Ryan Newman News and Information

Rain Falls Too Late for Newman at New Hampshire

Haas Automation/U.S. Army Driver Runs Out of Fuel, Finishes 29th

Ryan Newman and the No. 39 Haas Automation/U.S. Army team had the right strategy to win Sunday’s Lenox Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, but in the end it was not meant to be as Newman ran out of fuel while leading the race nine laps shy of the rain-shortened finish.

“I told the guys on the radio when it’s not your day, it’s not your day,” Newman said. “We had a good strategy thanks to a couple of incidents we had on the racetrack, but for some reason, we didn’t have the mileage that last run. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. We could have been leading at the end. The bottom line is we didn’t have the fuel mileage on that last run, ran out of fuel and lost a couple of laps on pit road. It was unfortunate.”

Newman endured a myriad of problems throughout the day at Loudon. With qualifying having been rained out on Friday, the driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation/U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala SS started sixth based on owner points, per the NASCAR rulebook. Although Newman was able to maintain his spot in the top-10, he reported to crew chief Tony Gibson that his car was way too loose. The team elected not to pit during a rash of early cautions and waited until NASCAR’s competition caution at lap 45. At that time, Newman pitted for four tires, fuel and track bar and wedge adjustments. He restarted in 25th-place.

Just a handful of laps into the run, Newman complained that the car was still too loose, which was causing him to lose ground coming off of turn four and on the straightaways. He pitted under the green flag at lap 121 for another round of chassis adjustments, four tires and fuel and returned to the track in 26th-place.

Handling issues continued to plague Newman’s efforts on the track, and at each opportunity, the pit crew made a variety of adjustments in hopes of aiding the car. Then on lap 174, Newman was caught up in a multi-car accident, which resulted in minor damage to the No. 39 Chevy’s left front fender directly behind the tire and the left rear quarter-panel. Newman also told the crew that he thought the hit had affected the car’s front-end geometry. Under the caution flag, Newman came down pit road to repair the left-side damage and for a shock adjustment, as well as four fresh tires. He returned to the track in 26th place.

Just laps later as the race restarted, Newman was the victim of another incident which shoved him into the turn two wall, damaging the right side of the racecar. Newman pitted under the caution at lap 183 for four fresh tires, fuel and additional repairs to the damaged right and left sides of the racecar.

The team’s pit stop to fix the damage put Newman on a different fuel strategy than his counterparts. While the leaders had to pit under the green flag, Newman moved up the leaderboard and eventually took over the top spot at lap 247 as rain began closing in on the racetrack. Newman led 17 laps, but the strategy failed as he ran out of fuel on lap 263, right as the first raindrops began to fall over the 1.058-mile oval. Newman was forced to give up the lead to eventual race-winner Joey Logano.

Newman’s car slowly entered pit road at lap 264. The team added fuel and elected to change only right side tires in hopes of not losing too many spots or going a lap down. However, the No. 39 Chevy stalled and Newman’s crew had to push it down the length of pit road before it finally re-fired.

Newman lost three laps in the pits, and only laps later at lap 273, the race was called due to heavy rain. Newman finished 29th.

Newman’s Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) teammate and owner, Tony Stewart, finished fifth and continues to lead the two-car SHR contingent in the championship point race as he remains atop standings with a 69-point over his nearest pursuer, Jeff Gordon. Newman dropped one spot to seventh in the standings, 397 points out of first.

Logano’s win in the rain-shortened event was his first career Sprint Cup victory, and at 19 years, one month and four days, he became the youngest winner in Sprint Cup history.

Gordon finished second to cut 15 points from Stewart’s lead in the championship standings. Kurt Busch followed in third, while David Reutimann and Stewart rounded out the top-five. Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Sam Hornish Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 11 caution periods for 47 laps, with nine drivers failing to finish the race.

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the July 4 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.

-credit: shr

Ryan Newman had a rough race today. Finishing 29th and 2 laps down at New Hampshire Motor Speedway today. The good news is that Newman only dropped 1 position in the points position to 7th. 19 points ahead of Kyle Busch and only 5 points behind Denny Hamlin.

Joey Logano was today’s winner.

Towards the end of todays rain shortened race (with 28 laps remaining) Newman was out front and leading for about 17 laps.

Newman and his crew were waiting for the rain to come in. Right about the time Tony Gibson told Newman “6 more laps until we pit”, Newman responded by telling Gibson he was out of gas and coming.

