NASCAR BGN: Newman ready for Texas action after best career finish
Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
March 28, 2001Ryan Newman posted his career-best Busch Series finish last weekend in the Cheez-It 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway, driving his Penske-owned Taurus across the finish line in sixth place. In his last three races, Newman has been the highest qualifying Ford, starting from the pole twice and from the third position last week. Newman talked about his season to date, and some of the trials and tribulations of being a rookie in three separate series.
RYAN NEWMAN-02-ALLTEL Ford Taurus - HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE YOUR PERFORMANCE LAST WEEK AT BRISTOL? "Obviously, we went into Bristol with, I don't want to say with our hands tied behind our backs, but we had to be very careful, mostly me as a driver based off of what happened at Darlington. It was kind of difficult going into the most beat 'em up, bang 'em up race track after you just received probation, so going into Bristol and qualifying as good as we did, qualifying third, that was definitely a good thing. That meant we could start up front, and as you saw, track position was a big key, but to race 250 laps and to still be on the lead lap and come home sixth, we were really happy with our performance. We learned a lot as a team, and I learned a lot as a driver on just what to anticipate at different race tracks. It's been different every time we've gone to a race track, so the things we learned last week we'll put in the memory bank, and we'll go on to Texas and try to stay on top there."
LAST WEEKEND WAS A PRETTY GOOD WEEKEND FOR TEAM PENSKE IN BOTH THE BUSCH SERIES AND WINSTON CUP. HAS THERE BEEN A LOT OF SHARED INFORMATION BETWEEN THE THREE TEAMS? "I talked to Rusty a little bit about the dos and don'ts at Bristol, how to pass a guy and the proper way of getting passed at the same time. I talked a little bit about that stuff to him and, of course, we always, not necessarily run the same setup, but keep the same notes and realize what things we have that are different and what things we have that are the same."
WHERE DO THEY HELP YOU MORE, TRYING TO FIND THE LINE AROUND THE TRACKS OR WITH SETUPS? "Mostly with the dos and the don'ts. Everybody else is trying to run 'the line,' as they say, but it's just how well you can make your car work, not necessarily on the fast line because everyone knows where that's at, but you have to get around them so you need to find that line that will allow you to pass people."
YOU HAVE THE ABC PLAN THIS YEAR THAT INCLUDES RACES IN ARCA, BUSCH AND CUP. HOW DID YOU PICK THE VENUES AND WHAT SERIES YOU WOULD RACE? "That was something that we kinda sat down with, especially with ALLTEL and Nokia. Obviously the Rockingham race was the ALLTEL 200, so we decided I'd do that, the Daytona race, we decided it would be good to get experience in the ARCA Series first. We based it off of the markets and the whole idea to run only seven Winston Cup races so that we can maintain rookie status in 2002. All of those factors put together developed into the schedule that we have."
YOU'VE BEEN TO ALL OF THE WINSTON CUP VENUES THIS SEASON, MAYBE RACING IN A DIFFERENT SERIES, BUT HAS THERE BEEN ONE TRACK THAT YOU FELT MOST COMFORTABLE? "I wouldn't say one place more than any other. Last year we got to run Phoenix in my first Cup race and got quite a few laps around Phoenix, so I was comfortable there. Darlington reminds me a lot of Winchester, and Bristol reminded me quite a bit of Salem back home, and we didn't do too bad there. I've enjoyed all of the race tracks, we got the track record at Atlanta and Darlington and the track record at Charlotte last year. I've had so many good people around me with Buddy Baker helping me, Rusty or Jeremy, or my car owners Roger (Penske) and Don (Miller), just to keep me confident."
WE'VE SEEN BUDDY BAKER PERCHED IN THE SPOTTERS' STAND. WHAT IS HIS ROLE WITH YOUR TEAM? "I guess you'd call him Coach. His role is to be there and keep, not necessarily everybody in order, but to make sure we're doing the right things at the right times. I've said this over and over, it's easier to know what not to do than what to do sometimes, just as far as how to approach people or a crew chief, a race track, how the tires fall off, the fastest way around, how to pass cars or how other cars are going to pass you. There are just so many variables there."
HAS BUDDY BEEN TESTING WITH YOU OR IS ROLE SOLELY DURING THE RACE WEEKEND? "He's been to every test except for one and he's been to every race except maybe two or three, so he's definitely around all the time. He stops into the shop usually once a week to check on how things are going, and all of those things make him Coach."
QUALIFYING HAS BEEN YOUR STRONGEST SUIT SO FAR. IS THAT A RESULT OF TESTING OR YOUR MENTALITY? "Testing can't hurt, as long as you do it right, and we've got an excellent engine program. My crew chief Matt Borland does an awesome job of understanding what he needs to do to the car to make it go faster for one lap, and at the same time, to tweak it and make it go fast on long runs. That makes it a lot easier on me to just push the pedal and make it happen."
YOU AND MATT BORLAND BOTH HAVE OPEN-WHEEL BACKGROUNDS. WAS THERE A PRIOR RELATIONSHIP BEFORE THE TWO OF YOU JOINED PENSKE RACING? "None at all. I knew of Pac West Racing where I came from and Reynard, but I never knew of him. That was something that got put together here, and I've been enjoying it ever since."
