RYAN NEWMAN - Looking For A Repeat Performance In The Valley Of The Sun

KANNAPOLIS, Feb. 23, 2011: There was no better track than Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Ariz., for Ryan Newman and the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet last season.

In two races at the mile oval nestled in the Arizona desert, Newman captured his dramatic first win with Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) in the April race, and he followed that up by earning a runner-up finish in November.

After those two performances by Newman and the No. 39 team, there’s no doubt the Phoenix racetrack has been circled on the calendar as the one to get the momentum rolling for the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

Phoenix has always been a favorite of Newman’s. The uniquely designed oval poses a challenge for drivers and crew chiefs alike – one that Newman thrives on behind the wheel.

For the South Bend, Ind., native, the track in the Valley of the Sun is special for other reasons, too. Phoenix is where all of Newman’s boyhood dreams finally became reality – it’s where Newman took the first big step in his NASCAR career.

On Nov. 5, 2000, Newman made his Sprint Cup debut at Phoenix. On that November weekend, Newman wasted no time showing the series regulars his penchant for turning a quick lap as he qualified 10th in the No. 02 Penske Racing entry in his maiden effort. He went on to be competitive during the race, too, although the final results show a 41st-place finish due to an engine failure.

Last April, Phoenix was the site of another huge first for Newman – his first victory with SHR.

It was a bold pit call on the final caution of the night that put Newman in position to capture the win – his first at Phoenix, as well as crew chief Tony Gibson’s first career win at the helm of a Sprint Cup team.

Newman was running in the fifth position when the caution flag waved on lap 372, setting up a green-white-checker finish. After an animated discussion on the radio as Newman and Gibson debated their options, the two decided to pit for right-side tires only while many of the front-runners opted instead for four fresh Goodyears.

The No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet returned to the track in second place and restarted beside four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon on the inside line. At the drop of the green flag, Newman wasted no time making his move. He quickly drove past Gordon, took the point and didn’t look back until the checkered flag waved.

Newman & Company rolls into Phoenix for the second race of the 2011 Sprint Cup season in hopes of producing a repeat performance at the “Diamond in the Desert.” In 17 Sprint Cup starts at Phoenix, Newman has one win, four poles and five top-10 finishes.

While last weekend’s season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway didn’t end up the way the team had hoped, it was the best performance the No. 39 team had enjoyed at the 2.5-mile oval since joining forces in 2009. Newman’s No. 39 Chevrolet was a constant out front, led the most laps and looked to be a sure bet for a top-five finish. Unfortunately, Newman had to settle for a 22nd-place finish after being involved in an accident just four laps from the end of the race.

This week, the team turns its focus to Phoenix, a track where the No. 39 team was dominant last season. Riding the momentum from a solid run at Daytona and the past successes at Phoenix, Newman and the No. 39 Tornados team are poised to use Sunday’s race in the Valley of the Sun to set the tone for the rest of the season with – they hope – another trip to Victory Lane.

RYAN NEWMAN, Driver of the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You often talk about what a fun racetrack Phoenix is for a driver. What makes this track so fun to you?

“It’s really one of my favorite racetracks because the design of the racetrack makes it fun and challenging to drive. It’s definitely a driver’s racetrack. We’ve always said that because it’s so unique. It’s different from one end to the other. And, therefore, the crew chief can only get one end perfect, it seems, and the other one the driver has to adapt to. It’s not a compromise if your crew chief does a good job setting up the racecar because you can do things to try to manipulate those opposite ends of the racetrack. But, when your car is not working, it’s up to the driver to make up what you can of what’s left, and that I think separates the men from the boys at Phoenix. Phoenix is interesting because I think every time we come back here, it seems like the track loses just a small percentage of grip, and that’s a good thing because the driver has to drive and hustle the car a little bit more and a little bit differently and still be smooth. It’s those aspects that make this track a lot of fun to me.

What is your outlook for the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet as you head into Phoenix?

“Phoenix is a special track to me. It’s where I started my Sprint Cup career. It’s the first track I raced on in NASCAR, so it’s an important place. And, after last year with our win, it’s a special track for our team, too, so we are looking forward to going back there. It’s kind of funny, actually. After the Daytona 500 on Sunday, I was making my way back to the bus lot and Jimmie Johnson saw me and he was, like, ‘Are you ready for Phoenix?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, since, like, last Tuesday.’ It’s just a track I have always liked from my USAC days. Back then, Phoenix was the place to race, so it’s kind of like a track that’s the backbone of how I’m used to racing. We ran so well there last year, and we seem to be in tune with the racetrack, so we’re looking forward to continuing our streak of solid finishes there.”

Last April, you got your first win with Stewart-Haas Racing at Phoenix. Talk about how much that win meant to you?

