Heading into this weekend's Food City 500 at the Bristol Motor Speedway, a number of drivers were in desperate need of a good finish.  After struggling to find the luck needed to produce results, both Mark Martin and Ryan Newman were mired deep in the standings and looking to move up.  Ironically, they both started Sunday's race from the front row. 

For Newman, his new adventure with Stewart-Haas Racing got off to a rough start.  In Daytona the team blew a motor, was wrecked in the Gatorade Duel 150 and blew a tire and crashed in final practice. Over the next few weeks the team could not find the right set-up to put Newman out front.  A 36th at Daytona was followed up by a 28th in Fontana, a 25th at Las Vegas and a 22nd in Atlanta.  

Martin's story was not much different.  A strong showing at Daytona offered a lot of promise, but failed to produce results.  There is no doubt the veteran driver and his Alan Gustafson-led crew have brought fast cars week-in and week-out - Martin has started on the front row three times in the first five races. This team has simply struggled to find the luck needed to finish the race.  A disappointing 16th-place finish in the Daytona 500 was followed up by two DNFs at Fontana and Las Vegas and a 31st-place finish in Atlanta.  

The pair showed they were ready to put their bad runs behind them by sitting on the front row during Friday's qualifying session.  Leading the field to the green flag during Sunday's race, both Newman and Martin hoped they could avoid trouble, race for the win and come out of the day with a positive finish. 

Both drivers led at various points of the event, but the race clearly belonged to eventual race winner Kyle Busch.  Martin was able to bring his No. 5 Kellogg's/CARQUEST Chevrolet home in the sixth-spot, with Newman right behind him in seventh. 

"It was a great effort by the guys on pit road and (crew chief) Tony Gibson and everybody back at the shop," Newman said after the race. "And of course the Hendrick power was pretty good too! 

"I'm happy for all the guys on the 39," team owner Tony Stewart added.  "They've all been working hard, and it's hard to not let your morale get beat up having the kind of bad luck they've had.  Its not because they haven't been running good. It's because they've had terrible luck.  It was good to see them get a good run like they deserved today.  I'm sure they would've loved to have had a top-five, but this helps them out a ton in the points.  I'm really proud of everyone."

"I had fun today," Martin said after his sixth-place run. "I just wasn't happy with the car yesterday and I didn't think we were going to be very good today. We started the race and we really weren't very good. And one little change and on the long run, that car was on fire. I had a blast all the rest of the one. We made one last adjustment trying to get good enough to win and we stepped over the edge and wasn't so good that last run.  It is just great for this team to get some forward momentum. But it was pretty awesome, that car was rolling on those long greens.

 
"I think all the tracks coming up will be great in that Kellogg's/CARQUEST Chevy."

While these two teams had strong runs this weekend at Bristol, they are not out of troubled water just yet.  Still deep in both the owner and driver standings, these two teams still have their work cut out for them.  Heading to Martinsville next week, both the No. 5 and the No. 39 will have to have a repeat of this weekend to carry the momentum on throughout the remainder of the year.