WAS ROGER PENSKE THE ONE WHO PUT THAT DEAL TOGETHER? "Actually, Don Miller and Roger put that one together at the same time. They've both played an integral part in this team's development and I think they will for a long time to come."
GOING BACK TO YOUR OPEN-WHEEL BACKGROUND, WHAT'S BEEN THE TOUGHEST PART OF THE TRANSITION TO STOCK CARS? "Probably dealing with the attitudes of 42 other drivers out there instead of 19, and how they can manipulate you with the way they drive and who their friends are. It's been really different to come into this series, you leave the one you're on top of, and come in and you're the one at the bottom of the food chain. It's just been a big learning experience so far."
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE A BULL'S EYE ON YOUR BACK COMING INTO THE SERIES AS A ROOKIE DRIVING FOR ONE OF THE PREMIER ORGANIZATIONS IN THE SPORT? "I wouldn't say that. I'd say that we're as much a target as anybody else is. We have the potential to win just like the other teams, so I wouldn't say that they look at us in any different respect."
WE'VE SEEN THE LIKES OF JEFF GORDON AND TONY STEWART, TWO FORMER OPEN-WHEEL RACERS, HAVE TREMENDOUS SUCCESS IN STOCK CAR RACING. DO YOU BELIEVE IT'S A GOOD TRAINING GROUND? "Absolutely, but it's not just Jeff and Tony. It's Tim Richmond, Kenny Schrader and guys like Randy Tolsma and Mike Bliss. Obviously they are good drivers, they don't always get the right opportunities, and a lot of this racing is luck and how you get paired up, be it your team, teammate or series you race in."
DID YOU FEEL YOU NEEDED A CREW CHIEF FROM THE OPEN-WHEEL SIDE TO COMMUNICATE HOW THE CAR WAS HANDLING? "I don't think the communication between the two types of racing is so different, I think there's a different language that gets spoken between the two, but I feel the form of communication between the two is the same. Be it speaking Spanish or Portuguese, or whatever, you still get the same point across. We started off really, really good and we've gotten better ever since, so it's been a great learning experience for both of us, and I know that I'm enjoying it and I think he is, too."
WHO DOES MATT TURN TO FOR ADVICE? YOU'VE GOT RUSTY, JEREMY AND BUDDY, WHO ARE HIS SOUNDING BOARDS? "I think it's a little bit of everybody. It's Buddy Baker, Don Miller, Roger Penske, Rusty Wallace, Jeremy Mayfield, and Robin Pemberton. Robin is pretty much his teammate like Rusty is to me, and he's got Peter Sospenzo at the same time. He's got those people to talk to, to compare thoughts with and compare notes with. It's a big team deal."
YOU'RE COMPETING IN THREE SEPARATE SERIES, BUT DUE TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE ALL BEING RUN IN LIMITED SCHEDULES, YOU'RE NOT RUNNING FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OR ROOKIE-OF-THE-YEAR HONORS. DOES THAT MAKE IT HARDER TO FOCUS ON THE GOAL? "We're out there to run the best that we can each week and finish the race. We hope that means we put ourselves in a position to win, but we want to be the best team that we can be because if we are the best team we can be, we will have our fair share of success."
DO YOU HAVE ANY NON-RACING HOBBIES THAT YOU DO TO ESCAPE FROM THE RIGORS OF RACING? "I've got a house here on the lake (Lake Norman, N.C.), and I enjoy going fishing and things like that, but at this point in my career, I eat, breathe and sleep racing. That's either being around the cars, being around the people that work on the cars or sitting in the race car and driving it."
WHAT'S YOUR BIGGEST RACING ACHIEVEMENT SO FAR IN YOUR YOUNG CAREER? "My Silver Crown championship was a really big deal just because it's a championship, but at the same time, winning at Daytona in the ARCA Series was great. Having the all-time record at Charlotte is awesome and the two track records we set this year is awesome; two track records in three starts in the Busch Series is almost unheard of. I don't spend too much time dwelling on it because we don't get paid to think what we did last week, we get paid to think about how we can be better next week."
DOES THAT MEAN WE'LL SEE ANOTHER TRACK RECORD THIS WEEK AT TEXAS? "I think we'll see a track record at Texas. I think we have the opportunity and the potential to get it ourselves, but like I said, it's all a luck thing and you've got to be at the right place at the right time. Qualifying order, cloud cover, there are a lot of variables that come into play that we can't control. We had a really good test there in January, and obviously the weather will be a little different and there will be more race cars at the track, so we have to do is a little more fine tuning and hopefully we can be on top of things."
DO YOU THINK YOU HIT ON THE QUALIFYING SETUPS A LITTLE EASIER BECAUSE YOU'RE NEW AND YOU'RE NOT TRYING TO PUT OLD SETUPS UNDER THE CARS WITH THIS NEW TIRE? "I wouldn't necessarily say that. You base today's setups off of yesterday's knowledge, but at the same time, if you had no knowledge of yesterday you could still make a setup for today. I don't think it helps us or hurt us, but I think it's really good to have the information from the old tires to generate a baseline. We, in fact, have that information from the old tires. Matt, before being my crew chief, worked as an engineer with Rusty and Jeremy's teams, so he understands how these cars handled with the old tire. That may be what's helping us in qualifying today, the fact he knows the difference between these two tires and what we need to adjust on the car to make it work."
Text provided by Greg Shea
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