“Looking back at it, it was a pretty emotional win for all of us. It was my first win with the team. It was our first win for the No. 39 at Stewart-Haas Racing, and it was the first (Sprint Cup) win for Tony Gibson as a crew chief. I said at the time that it was probably the most emotional victory I think I’ve ever had in my entire career, just because it had been so long and it was with a new team. I had my first Cup start at Phoenix; I won four poles, and I finally got my first win with SHR at Phoenix. We had been so close to getting our first win before Phoenix, but we gave some of our races away and we knew that. But we never gave up. We kept digging, and we knew what we needed to do to make our team better. So, the win was a long time coming for me. For me, that was the emotional part. When I first started in the series, it just came easy. I was with a great team. Had great crew chief, great pit stops, all those things just kind of came easy to me. And then, as it got toward 2005, got to struggling a little bit. I got a win here or there, but it was not dominant like we were back in 2002 and 2003. So, to come to this new organization and achieve the things that we did in our first year was great, but I really wanted to get that first victory for our No. 39 team. Getting that win in Phoenix was a relief, but now we want more.

“Honestly, though, one of the coolest things about that win was that it was Tony Gibson’s first win as a (Sprint Cup) crew chief. I didn’t even realize that until I went into the media center for the post-race interview. But when I found out, it made it that much sweeter from my perspective because I was a part of his first Cup win as a crew chief. I guess I just kind of took it for granted, knowing his experience in the sport – going back to the Alan Kulwicki days, that even with Dale Jr., and DEI, and everything else – I made the assumption that, at some point he was a crew chief and had won a race, but he hadn’t. It was just sweeter for me, from my standpoint, just like it was for everybody else, or a lot of other guys on the team, to get their first Cup victory. I think that’s why it was such an emotional victory lane for all of us.”

Talk about the turn of events that took place that night to put you in victory lane at Phoenix.

“We had a good Tornados Chevrolet all night, and we just kept making it better and better. We were in fifth place when the caution flag waved, setting up the green-white-checker finish, and Gibson said we were going to pit for four tires. I told him that I thought we should think about two, and I left it at that. I told him I would rather have the track position than the tires, anyway, and that’s what we did. I think the tire compound we ran at Phoenix kind of lended itself to that option – two tires versus four tires. At some tracks, it’s a guaranteed four-tire stop versus a two-tire stop. Some tracks, you cannot even consider tires. It’s just the way it all works out and the way the cautions fly that really dictate what the strategy may need to be. In the grand scheme of things, we made the right call with two tires. But on the last restart, I didn’t really know what to expect. The inside, from what I had seen, hadn’t been the ideal lane all day, but that’s where I lined up. In the end, it was just the right place at the right time. Two tires paid off, clean air, and the track picked up so much grip that it worked out in our favor. Man, I couldn’t believe it. I saw the white flag and I’m, like, ‘I don’t have that far to go.’ I guess I had been so intense and concentrating on getting the Tornados Chevrolet out front and keeping it there that I didn’t even realize the race was over until I saw the checkered flag coming out of turn four. It was just really cool.”

TONY GIBSON, Crew Chief of the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What did it mean to you to get your first win as a Sprint Cup crew chief last year at Phoenix?

“I had been close a couple of times, and our No. 39 team had been close to winning a few races our first year together, but something always happened to take that away from us. So I was beginning to wonder if it was ever going to happen. But I knew if we just kept the faith and we worked hard together that our friendship is really strong, and we worked really well together, that we were eventually going to get that win. It was a pretty big night for all of us and it was pretty emotional. A lot of the guys on the team were in tears because most of us have been together for nine years. And we had won before with Dale Jr., but it had been a long stretch since we’d won a race. We’d come close, but we didn’t make it happen. So it was pretty exciting for those guys. And, to be honest, I was more happy and more proud for those guys than for myself because I felt like those guys followed me wherever I’d gone. So, I felt like I owed it to them, and to see those guys hopping up and jumping up and down and celebrating was just very, very special. We’ve won that first race. We’ve tasted what it feels like to win, and we’re ready to get another one, now.”

Ryan calls Phoenix a driver’s track because of its unique design, where it has two very different ends. How much of a challenge is Phoenix for a crew chief?

“It’s a little bit tricky because you have two different ends. Turns one and two have more banking and are tighter. You really have to focus on getting the grip just right, and you have a little bit of a forward-bite issue off of the corner because your corner speed is slower in turns one and two. Then, you haul the mail into turn three, so a lot of guys will get loose into three because you carry so much speed in there. If you’re loose in, you’re going to have to slow the car down, wait too much to roll the center – and it’s a flat corner down there. The key is to be able to really carry your corner entry speed in there, where you can roll through the center, and then you can carry that momentum off the corner. If you have to come from a dead stop back to wide-open throttle, you will just sit there and spin the tires off of turn four all day long. The more speed you can carry through three and four, because it is a flat corner, the better off you are going to be. It’s a tricky little racetrack and it can be a handful, but we had two really good races there last year, and that definitely plays into our favor heading back there.”