Ryan Newman
Richmond/Chevy Rock & Roll 400
Notes and Quotes
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Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge Avenger, will make his 12th Cup start at Richmond International Raceway. It will be his 214th career start in the Cup Series.
Newman has an average start of 9.3 and an average finish of 11.1. Newman has one Bud Pole Award at RIR along with six other top-10 starts, including five from the top five.
Newman has seven top-10 finishes at Richmond, including one win. Four of his top-10 finishes were inside the top five. He only has one finish outside the top 20 in 11 previous starts.
Newman has led 355 laps in seven races at RIR. He has completed 4,275 laps of a possible 4,393 since he made his Cup debut at the 0.75-mile track in 2002. Newman has a completion rate of 97.3 percent at the Northern Virginia track.
Raymond VanDerLinden of Springfield, Mo., won the “Ink Ryan’s Ride” contest and received VIP treatment at California Speedway during last week’s race weekend. VanDerLinden is a self-taught graphic designer.
Crew chief Mike Nelson and the Alltel team are taking chassis PRS-513 to Richmond as their primary car. The car was last raced at New Hampshire International Speedway in July when Newman started 12th and finished 10th. The backup car is PRS-519. It has not been used in a race, but it was tested at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in May.
Newman On Richmond: “Now that we’re officially out of the Chase hunt, things will still remain the same for me and the Alltel Dodge team. We still have 11 more races to try to get the Alltel Dodge in victory lane. Really, I’m still in the same place as I was before. I still try as hard as I can each and every lap, no matter what. Couldn’t expect to make up as much as we did, it would have been a miraculous effort in these last two races. Nevertheless, we’ll just keep trying.”
