Ryan Newman takes a wild ride at Talladega. (Photo: SPEED)

Ryan Newman's world turned upside down on nearly the same piece of real estate at Talladega. Newman came to grief there in November of 2009; his Chevrolet came to rest on its roof.

“The roll cage was down on top of my head. It was not an ideal situation,” deadpans Newman, who waited more than five minutes before safety workers extracted him from the mangled machine.

Newman deliberates long and hard in choosing one word to describe his Talladega twister.

“Eventful,” he says. “Because I thought I was gonna hit the inside wall, but I got turned around before I hit it and got airborne, hit the wall upside down and then flipped in the grass, which felt like 10 times but actually it was only twice. I did everything but catch fire or leave the race track.”

Newman says the best thing about the incident – aside from walking away – was having his voice heard by the sanctioning body afterward.

A meeting with NASCAR officials helped lead to the eventual removal of the car’s rear wing, which was believed to play a role in the degree of “lift” Sprint Cup cars were getting. The wing appeared for the final time at Martinsville in March.

“It sucks to have to be the guinea pig, the one that lives through it to be able to work on it to make it better,” Newman says. “But I would have expected Kenny Irwin to do that; I would have expected Dale Earnhardt Sr. to do that.

“I’m glad that NASCAR finally made that step to make the car safer, to keep the cars on the ground. Not just for the drivers’ sake, but for the fans’ sake.”

Ryan Newman takes a wild ride at Talladega. (Photo: SPEED)

Fan safety became a hot-button issue last year at Talladega – and six months prior to Newman’s misadventure. Last-lap contact in the April Cup race between Keselowski and Edwards sent the latter’s No. 99 Ford careening into the catchfence near the start/finish line, and it was no longer just competitors scrambling for cover.

Edwards destroyed both his and Newman’s car in the process, but it was a 17-year-old fan from Rogersville, Ala., who bore the brunt of the most spectacular wreck NASCAR has witnessed in the 21st century.