Late-race strategy gives Newman win at Phoenix

Ryan Newman busted the NASCAR brackets at Phoenix International Raceway.

The elder statesmen of Richard Childress Racing had a solid top 10 No. 31 Chevrolet in the Camping World 500, but his win was a dramatic upset. Newman led just six laps, the final six, to earn his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win since July 2013 at Indianapolis.

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Crew chief Luke Lambert kept Newman on track when the eighth and final caution flew with six laps to go, which gave Newman the lead as most of the field headed for fresh tires. On a green-white-checkered finish, Newman drove away from Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch.

The victory is the 18th of Newman's career and his second at Phoenix.

"I lost count, that's how long it's been," Newman said of snapping his own 127-race drought and Richard Childress Racing's 112-race winless streak. "Man, gutsy call by Luke. I called for two tires, and he called for none, and I've won more races with no tires than I have with four. Just proud of these guys, we had a good car all day and kept it out of trouble and collected in the end."

Although Newman jumped away on the restart, he knew Larson wasn't far behind and might not be afraid to use the bumper. After all, Newman used up Larson in the 2014 fall Phoenix race by shoving him out of the way – and into the wall – on the final lap. The move gave Newman the spot he needed to move on to Homestead for the championship.

"Trust me, I went into [Turn] 3 looking in my A-post mirror; I knew it was down there," Newman said.

Larson finished second for the third consecutive week, and for the fourth time in the last five races. Sunday, he led just three laps but took over the points lead heading into Auto Club Speedway.

"All in all, it was a good effort for our Credit One Chevy," Larson said. "Dang it. I wish I wouldn't have gotten sideways there in 1 and 2 and I would have stayed close enough to Newman and I probably would have got him down in 3 and 4 coming to the white [flag].

"Never know, though, that's how the races play out. Maybe I made a mistake there in [Turn] 1. This one stinks because I felt like I was in the best spot out of anybody lining up fourth on two tires. But it's really, really cool to be the point leader right now. That was a goal of mine going into the day."

Busch finished third after leading a race-high 114 of 314 laps. He was leading until polesitter Joey Logano brought out the final caution with a blown right-front tire and hard crash. Busch led the field onto pit road, but he exited second to Larson and restarted fifth. The finish was Busch's first top 10 of the season.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Daniel Suarez, Erik Jones, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top 10.

The three-hour race saw eight cautions for 45 laps and 15 lead changes among eight drivers.

NASCAR announced that Brad Keselowski's car failed post-race inspection for weights and measures. Any penalty assessed would be announced later this week.