Bosch-equipped cars dominate as Ryan Newman wins Martinsville

April 6, 2012

Ryan Newman, driving a Bosch-equipped Chevrolet fielded by Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), grabbed the lead and beat A.J. Allmendinger to the finish line in the Goody's Fast Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race Sunday at Martinsville (VA) Speedway.

Newman scored his 16th career Sprint Cup victory and first of 2012 with Bosch wide-band oxygen sensors, and Bosch fuel injectors, spark plugs, fuel pump, coils, alternator and starter in his Hendrick Motorsports-built Chevrolet engine.

Newman passed Allmendinger to take the checkered flag in a green-white-checkered restart following a late-race caution which took out the Bosch-equipped Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, who had combined to lead most of the race.

This was the third win of the year in six events for SHR, and dating back to Tony Stewart’s victory last September at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, IL, it was the team’s eighth win in the last 16 Sprint Cup races.

Like race-winner Newman, top-10 finishers A.J. Allmendinger, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin and Stewart also ran with Bosch oxygen sensors, fuel injectors, spark plugs, fuel pumps, coils, alternators and starters, as Bosch-equipped cars dominated the race.

After Gordon and Johnson dominated the action for a total of 497 laps, a caution flag on lap 498 sent the race into overtime via a green-white-checkered finish. Gordon and Johnson stayed out on old tires as the lead-lap cars behind them came to the pits for tires and fuel. On the lap-504 restart, Clint Bowyer took Johnson and Gordon three-wide into the first corner, and all three cars spun. Newman passed Allmendinger on the second lap of the restart and held on to win by .342 of a second. Earnhardt finished third, followed by Matt Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr.

Onboard Computer, Oxygen Sensors Control Sprint Cup EFI System

“Fuel injection is a logical progression for NASCAR, and now NASCAR has switched to electronic fuel injection for all NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. With the new EFI, an onboard computer controls fuel injectors in all race car engines, using input from two Bosch wide-band oxygen sensors in the exhaust to determine the right amount of fuel to add to the airflow just as it’s entering the cylinder,” said Wolfgang Hustedt, Bosch Motorsports Manager, North America.