This doesn't seem like very meaningful data. So you want to stay on /newest for the longest amount of time? Submit Sunday night. Well I would venture not a lot of people read HN on Sunday nights, so what is the purpose of hanging around their?
The best trick I've seen to staying on the homepage is writing about interesting things, making novel points, or providing insight to currently relevant material.
Except that many a times (may I say most of the times actually), things that are good are still lost without being noticed. A clear proof comes from someone submitting something that does not get anywhere followed by someone else submitting nominally the same URL and making it to the front page.
The best trick I've seen to staying on the homepage is writing about interesting things, making novel points, or providing insight to currently relevant material.