Ryan Newman/Kansas Advance
Notes:
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge, will make his fifth Kansas Speedway start and his 146th in the NASCAR Cup Series this Sunday.
In his four previous Kansas starts, Newman has posted one victory and two runner-up finishes. His only finish outside the top two occurred in this race last year, when Newman hit the outside wall and finished 33rd.
Newman's 9.5 average finish at Kansas is third among "Chase" drivers.
Newman has led a combined 117 laps in his four previous starts. He has led at least one lap in three of his four starts, and is fourth on the all-time lap leaders list at Kansas.
In four qualifying attempts, Newman has posted two top-10 starts. Kansas is one of only seven tracks on the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series circuit where Newman has yet to earn a pole position. Newman possesses an average start of 9.5 at Kansas.
With Newman's fourth-place finish in last Sunday's UAW-Ford 500 at Kansas Speedway, he moved to second in the series' point standings. Newman is merely four points behind leader Tony Stewart. This is the highest Newman and the Alltel team have been in points since March 2002. The Alltel team was seventh in the standings at this point in the 2004 season.
The Alltel pit crew continues to dominate the Checkers/Rally's Double Drive-Thru Challenge. The team won the competition for the third straight week at Talladega Superspeedway.
Thus far in the 2005 "Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup," Newman is the only driver to post three top-five finishes. He possesses a 3.3 average finish thus far in the “Chase”.
Newman has earned 24 top-10 starts this season, the most of all drivers.
For information on the Ryan Newman Foundation's trip to the Gulf region last week, visit www.ryannewmanfoundation.org.
The Banquet 400 will air live on NBC at 1:30 p.m., EDT, on Sunday, Oct. 9, and can be heard on MRN Radio.
Stats:
Kansas Starts: 4
Races/Laps Led: 3/117
Best Start: 3 (September 2002)
Best Finish: 1 (October 2003)
Quotes:
Newman on Kansas Speedway: "The Alltel team has just clicked with Kansas Speedway. We've been great there since our first race in 2002. It took us a couple of years to beat Jeff [Gordon], but we finally got a win there in 2003. Last year at Kansas, the Alltel Dodge was incredible once again, but we ended up in the wall instead of victory lane. That was a hard one to swallow. We really missed our chance of getting another win there last year. We're not going to let that happen this year.
"The points battle right now is definitely exciting for us, but we're not going to relax. There are seven races left in this thing and anything could happen. We saw that at Talladega last weekend. The Alltel team is just going to keep doing what we've been doing. We're not feeling any pressure and we're not putting any pressure on ourselves. We said in the beginning of the 'Chase', 'Let's have some fun.' That's what we've been doing and it's working so far."
