Newman blazes to Zippo victory

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. - Ryan Newman won a three-lap dash to the finish Saturday, holding off hard-charging Robby Gordon to win the Busch Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen International.

Brian Vickers was third, followed by polesitter Tony Stewart and Martin Truex Jr., who boosted his series lead to 122 points over Clint Bowyer, who finished 15th.

Nineteen-year-old rookie Reed Sorenson remained third in the points but fell 219 points behind. He suffered a big blow to his title chances when his engine blew at the midway point of the race, leading to a 41st-place finish.

"We accomplished a goal," said Truex, who won the series' other road course race in Mexico early in the year. "We stayed on the road all day."

It was the first Busch series race at Watkins Glen since Canadian road race star Ron Fellows won in 2001, and the last two of the seven cautions in the race made for a scintillating finish.

"I was kind of running my own race," said Newman, who ran out of gas on the cooldown lap. "I'd catch Brian and lose him, but he got loose in (Turn) 10 and lost momentum, and I just was able to capitalize. I stuck to the outside because he was trying to block. I thought he was running out of gas. I just kept my line, and that's all it took."

"I started to burn the back tires off the car," Vickers said. "I started wheel-hopping it. It's just my inexperiencne on road courses. I just made a mistake there, and it cost us a lot."

TOYOTA TUNDRA 200: In Glade-ville, Tenn., David Reutimann won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Nashville Superspeedway, squeezing past Mike Skinner with two laps left and holding off Ted Musgrave by about two truck lengths.

Reutimann, driving a Toyota owned by former NASCAR star Darrell Waltrip, won for the first time in the truck series after finishing in the top three in three of the past four races. The 2003 series rookie of the year earned $52,110.

Reutimann and pole starter Skinner drove side-by-side into the third turn on the 1.333-mile concrete oval on the 149th of 150 laps.

Skinner, also driving a Toyota, carried too much speed into the corner and slid up the track and out of the lead. That also opened the inside lane for Musgrave and third-place finisher Todd Bodine.