Ryan Newman NASCAR Cup Series Texas Preview

April 1, 2008


Ryan Newman
No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger
Samsung 500 - Texas Motor Speedway
Notes & Quotes

  • Ryan Newman, driver of the Penske Racing No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger, has two poles at Texas Motor Speedway. Newman also has two top-five finishes at the 1.5-mile tri-oval, including a win at Texas during the 2003 season. Last fall, Newman scored a fifth-place finish at Texas.
  • Newman is tied with Bobby Labonte for the most NASCAR Cup pole positions at Texas Motor Speedway (two). Newman has 42 poles in his Cup career. He is still looking for his first pole position of the 2008 season.
  • Newman has two top-15 finishes on tracks similar to Texas Motor Speedway already this season. The No. 12 Alltel Dodge finished 14th at both Las Vegas and Atlanta.
  • Crew chief Roy McCauley and Newman know what it takes to get around Texas Motor Speedway. In the Nationwide Series race in November 2005, Newman started on the pole and led 122 of the 200 laps in the race. An untimely caution flag after a green flag pit stop left Newman one lap down. He finished in 16th place. "We should have won that race," said McCauley, who led Newman's Nationwide team that won six races in 2005. "We had a great car that day, we just had some bad luck there at the end. It would be nice to have another day like that at Texas this weekend."

RYAN NEWMAN QUOTES ON:

RACING AT TEXAS:  "I've always liked Texas. It's a smooth, fast race track and there are multiple grooves, so it is fun to race. We won there in 2003, but we haven't been that good there since - until last fall when we finished fifth. We have a good intermediate track program with the Alltel Dodge team, and we have shown that already this year. We got a top 10 in     California and a top 15 in Las Vegas and Atlanta. In Atlanta, I think we were probably a top-five car, but we were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got wrecked while we were running fifth. 

"If we can keep our nose clean and stay out of other people's problems, I think the Alltel Dodge will have a solid run this weekend at Texas and be able to make up some points. Our goal as a team is to stay in the top 12 all season and I know this team has the passion, the attitude and the ability to do that." 

ROY MCCAULEY QUOTES ON:

THE KEY TO RUNNING WELL AT TEXAS: "At Texas, you cannot get tight coming off the corners of turn two and turn four. If you get tight coming off the corners, you lose all your speed and become dead slow driving down the straightaways and that is not something you want on a track as fast at Texas."

FINISHING WELL AT TEXAS: "Ryan likes Texas, but the results just haven't been there for whatever reason. The Alltel team finished fifth at Texas last fall. So, we take that fifth place run and move forward another step and  improve and evolve our intermediate program. We had a top-10 car at   California and at Atlanta - we got the 10th place finish at California and had we not been wrecked in Atlanta, I think we would have had a top 10 there, too. We have a good intermediate program, and  we're just going to build on that, and I think we'll have a top 10 car at Texas, too."

CHASSIS NOTES
PRS-558: The No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger serving as the primary race car at Texas is one of Penske Racing's second generation COT cars. It has never been raced. Crew chief Roy McCauley said that more of the new cars will be worked into the rotation in the coming weeks.

PRS-552: Another brand new car will serve as the back-up No. 12 Alltel Dodge at Texas.

UPCOMING EVENTS
4/4: Ryan Newman will be available for a Q&A session with the media in the Texas Motor Speedway media center on Friday at 10:15 a.m. CDT.

4/5: Newman will sign copies of his book, "Pit Road Pets," on   Saturday at 2:30 p.m. CDT at the  Petfinder.com tent in the Blue Ox Camp Ground at Texas Motor Speedway.

4/8: Newman will hold his bi-weekly podcast on www.alltelracing.com at 11:30 a.m. ET.

2008 STATS:

STARTS:                          6
WINS:                               1
POLES:                            0
TOP FIVES:                     1
TOP 10s:                         2
CURRENT POINTS:   11th
 

CAREER STATS:
STARTS:                     230
WINS:                            13
POLES:                         42
TOP FIVES:                  62
TOP 10s:                    100

NEWMAN TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY STATISTICS

DATE

START

FINISH

LAPS COMPLETED

MONEY WON

April 2002

36

40

252/334

$57,025

April 2003

3

1

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