Ryan Newman’s performance in Sunday’s Daytona 500 made a statement, that last
\nyear wasn’t a fluke. After splitting 2001 into a campaign Newman and his Penske
\nteam labeled as the "ABC’s of NASCAR", entering races in the ARCA,
\nBusch, and Winston Cup Series, he competed and proved his ability in all three.<\/p>\n
In 2002 Newman is competing full-time in Winston Cup and will be running
\nagainst Jimmy Johnson for the Raybestos Rookie of the year title, which Newman
\nis bound to fight for until the very end. After all, this guy is used to winning
\ntop rookie honors. In 1993 he won the Rookie of the Year, as well as being the
\nAll-American Midget Series Champion. In ’95 and ’96 he took home USAC Midget and
\nSilver Crown Rookie titles. And in 1999 Newman won the Sprint Car Rookie of the
\nYear.<\/p>\n
Moving up to stock cars, Newman won only his second race in an ARCA event in
\nJuly of 2000 in the Pepsi ARCA 200 at Pocono. Newman closed out the 2000 season
\nwith three wins. He also made his debut in Winston Cup that year at Phoenix ,
\nwhere he qualified 10th. After having mechanical problems, he finished the race
\n41st.<\/p>\n
2001 became Ryan Newman’s year to grow and prove he has what it takes to be a
\nWinston Cup driver. Newman started the year out on the right path, with a win in
\nthe ARCA Series’ season opener at Daytona. Throughout the year, he competed in
\nthe Busch Series in 15 races, eight of those races were top-10 finishes. Newman
\nalso won six poles and after several near misses, grabbed his first career Busch
\nwin at Michigan in August.<\/p>\n
After running seven races in Cup in ’01, Newman earned respect and notoriety
\nafter closing out the year with a Bud Pole, and two top five finishes. His
\nhighest finish was second to Series Champ Jeff Gordon at Kansas.<\/p>\n
Not only is this guy a good racer, he’s smart too. This past year Newman
\ngraduated from Purdue with a degree in Vehicle Structure Engineering. Such a
\nprogram helped Newman to learn more details about the race car, from the chassis
\nto the engine, making it easier for him to understand what to tell the crew to
\nwork on. Newman stayed active in racing while pursuing his degree, and finished
\nhis final two courses via the Internet. Newman is only the second driver in
\nNASCAR history to have earned an engineering degree.<\/p>\n
Stepping into his full-time Winston Cup ride in 2002, Newman takes with him
\nthe smarts and skills needed to be a winner at NASCAR’s top level. He has
\nalready started the season off right with a seventh place finish in the Daytona
\n500. Newman also has the advantage of having 1989 Winston Cup Champion Rusty
\nWallace as a teammate. Wallace has 54 career wins and a consecutive 16 year
\nstreak with at least one win per year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ryan Newman’s performance in Sunday’s Daytona 500 made a statement, that last year wasn’t a fluke. After splitting 2001 into a campaign Newman and his Penske team labeled as the "ABC’s of NASCAR", entering races in the ARCA, Busch, and Winston Cup Series, he competed and proved his ability in all three. In 2002 Newman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}