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CUP: Newman Says ’09 A Good Start
Written by: Tom Jensen   
10/28/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
Ryan Newman left Penske to join Stewart-Haas Racing this season and is so far happy with the change. (Photo: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

Like his boss and close friend Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman didn’t really know for sure what to expect when he signed on the dotted line to join the new Stewart-Haas Racing team for 2009.

He hoped the team would be competitive with Stewart at the helm and engines, chassis and technical support provided by Hendrick Motorsports. Still, it was a big venture into the unknown — a well-calculated risk, to be sure, but a risk nonetheless.

In his first four full-time seasons in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Newman finished sixth in points three times and seventh once. But then came three consecutive seasons of missing the Chase for the Sprint Cup, culminating in 2008 when Newman won the Daytona 500 but ended the season 17th in points.

That was enough to convince the Indiana native to jump ship from Penske Racing, his only employer in his first seven seasons of Cup racing, and take a chance in joining Stewart fledgling operation.

And with nearly one full season under his belt at SHR, the verdict is in: So far, so good, Newman said.

With 32 of 36 races in the books for the season, Newman is seventh in points, having posted five top-five and 15 top-10 finishes this season in his U.S. Army-sponsored Chevrolets, all without a single DNF.

And while he may be disappointed at not winning the championship after qualifying for the Chase, he certainly has no regrets about his decision to join SHR. In fact, he’s already itching to get 2010 started.

“I feel like we should be able to expand upon this season, 2009, and take the relationships that we've built and start building better and faster race cars and things like that, because of the things that we've learned together as a team and what (crew chief) Tony Gibson and I have learned, what he's learned about the way I like to drive a car and the way I learned from things from him and how he likes to adjust on the race car,” said Newman.

The success that SHR has enjoyed in its first season gave Newman confidence that the basic ingredients are in place for success. It’s now up to the team to raise the bar just a little, to move from making the Chase to seriously contending for the championship.

“So just being able to sharpen our
pencil, per se, and shine things up a little bit, put a little polish on them and just be better than we are in all respects, from the pit crew side, from the team side, mechanically and performance‑wise, what we can do to be better,” said Newman. “We should be able to capitalize on that, what we experienced in 2009, to 2010.”

And us much respect and admiration as he has for his entrepreneurial pal Stewart, Newman is certain about one thing: He has no desire whatsoever to join him in the ranks of Sprint Cup team owners.

“Honestly, that's not one of my goals,” Newman said. “I think Tony's done a great job and (team co-owner) Gene Haas as well as far as laying ground work and everything else in the shop. Done a great job. I don't know that you could ever try to repeat that or duplicate that. Other people have tried even before Tony.

“So I don't think that that is something that I'm interested in,” Newman said. “I know that there are — it's kind of like when things are on a grand scale, when they're good they're great. But when they're bad, they're really bad. And I don't have any will to have those potential bad headaches.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to



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