Ryan Newman
Sonoma/Toyota/Save Mart 350
Notes and Quotes
Notes:
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge Avenger, will make his sixth Cup start at Infineon Raceway. It will be his 204th career start in the Cup Series.
Newman has an average start of 13.4 and an average finish of 7.8. He has started each of his five races from the 22nd position or higher, but he has only one top-10 start at Sonoma—a fourth in last year’s race.
Newman has four top-10 finishes at Infineon—his lowest was 14th in 2004—and two top-fives, including a career-best second in last year’s event.
Newman has led 11 laps, all in 2006. He has completed 100 percent of the laps possible at Sonoma—550 out of 550 — since he made his debut at the road course in 2002.
Newman received the Mobil 1 Command Performance of the Race award for his second-place finish at Pocono Raceway on June 10.
This weekend, Newman and the Alltel team will use chassis PRS-517. It is a new COT car that Newman tested at Virginia International Raceway on June 13. It has not been on any other track. The backup car is PRS-511. This COT car ran at Martinsville in April. Newman qualified 24th after spinning during his second qualifying lap and avoiding the wall. He finished 14th in the race.
Quotes:
Newman On Sonoma: “I like driving the road courses; it’s a nice change of pace. I’ve had some success at both Infineon and Watkins Glen, so I always look forward to driving at those two tracks.”
“We had a little bit of a setback at Michigan. There was nothing we could’ve done differently. We had a good car, we just ran into some bad luck. We’ve got a really good COT program, so we’ll head out to Sonoma and try to get back some of the momentum we lost this weekend.”
