Newman nips Stewart for New Hampshire win.

Ryan Newman only made it into the Chase for the Nextel Cup by the skin of his teeth but looked like a real contender for the title as he won Sunday's Sylvania 300 at the one-mile New Hampshire International Speedway.

Newman broke his 2005 victory duck with a superb penultimate lap pass on Tony Stewart to conclude one of the best final 20 laps of the 2005 season as the driver of the #12 Penske Racing Dodge went wheel to wheel with a driver who had dominated much of the race.

The first race in the 2005 Chase for the Nextel Cup was a bad tempered affair with Kurt Busch accosting Scott Riggs' crew-chief Rodney Childers after Riggs spun the defending champion in the early stages, Kasey Kahne getting parked by NASCAR after running his already crashed car into Kyle Busch under caution and Robby Gordon launching his helmet at the moving car of Michael Waltrip after Waltrip pushed Gordon into the wall.

Behind Newman and Stewart, Roush teammates and Chase contenders Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle finished third and fourth, Dale Earnhardt Jr celebrated his reunion with Tony Eury Jr by claiming fifth with chase battlers Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.

With nine races remaining, Stewart leads Biffle by an increased margin of 20 points while Newman vaults seven places to third. Busch meanwhile, who finished 35th, is already more than 136 points behind Stewart in tenth place, 136 points being the maximum one driver can gain on another in a single race.