The last time teammates qualified 1-2 and finished first and second in the same order was in 1957 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Fireball Roberts won from the pole while teammate Paul Goldsmith started second and finished second. In 1989, Waltrip won, but started second. Schrader started from the pole.

“For the organization to take the front row and get first and second, you couldn’t ask for a better weekend,” Stewart said.

With a rare off week ahead before heading to Indianapolis for the Brickyard 400, the celebration will be a long one. But once the glow wears off, Stewart-Haas Racing has two crucial questions to answer: Where were these kinds of runs all season? What must be done to crank it up and contend?

Newman has been a more consistent driver than his boss, Stewart. Newman’s win, his first since April 2010, was his sixth top-five this season. He finished fourth the previous race at Kentucky and showed flashes in other races of coming so close to taking the checkers.

“We’ve been really good for three-quarters of the race, then we’ll come home fourth, fifth, 10th, not maybe make the right call, strategy, whatever it is, to put ourselves in the box of top five to close out the race,” Newman said. “There have been times where we had failures, bad pit stops. All those things add up.”

Stewart, a two-time Cup champion, hasn’t had the kind of consistent up-front runs he demands of himself and his team and hadn’t had a top-five finish since the second race of the season in Las Vegas.

Stewart realized last month the season was falling short of the big expectations when he fired competition director Bobby Hutchens. Stewart said at New Hampshire that the job is open and the search continues.

It seems unlikely he’ll have a replacement by the time of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship on Sept. 18.

Will he have a spot in the Chase?

With seven races left until the field is frozen, both drivers have positioned themselves to be in the hunt for a spot. Newman solidified his place with the victory and is eighth in the standings.