NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Johanna Long’s second trip to Iowa Speedway this season resulted in the second-best finish of her NASCAR Nationwide Series career. Long, driving the No. 70 Chevy for Warsaw-based ML Motorsports, qualified 14th and finished 13th in Saturday night’s U.S. Cellular 250. Long and the local team raced at the .875-mile track in May, qualifying 20th and finishing 22nd. The 20-year-old Pensacola, Fla., native’s finish Saturday was just one spot off her career-best result from last month at Daytona. Long and ML Motorsports are racing a partial schedule in the Nationwide Series. They have teammed up for 14 races so far this season. The next event on their 21-race schedule is the Aug. 24 event at Bristol Motor Speedway. Points leader Elliot Sadler won Saturday’s race at Iowa, followed in the top five by Justin Allgaier, Sam Hornish Jr., Michael Annett and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Michael McDowell was sixth, while Darrell Wallace Jr., Jason Leffler, Brett Moffitt and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top 10. Danica Patrick finished 11th, while Austin Dillon, currently second in points, finished 15th. Sadler's No. 2 Chevrolet was on the pole with a track-record qualifying speed of 135.141 mph and was near or at the front of the pack the entire race. He overtook Allgaier on the 192nd of 250 laps and went on to his fourth victory of the season. Sadler denied Ricky Stenhouse Jr. a fourth straight victory at Iowa, and increased his lead in the series standings to 18 points over Dillon, his Richard Childress Racing teammate. "We all had one thing in mind: Let's go to Iowa and kick some butt and show everybody what we're all about and what kind of men we are," Sadler said. "I think this is a great statement race for our race team." Hornish won the final "Dash4Cash" bonus of $100,000. His fan partner, Tammy Altieri of Spokane, Wash., also won $100,000. Stenhouse, who led 209 of 250 laps at Iowa in May, was no threat this time. Drivers were using new right-side tires for this race, and Stenhouse said he never got a good feel on the track. "We lacked right-side grip," he said. "But it's the same tire for everybody, and we didn't quite figure it out. It's just part of the game."
