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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
NEWMAN: It’s Shootout Time
I am getting ready to head down to Daytona for media day for our first practice of the season for the Budweiser Shootout...
Ryan Newman  |  Posted February 03, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing writes Voices of SPEED on SPEED.com. (Photo: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Everybody says it every year at this time. But it’s true. It really does seem like we were in Homestead for the last race of the season just a few days ago. And here I am, now, getting ready to head down to Daytona tomorrow for media day for our first practice of the season for the Budweiser Shootout. It’s hard to believe that we are already beginning another season.

It's been a really good offseason. Krissie and I went to Utah with some friends, and we went snowmobiling. It’s something that we do every year. This year, we stayed in our little cabin, which has very little running water and a generator, and we kind of roughed it, which was a lot of fun. I enjoy that.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Pike County, Ill., which is like the place to go to for white tail deer hunting in Illinois and in the entire United States. My dad (Greg Newman) and Tony Gibson (my crew chief) and my wife’s uncle, who works for us, all went up there with me. We spent three days hunting up there. I didn’t get anything, but we still had a good time, though.

The offseason wasn’t all play for me, though. There was work to do. I had photo shoots and production days for our different sponsors, where I spent several hours smiling for the cameras, and I had a few appearances here and there.

I spent a lot of time talking to Gibson. I went to the Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) shop to spend time with the guys. We’re doing some new stuff with my seat and the racecar. And Gibson and all the guys have been working on the car to make it faster. So, we’ve been working on a game plan for the season.

And here we are now, getting ready to go to Daytona. They loaded up the cars on Wednesday morning at SHR, and the truck drivers got on the road.

It’s definitely a different feeling for me this year than this time last year. Last year, I didn’t know what to expect. I was with a new team and a new manufacturer. I had a new crew chief and a whole new team. Honestly, when I went to Daytona, I still didn’t know everyone’s name.

We had gone to one test before Daytona, just so we could get comfortable with each other, and so (Tony) Stewart and I could see what each of us liked in the other’s cars, and stuff like that. So we had worked together one time before coming to the biggest race of the year.

This year, I think I’m more relaxed. It makes a big difference a year later, walking into Stewart-Haas Racing and knowing my group of guys, knowing Tony's group of guys and the shop people and things like that. I kind of have an idea how things are supposed to go and how things are going to go and how we’ve progressed as a team, personally and professionally. You know, it's different. It's a lot more relaxing for me, personally, and I think it is for Gibson and all the guys on the team, too.

We know each other now, and we have built a trust in each other. We went through a lot at Daytona last year – which is a whole other story – and we overcame a lot of adversity during the season, and look at what we accomplished.

So many people have said we weren’t supposed to do what we did last year. Both SHR teams made the Chase and the No. 39 team finished ninth. My goal this year is to improve upon that.

From a team standpoint, from a performance standpoint, it’s important that we move forward and progress. How we do that is honestly a people thing. It’s teamwork. It’s building better race cars, communicating, all those things that the 48 team has done for the last four years straight. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to get to that point, but I think our organization has done a lot of great things in the offseason for our people and for our racecars to be stronger, and we’ll prove that.

Our first chance to prove it is in this weekend’s Budweiser Shootout. I definitely have a better seat this year for the Shootout than I did last year. Last year, because of the rule changes, I missed my first-ever Shootout. I stood in Stewart’s pit with a headset on, listening to him, checking for tire wear, really kind of wishing I was in the race. This year, we are.

It’s really important to be in the Shootout because it gives us the extra practice and the extra seat time. I know it’s a huge benefit for me, and Gibson feels the same way. I’m looking forward to it, and with the new rules, I think the race could be even more exciting than usual.

I have a Daytona 500 win, and I sure would like to get the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet in victory lane. We never got our first win as a team last year. It would be a pretty good way to build some momentum for the rest of the week in Daytona and all of the 2010 season if we could start with a win in the Shootout.

Ryan Newman is in his ninth full season as a driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and he’ll spend it with two-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart. Newman drives the No. 39 Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing, the team co-owned by Stewart and Haas Automation, the world’s largest machine tool manufacturer. In 2010, Newman will be sponsored by Tornados, Haas Automation and the U.S. Army. Newman is a graduate of Purdue University, where he has a degree in vehicle structure engineering. In his first eight seasons, Newman has collected 45 poles and 13 wins in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, including the 2008 Daytona 500 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. When not racing, Newman enjoys fishing and restoring his classic cars. The avid outdoorsman, along with his wife Krissie, play an active role in the Ryan Newman Foundation 501(c)(3), which they founded in 2005. For more information on Ryan Newman, please visit www.ryannewman.org or www.stewarthaasracing.com. Information on the Ryan Newman Foundation can be found at www.ryannewmanfoundation.org.

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