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NEWMAN: “Treat” And Not A “Trick” At ‘Dega
We’ll head to Talladega with the idea that, sooner or later, the odds will be in our favor...
Ryan Newman  |  Posted October 29, 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)
Unfortunately, this past weekend ended up being another disappointment for me and my No. 39 Stewart-Haas Racing team.

Early in the race, I was pretty confident we had a car that was capable of winning – at the very least, being in the top-five. But we broke a rear gear and we spent about 40 laps in the garage, which really spelled the end of our day.

So it was a difficult weekend for all of us.

We had been running so solidly up until Charlotte, and now we have had two weekends in a row where I’m confident we had cars that were capable of contending for a win but, instead, something has gone wrong and we found ourselves back in the garage and out of contention. We need to get turned back around and end the season with another streak of top-10 finishes.

Of course, this weekend we head to Talladega. I’ve made so secret about my feelings for Talladega and the racing there the past two seasons, so there’s really no need for me to go into all that all over again. What I will say is what Tony Gibson has been telling me, and that’s “sooner or later, the odds are going to be in our favor, and we’re going to finish one of these restrictor-plate races.”

Well, I hope this is the weekend that happens. We haven’t finished a restrictor-plate race this year. In fact, we’ve ended up with a wrecked car in every race from Daytona or Talladega since I’ve come to Stewart-Haas Racing.

And yes, it’s true – the chassis from some of those wrecked racecars are at the bottom of my pond on my farm. We sink the chassis and it creates a habitat for the fish. I figure someone or something ought to get some enjoyment out of my Talladega and Daytona racecars.

So, we’ll head to Talladega with the idea that, sooner or later, the odds will be in our favor. And it’s funny – Gibson says that when our luck turns around at Talladega or Daytona, it will be big. And I hope he is right. I definitely felt like we were getting close to our second win of the season before our disappointments at Charlotte and Martinsville and I’d like to get back on that track.

We’re just going to go there and try to win. There are strategies to ride around and strategies to run up front all day. I think it all depends on how fast your car is and we won’t know that until we get to the track. So, we’ll see what happens.

The best thing about my weekend, though, will no doubt be that I will have some time to fish at one of my favorite ponds on the circuit. The fishing is good and something that I always look forward to when we go to Talladega.

Fishing will be a nice way for me to relax before Sunday’s big race.

Since the race is on Halloween, I sure would like to think that this year the No. 39 team will finally get a “treat” at Talladega and not a “trick.”

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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