Ryan Newman News and Information

Ryan Newman will be racing in the is weekends Dickies 500 At Texas Motor Speedway.

RYAN NEWMAN’S TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY STATS

Newman’s stats don’t seem too bad at Texas Motor Speedway. He has 1 win, 2 poles, 3 top 5’s and 3 top 10’s out of 10 starts.

Somewhat of a problem may come in when you look at his average finish at Texas – 23.60. That is his lowest average finish out of all the Sprint Cup tracks. But that is also largely due to the facet that he has 3 DNF’s at Texas Motor Speedway out of those 10 starts. His first race ever at Texas ended with engine problems and then he was involved in accidents in 2 other races.

The race earlier this year at Texas may have been his best performance yet besides his win in 2003. He started the race in 4th and finished in 4th. His highest finish since 2003. See those results here.

Last weekend in Atlanta, Newman became the 19th driver to win in all three of NASCAR’s top series. Newman has 13 Cup wins (257 starts), seven Nationwide victories (39 starts) and one truck win (one start) to his credit.

POLE POSITION BATTLE
This is not referring to all the rain that seems to fall at qualifying times this year. Ten qualifying sessions I think have been canceled due to rain.

What this is referring to is that fact that Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bobby Labonte are all tied for the “Top Qualifier” spot at Texas. They each have 2 poles. This weekend that could change as Newman is hoping to step to the top of that list.

TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY CUP STATS HERE

RYAN NEWMAN QUOTES ON:
RACING AT TEXAS:

“I always look forward to racing at Texas. It’s a track that I’ve always liked although it doesn’t necessarily show in the finishes. It’s a smooth, fast race track and there are multiple grooves, so it is fun to race. The track has matured and aged to the point it has gotten better and better each time that we come back. It’s a place that we look forward to. We won there in 2003, but we hadn’t been that good there since – until our last two times there. We had a good run last fall – obviously a different car -and we ended up with a good finish there this past spring. In the spring race, we started the race just “off,” but we kept adjusting on it. We were able to make up a lap and then we were in the right place at the right time to come home with a top-five finish. Hopefully, we’ll go back there even better than we were in the spring.”

THREE RACES REMAINING:

“We started off the year with a bang (at Daytona) and it would be nice to be able to finish it with a bang. We have three races to do it, and they are all tracks where we have had good runs in the No. 12 Alltel Dodge. Earlier this year, we were fourth at Texas. We won the pole at Phoenix, and I’m pretty confident we would have had a solid run there, but we had a motor issue that took us out of the race early. And at Homestead last year, we started second and finished 18th. I have had a good career at Penske Racing and I am grateful for everything the team has done for me. I would like to say thanks and be able to leave on a high note, and scoring a string of good finishes here at the end of the season would be the perfect way to do just that.”

ROY MCCAULEY QUOTES ON:
THE KEY TO RUNNING WELL AT TEXAS:

“You can’t get tight coming off the corners of turn two and turn four. If you are tight coming off the corners, that means the car will lose all of its speed and be dead slow down the straightaways and that is not something you want on a track that is as fast at Texas. We really had to battle a tight-handling race car in the spring race, but we worked and adjusted on the car and were able to finish fourth in the end. We’re going back with that information and hopefully that will help us to combat the problem from the get-go. Ryan really likes Texas, so we would like to have another strong run.”

CHASSIS NOTES:
PRS-580: The No. 12 Alltel Dodge for the Dickies 500 is the same car Newman drove at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July. Newman started third and finished 13th in that race. Newman also piloted the car at Charlotte last month, where he started 16th and finished 21st.

PRS-558: The backup No. 12 Dodge is the same car that Newman drove to a fourth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway earlier this season. It has served as the backup at several tracks this year.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
10/31: Ryan Newman will sign copies of his book- Pit Road Pets: NASCAR Stars and Their Pets – at his souvenir hauler following NASCAR Cup Series qualifying (at about 5:30 p.m. CT). Newman will sign up to two copies of Pit Road Pets in addition to one other item per person during the autograph session. Tickets for the book signing will be distributed to the first 100 fans with a book at the souvenir rig beginning at 9 a.m. on Friday.