If there truly are races Ryan Newman circles on his calendar at the beginning of each season as races where he and his Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) team should be the class of the field, there’s no doubt one of those is this weekend.
After all, New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon has been the site of three of Newman’s 17 career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins – September 2002 and 2005 and July 2010 – and six of the Quicken Loans driver’s 50 career poles.
In fact, New Hampshire was the site of Newman’s first points-paying Sprint Cup victory during his rookie season in 2002. On that September afternoon, the South Bend, Ind., native started from the pole and dominated the rain-shortened race, leading 143 of 207 laps.
The second victory came three years later in September 2005. Newman, who had narrowly squeaked into the inaugural Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, used pit strategy to gain the lead late in the race after starting 13th. In the closing laps, he dueled for the lead with now-team owner and teammate Tony Stewart. Newman passed Stewart with two laps remaining and held on to take the win, renewing Newman’s hopes for a run at the championship.
The July 2011 win was a wire-to-wire effort as Newman drove from his No. 1 starting spot to victory lane. Newman led six times for 119 laps in winning from the pole position for just the fourth time in his career.
And that win was all part of a banner weekend for SHR. Newman and Stewart started 1-2 and finished 1-2 as teammate and team owner. The last time a team started 1-2 and finished 1-2 was Hendrick Motorsports in the 1989 Daytona 500. However, the last time a team started 1-2 and finished 1-2 with the same drivers in the same order was back on April 7, 1957, at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway, where DePaolo Engineering’s Fireball Roberts won from the pole while teammate Paul Goldsmith started and finished second.
So, it makes sense Newman would circle New Hampshire on his calendar each year. The 1.058-mile flat track commonly known as “The Magic Mile” has been the site of some magical moments over Newman’s Sprint Cup career.
As part of the 2013 Chase field, Newman and the No. 39 team are peaking at the right time. Since winning the 20th annual Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July, Newman has scored three top-five finishes and four top 10s, and his only finish worse than 14th came at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, where a late-race incident led him to finish three laps down with a badly damaged racecar. And, after opening the Chase with a 10th-place finish at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., last weekend, Newman and his Matt Borland-led team advanced four positions to eighth in the standings, 28 points behind series leader Matt Kenseth.
With his four most recent race wins coming on flat tracks – Phoenix International Raceway in April 2010, New Hampshire in July 2011, Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in April 2012 and Indianapolis in July, Newman is looking forward to coming “home” to New Hampshire this weekend. It always brings back great memories thanks to his previous successes at the track with the ever-present potential to bring additional successes. This weekend, a trip to victory lane in the No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevrolet SS could go a long way in his quest to become the 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion.
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