Newman wins at PIR

...and it's probably the best thing that could've happened to Stewart-Haas Racing.

No one can really doubt that Tony Stewart's going to win races. For Ryan Newman, it's been a very. long. time in making it back to Victory Lane. Making the Chase last year was great for him, and for SHR, but in the end, racing is about *winning*. As good as SHR was last year, the possibility was there for it to become a one-sided team. For his part Tony's received kudos for what's been going on since he became co-owner of the former Haas-CNC team, but having wins for both cars, and as both a driver and an owner separately as well as driver/owner... it has the potential to really take the relatively small two-car team (which yes, gets a LOT of technical support from the megateam that is Hendrick Motorsports) to the next level.

Congrats to Ryan, Smoke, Tony Gibson, the #39 crew, and also to Gene Haas, who probably didn't really anticipate this sort of thing when the idea of giving Smoke a 50% stake in his team.