Rocketman Ryan Newman doesn't show in California, starts last among Chasers

October 10, 7:21 AMIndianapolis Motorsports ExaminerJeff Norris

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Indianapolis Motorsports Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Stewart-Haas duo face added pressure Sunday (Getty Images)

Ryan Newman will start last among the Sprint Cup Chase contenders as he qualified 36th on Friday for Sunday's Pepsi 500 at the Auto Club Speedway. Since Newman is already down 164 points to championship leader Mark Martin, this might be a make or break  race even with over half of the Chase for the Sprint Cup still to be played out.  The 2-mile high banked oval is one of Newman's least favorite tracks on the circuit and he has the results to prove it. In thirteen races at the Auto Club Speedway, he has record only four top ten results.  

In his own words, Newman readily admits that California has not been kind to him over the course of his career, even though he took the pole position in his first visit to the track.

"Unfortunately, it's not one of my favorite places to go. I have not had the best record at Auto Club Speedway. The racetrack can be a lot of fun because it's a very smooth track and super fast, but I just haven't done all that well there throughout my career.  Even in our first race there this spring, we had issue after issue. It's a track where a lot of times your team's strategy determines the finish because a lot of times it becomes a fuel mileage race. So we'll just have to see how the race plays out. "

After struggling to a 28th place finish at the Auto Club Speedway back in February, the Stewart-Haas team decided to clean the slate and bring a new car to California to improve there chances for the race.  Newman had the eighth fastest time in the first practice, showing that while their car might not handle in qualifying, hopefully they have things figured out in race trim.  This new car has spent a lot of time in the wind tunnel recently and that will play to Newman's advantage when the Pepsi 500 turns into a fuel mileage race at the end.

Click here for our extensive Chase coverage with reports on all 12 drivers in this years Chase!