Ryan Newman/Las Vegas Advance
Notes:
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge, will make his sixth Las Vegas Motor Speedway start and his 155th NASCAR Cup Series start this Sunday.
In his five previous LVMS starts, Newman has posted one top-five and three top-10 finishes. Newman's career-high finish of fourth occurred in 2002.
Newman earned his first LVMS pole last year, circling the 1.5-mile track in 31.080 seconds for an average speed of 173.745 mph.
Matt Borland, crew chief of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge, and the Alltel team will race chassis PRS-20 in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 on Sunday. PRS-20 was also raced at California Speedway two weeks ago where it finished 20th.
Newman and the Alltel team will enter LVMS seventh in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings. The team was 12th in the standings at this time last year.
The Alltel team tested at Kentucky Speedway last Tuesday to gain more information on the Alltel Dodge leading into Sunday's race at LVMS.
Ryan Newman will be available for an open Q&A with the media at the rear of the Alltel transporter on Friday at 2:45 p.m.
Quotes:
Ryan Newman on Las Vegas: "Las Vegas is a great race track. The track is wide and creates several lanes to race on, meaning that passing isn't difficult. There will probably be a little more passing action at Las Vegas than there was at California two weeks ago. This race should have a little more action to it.
"The Alltel team loves going to Las Vegas. We haven't won there yet, so that's not necessarily the reason. It's no secret that we're all a bunch of poker players. There's actually an underlying battle of who is the best poker player on the team. Sometimes the guys try to settle that out in Vegas.
"We're taking the same chassis to Vegas this weekend that we took to California. We didn't qualify extremely well in California, and definitely didn't perform during the race like we wanted. In the final 30 laps or so of that race, we got the car figured out. Too late, of course, but we learned a lot. We also took the car to Kentucky last week. We learned some things about the handling and hope to put that to good use this weekend."
For quotes from the No. 12 Alltel Dodge Crew Chief, MATT BORLAND, listen to the Alltel Racing podcast on www.alltelracingpodcast.com.
Stats:
Las Vegas Motor Speedway Starts: 5
Races Led/Laps Led: 3/97
Best Starting Position: 1 (2005)
Best Finishing Position: 4 (2002)
March 2005 Start: 1
March 2005 Finish: 9
Appearances:
Martinsville Speedway Media Tour, Wyndham Hotel and Conference Center, Roanoke, Va,. Tuesday, March 7. Lunch begins at 12 noon, ET.
NASCAR 101, Panel Q&A, Arrowhead Towne Center in Phoenix, Ariz., Thursday, March 9 at
6 p.m., MT.