Newman entered pit road, took tires and fuel. He could not get the car restarted. Newman ended up falling 2 laps down at this point.

When the car finally got re-fired and Newman got back on the track, mother natures assault of rain started falling and the caution came out.

Newman was only a few laps short on fuel to get the job done.

“We had a good strategy, but for some reason, we didn’t the mileage that run there. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, we could have been leading at the end. The bottom line is we didn’t have the fuel mileage on that last run, ran out of fuel and lost a couple of laps on pit road. It was unfortunate. We had planned on doing two tires and at least get some track position back. It just didn’t work. I told the guys on the radio when it’s not your day, it’s not your day. It didn’t work.”

HOW MUCH DO YOU WISH THIS RAIN WOULD HAVE COME OUT ABOUT 10 LAPS EARLIER? “Very much so but you never know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if we’re going to get to go back racing again but either way we gave it our all in the Haas Automation Chevrolet. We just came up short. We ran out of fuel there. Not really sure why. We shouldn’t have ran out of fuel based on the numbers. We’ll go back and refigure out what we didn’t figure out and see what we can do to try to do this all over again and win.”

The rest of Newman’s day had gone about the same way. He quickly fell off from the top 10 with an ill handling car.

Around half way Newman got involved in the New Hampshire “Big One” getting a little damage after getting hit, well bumped into.

Then on the restart from the “The Big One” Newman ended up in the wall, possibly as a result of Joey Logano’s car breaking.

One thing is for sure. If you were watching the radar while Newman was out front your were on the edge of your seat.

Tony Gibson was beating himself up on the radio wondering where the fuel calculations had gone wrong.

I have a little opinion about that. Newman’s car was basically involved in 2 accidents. Newman at one point reported that the cars tow was a little off. At another point he said it was hard to tell exactly what it was, but that the car was “bent”.

I am sure that issues like that can have a big effect the fuel mileage….maybe about 6 laps worth. Newman also said he was running as hard as possible.

I don’t think there is any need to blame Gibson here. Newman’s car was hurt pretty bad.

Ryan Newman finished 2nd in his first Winged-Midget race on Friday night in the Northeast Midget Association (NEMA) race at Lee Speedway in Lee, N.H.

Newman was racing in the #39 (how fitting) Helping Hands of America/Hot Pepper Promotions car.

Newman led 25 laps of the race but at the end he could not hold off his hard charging Bertrand Motorsports teammate, Randy Cabral.

“We were probably one adjustment away from winning the race tonight,” Newman said. “We just didn’t have the car quite right. I had my hands full there at the end of the race. I was just trying to do everything that I could, but I couldn’t catch up to Randy. I have to thank Tim Bertrand and everyone over there for letting me race the car, and I want to congratulate them on finishing one-two tonight. I really had a lot of fun tonight,” Newman said. “It’s cool to go out to these tracks like Lee, race in the different cars and see the fans.”

Newman, who grew up racing Quarter-Midgets and Midgets, in the Midwest before making the jump to stock cars and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, but Friday night was the first time he had piloted a Winged-Midget.

WHELEN MODIFIED

Today Ryan Newman raced in the Whelen Modified race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the New England 100.

While I don’t have a lot of the details about Newman’s performance, I know he finished 34th. Newman led 13 laps and swapped the lead back-and-forth with Szegedy in the early going, but Newman packed it up after spinning out on lap 64.

Ryan Newman started 6th in the #7 Aggressive Hydraulics Chevrolet.

All I know for right now is that Ryan Newman finished 2nd in tonight’s race at Lee USA Speedway. That is all I know or at least all I think I know.

Tomorrow night (Saturday night) Ryan Newman will be making an appearance in the Whelen Modified race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Newman will be starting 6th in his Aggressive Hydraulics Chevrolet.

YOU CAN CATCH THE LAP BY LAP PLAY OF THE RACE!!

Just head to this link here – http://localracing.nascar.com/node/2966 and catch the lap-by-lap of the race. I hoping to catch it, but no promises. Lots of projects to do this weekend!

Kasey Kahne will also be racing in Saturday’s race.

I believe last fall was Newman’s first appearance in this series. In that race Newman qualified for the pole position. READ HERE about that. Newman led 28 laps of that race but was involved in an accident late in the race an only completed 86 (I think) laps in that race.