Newman had won 15 times previously. Allmendinger was still looking for his first series win. The two races virtually side-by-side the first lap, then Newman pulled ahead on the final lap and earned the win.
Allmendinger was asked after the race what he thought about in that situation and why he opted not to wreck Newman to win the race.
His reply: "First time I've ever had a chance to win a Sprint Cup race, so I was going to do everything I could. Why didn't I wreck him? He actually got a good drive off Turn 2. I would have had to wreck both of us to get into him in Turn 3 to get him.
"I don't want to win like that. That's not the way I want to win a race. He did everything clean on the restart. He could have drove me off the race track, and if he would have done that then it's kind of like, OK, it's game on. But he gave me all the chances that I could to go beat him. We came off the white side‑by‑side and he rolled through Turns 1 and 2 really good, and that was it.
"You race people how they race you. And if he would have just drove into the corner, left side of me and got me out of the way, then I would have probably run into him. He didn't do that and he didn't deserve to get wrecked."
