Ryan Newman had a sensational season in 2003, avoiding the sophomore slump to win eight races that season. His fourth victory that year came at Pocono on July 27th where he started from the pole.

Newman rocketed to his fifth pole of the year with a qualifying speed of 170.358 mph, with fellow sophomore Jimmie Johnson lining up on the outside of the front row. Elliott Sadler, Bobby Labonte and John Andretti rounded out
the top five starters.

This was a pretty clean race through the first 50 laps until Jeff Green’s car dropped oil on the track to bring out the first caution. Newman had visited pit road under green on lap 33 when he thought he had a tire going down and this put him back in the running order early on. Jeremy Mayfield and Robby Gordon got together on lap 68 with Mayfield getting into the wall and receiving heavy damage.

Mark Martin and Dale Jr. tangled on lap 75 and collected Michael Waltrip, who tried to avoid Martin but rear ended him and damaged his front end. Late in the race engines became an issue as Ricky Craven, Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte all had their engines expire.

Labonte’s motor problem brought out the eighth and final caution of the day. On the restart Newman held off a charge from Kurt Busch to win the 2003 Pennsylvania 500.

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