Ryan Newman was the surprise winner Saturday night at Phoenix International Raceway!

photo credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images for NASCAR

“It was a long time coming for me personally,” Newman said referring to his 77 race winless streak. “To see Tony Stewart (team owner) win so many races last year and be so close but not get that victory, this is really awesome for us and our team.”

Once again, it came down to a two versus four tire call. Coming off a win the night before in the Nationwide Series, Kyle Busch took the lead late in the race and was going for a weekend sweep as the laps ticked down. Both, Busch and points leader Jimmie Johnson lead for 113 laps and looked like the class of the field, until Scott Riggs hit the wall which brought out the final caution of the night and setting up a green-white-checkered finish. Drivers came down pit road for their final stop, most taking four tires.

“I’ve got to throw Gibson (Tony Gibson, crew chief) under the bus—he wanted to go four, and I said, ‘Just give me two,’ Newman said. “I liked the track position. I’d rather block than have to boot. I was in a good position there, obviously.”

“It was tough,” Newman said. “It was tough last year, I’m not going to kid you, when I come to a new organization and it’s the same organization for Tony Stewart and he won all those races. Looking back at it, we were close, but we gave some of our races away and we know that. We knew what we needed to do to make our team better.

“And I feel that we’ve done that. We proved that tonight. So it was a long time coming for me. The emotional part when I first started in the series, it just came easy. I was with a great team. Had great crew chief, great pit stops, all those things just kind of came easy to me, and then as it — I got towards 2005, got to struggling a little bit. I got a win here or there, but it was not dominant like we were back in 2002 and 2003. And to come to this new organization and achieve the things that we did was great last year.

“But, as I said all year long, I wanted to get that first victory for our team and for No. 39 and these guys at Stewart-Haas Racing who had never been to any victory in any series, and we did that today.”

Jeff Gordon started alongside Newman on the front row for the final restart.

“I just spun the tires on that last restart. And Ryan got a really good one,” Gordon said. “We both, I thought, kind of spun the tires and so I wasn’t too worried, but, man, all of a sudden he shot forward. I was like, oh, man, I’m in trouble here. And I thought I might be able to get to his quarter panel off of 2, but it was just too late over there and he was making a run up towards the wall, and so I got in behind him and tried to make a run at him. But came up short.”

Coming up short was a runner-up finish for the #24.

“Tonight I’m frustrated because I spun the tires on the restart,” Gordon said. “I felt like we really had ourselves in the right position to win the race and so I’m frustrated right now with that. But I’m really excited the fact that our team I feel like has really improved this year and I like how we get stronger as the race goes on. That’s something that we haven’t had for a while. And we’re up in the points and we’re knocking on the door for wins. I mean, you can’t ask for a whole lot more than that. And if you do that enough times, you’re going to get yourself to Victory Lane. So that’s what I’m excited about right now. And I think we have a lot to look forward to as the season goes on.”

“I made the call for four and made the most of it,” third-place finisher Jimmie Johnson said. “We got from 7th to 3rd and just did what we could. So not a bad night at all. Excited to see us stretch out the points a little bit and get another top 5 finish here.”

Johnson extended his lead in the standings to 36 points over 2nd place driver, Matt Kenseth.

Mark Martin finished fourth followed by Juan Pablo Montoya, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. Kyle Busch ended up eighth then Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano complete the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here (nascar.com)

There were 9 cautions for 59 laps and 20 lead changes among 13 drivers: A. Allmendinger 1-17; D. Blaney 18; D. Gilliland 19; T. Cook # 20; R. Newman 21-22; T. Stewart 23-37; J. Montoya 38-57; T. Kvapil 58; M. McDowell 59-62; J. Montoya 63-130; J. Johnson 131-132; M. Kenseth 133; J. Montoya 134-148; J. Johnson 149-189; J. Montoya 190; J. Johnson 191-256; Kyle Busch 257; J. Johnson 258-261; Kyle Busch 262-373; J. Gordon 374-376; R. Newman 377-378

Next on the schedule: Texas Motor Speedway starting at 3 pm on FOX on Sunday, April 18th.