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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Newman Ready To Bounce Back
Ryan Newman has a new sponsor this week...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted February 27, 2010   Las Vegas, NV
Ryan Newman drives the #39 Tornados Chevrolet during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

After a rocky start to his season, Ryan Newman is hoping Lady Luck smiles on him this weekend in Las Vegas. And if Friday was any indication, it just might.

Newman, who is 36th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings, qualified his Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet Impala third for Sunday's Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, race No. 3 on the Cup season.

It was a positive result for Newman and the SHR squad, and a nice showcase for new primary sponsor Tornados, which debuts this weekend with the team.

Asking how his attitude was after a shaky start to the season, Newman affirmed that all was well with him, crew chief Tony Gibson and the rest of the team.

“I'm very confident,” said Newman. “It's a brand new race car. The Tornados Chevrolet. It's the first race for them. We've made some pretty big gains as an organization and some pretty big gains for me personally working with Tony Gibson and having a year under our belts and having that notebook to go back on when we got some experience here last year.”

This weekend is only the second trip to LVMS the team has made since Newman and co-owner/driver Tony Stewart came onboard prior to the 2009 season. Newman said coming back to Vegas for the second time is a lot easier than the first trip was.

“You only get to come to places like here and Kansas and Indy one time each year,” he said. “So you've got to be on your game. When you have nothing to go off of, it's 200 percent more difficult. So to come here and have the experience of qualifying good last year and then proving that for this year I think that we've looked on some good things. I'm just happy to debut the Tornados Chevrolet in a good position.”

And he insisted the mood with the team was good, despite a crash in the Daytona 500 and an engine failure a week later at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California.

“I go in and have a good attitude and everybody else has a good attitude and knowing what happened to us was poor luck, I mean, at Daytona we got crashed and we lost an engine there at California. So, it's tough,” said Newman. “And we know where we were at this time last year and it's about the same spot.”

Newman can also take some comfort in history: Last season, he was 32nd in points after the first four races and still managed to race his way into the Chase for the Sprint Cup, ultimately finishing the season ninth in points.

“We've run a lot better than we did last year,” said Newman. “It's only two races, but either way. It kind of gives you an idea. Our biggest satisfaction was at California knowing that we had a car that was a top-five race car. We worked our way towards the front every run and lost that engine. But that in itself has kept us from having to worry about attitude or that mentality of what are we going to do?”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEEDtv.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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