The question presented to Ryan Newman is the same presented to the score of racing ancestors who ran moonshine across the South years ago: Where's he hiding those extra gallons?

To be a little more exact, his competitors want to know exactly what that Purdue engineering degree has gotten him -- is it a schooling on how best to cheat, or an education on adding up the numbers Rainman-style to equate to wins?

You see, once again Newman won a race and once again his secret weapon was fuel mileage. And though a few other cars were able to go about as far as he did after their final pit stops, several drivers wondered out loud whether ol' Newman's got a couple of extra gallons hidden somewhere in that No. 12 Dodge Intrepid of his.

"I'm just pissed off that the 15th-place car wins the race and can go 15 laps farther on fuel than the rest of us," Chevy driver Kevin Harvick said after Newman spent much of the race toilling in the back before emerging late. "If he can do that with his foot, then he's a magician -- and I'll kiss his butt if he's doing it with his foot."

That's a rich challenge, indeed. But one that Newman says he'd win.

"We just beat them," Newman said Sunday after his win at Kansas Speedway -- the eighth victory for the No. 12 team this year. "I can tell you for a sure thing, we're not cheating and we don't cheat. That's basically it. They can think what they want, and they can say what they want. Everybody on this team does an awesome job, and the engine company does an awesome job.

"I'm not tired of (all the speculation), but it's hard when you're criticized for doing good. It's hard to have a smart answer for a dumb question -- I've said that before. When you get told comments by other drivers and things like that, it's hard to put some of that stuff behind you...I just tell it like it is."

	Ryan Newman and his crew seem to know a secret that's mystifying their competitors.

And the way it is, Newman says, is that his team absolutely does have an advantage over the others. The travel budgets for NASCAR teams are tight these days, so most teams have two -- maybe three -- engineers travel to races. Newman's team has got an extra engineer at every race, though, in Newman.

That calculating mind, Newman says, helps him drive his car differently than his competitors -- in a manner, he says, which helps him conserve fuel. This is his explanation for how, while every other team seems to sacrifice a little fuel mileage for extra horsepower, his team has been able to continue to excel in both areas.

"Mike Nelson does such a great job as far as doing fuel mileage," said Newman's crew chief, Matt Borland. "Really, the guys at the engine shop... I mean, a lot of the teams make really good horsepower, and a lot of teams get really good fuel mileage. Our engine shop has put a really concerted effort in this year to make horsepower, make fuel mileage and get the right ability."

But some other drivers aren't ready to buy that.

"When you're making so much horsepower, it takes so much fuel to make that," Dodge driver Jeremy Mayfield said. "When you make the horsepower that (the 12 team's) making and burning the fuel that everybody's burning, then you've either got more fuel or you're really good at saving fuel. You're doing something different because they're certainly not giving up any power, and the fuel mileage they're getting is pretty neat.

"I don't know how they're doing it. We just barely made it through. At the end of the race we were saving all of the fuel that we could just to make it to the end. He was sitting there doing burnouts on the front stretch and everything else. I don't know if we could do that or not. That's about six or seven races that he's won on fuel mileage this year. ... You've got to have so much fuel in there to make so much horsepower. They're certainly not giving up horsepower, I think you can see that."

But Mayfield, himself, was able to conserve enough fuel to make it to the end of the race; and he did have enough horsepower to finish third.

Newman believes there's a tinge of jealosy in every accusation thrown his team's way. But he doesn't care. With as many races as he's won on fuel, he believes NASCAR has been measuring his fuel tanks twice for a long time. Since the sanctioning body hasn't found anything, he says the fuss ought to end. And, just maybe, he ought to get a little credit for being a little better.

Thing is, the drivers aren't denying that Newman's a little better. They just can't decide in which regard -- at cheating or saving fuel?

"We're probably turning as much rpm out there as anybody -- more power than most, and as much as a couple teams out there -- and so we're going to eat up more fuel mileage," Chevy driver Jeff Gordon said. "The thing that definitely raises an eyebrow to me is that the No. 12 car is one of the best engines out there and yet has one of the best fuel mileages out there, too. And I don't know how that happens."

Who knows? Maybe it takes an engineering degree to figure that one out.

Rupen Fofaria is a freelance writer living in Chicago and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at rfofaria@espnspecial.com.