Ryan Newman News and Information

Ryan Newman and his Penske Racing #12 Alltel Dodge team are heading to Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week for the UAW Dodge 400. Newman and his team are coming off 2 great seson opeing races placing first for the Daytona 500 and 10th for the Auto Club 500 in a very wet Calfornia.

Newman’s top 10 finish at California was his 100th top 10 career finish. Congradulations to Ryan and his team.

Ryan and his #12 Alltel Dodge team have a pretty good qualifying record at Las Vegas. Out of 7 starts Newman has 1 pole and 4 top 5 starts. Newman also has some great finishes at Las Vegas including a 1 top 5 and 4 top 10’s.

Last year Newman had his worst start at Las Vegas starting 39th and finished in the top 10 with in 8th place.

Overall Newman’s average finish at Las Vegas is not that great, coming in at 18.7. But Newman has been doing good in the new COT so look for good things from him this weekend for the UAW Dodge 400.

Newman — along with crew chief Roy McCauley, car chief Bryan Dilly, team engineer Travis Geisler and Penske Racing’s Vice President of Operations Michael Nelson — will travel to Alltel headquarters in Little Rock, Ark., on Thursday before coming to Las Vegas. The team will be part of a pep rally for Alltel employees, as well as a celebration of the No. 12 Alltel team’s victory at the 50th running of the Daytona 500.

Looking at the calendar here on this site it looks like Newman and team will be in Phoenix right after Las Vegas for a couple days of testing.

What’s Newman do while in Las Vegas?
Here is a little bit of his Yahoo Sports column- Hello Newman from this week.

For me, it’s all about business in Vegas. I really don’t enjoy the city itself. I’m not a gambler. I’m not into that kind of thing.

If there’s a good show, I’ll go to that. Every once in a while there’s a cool band in town. I’ve been to the House of Blues a couple of times. I saw Mary J. Blige once and went to see the Righteous Brothers, which is kind of two extremes there.

NEWMAN QUOTES
THE START OF THE SEASON: “ I couldn’t wait to get home after the race at California. It has been a busy start to the season for us, and it doesn’t look to be slowing down — but I’m not complaining. After winning Daytona, we did a weeklong media tour and came straight to California, so it had been two weeks since I had been home. It was nice to get home, see my dogs, hang around my house and just catch my breath. It’s the little things that you miss. It’s been an amazing year for me so far, and I am so honored to represent NASCAR as the Daytona 500 champion, but it was nice to just be at home for a few days and get rested.

“This has been the best start to a year in my Cup career and I hope the Alltel team can continue that this weekend at Las Vegas. We have a lot of momentum and we don’t want to lose that. We had a good test at Las Vegas. That track is about being fast, getting the car to ride good and figuring out ways to create advantages that are becoming fewer and fewer over other teams. We learned a lot in the test and we need to keep working on it in practice so we will be at our best for the race.”

MCCAULEY QUOTES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: “The test was good for us. I think the big question mark as we go into Las Vegas is the tire. It’s a very hard tire, so I think that this race will require a lot of pit strategy.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF TOP-10 FINISHES EARLY ON: “The first five races of the year, you want to win as many as you can. You don’t want to finish poorly because you want to be able to build a points cushion. I’m not saying that you can’t have problems and recover from them, I just think you want as many top 10s as you can get to set yourself up for that summer stretch before the Chase. History has shown that that’s important.”

THE HECTIC SCHEDULE: “We were well-prepared logistically, but I worry about the wear and tear on the team. We have to remember it’s the people that make the cars go around, so we have to take care of them. Our goal is to make sure that our guys stay well-rested and we’ll make sure that we are logistically prepared.”

CHASSIS NOTES

PRS-552: This is a brand new car for Newman and the No. 12 Alltel Dodge team. It will turn its first laps at Las Vegas on Friday.

PRS-513: The backup car is the same No. 12 Alltel Dodge that served as the backup at California Speedway last week. The team tested with it at Las Vegas in January.

Find out when to TUNE-IN this week.
Ryan Newman’s 2008 Season
NASCAR Sprint Cup 2008 Standing.
NASCAR PICS