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Tag: Stewart Haas Racing

  • Ryan Newman Makes Magic with New Hampshire Win

    [media-credit id=43 align=”alignright” width=”213″][/media-credit]Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet, went from ‘Rocket Man’, qualifying on the pole for the start of the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 to ‘Magic Man’, scoring his first win of the season at the Magic Mile.

    This was Newman’s 15th victory in 351 NASCAR Cup races and with the win, the 33 year old driver became the 13th different race winner this season. This is, however, Newman’s second win of the weekend, as he also scored the victory in the Whelen Modified Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

    Ryan Newman also made magic for his team, Stewart-Haas Racing, as his teammate and owner, Tony Stewart finished right behind him in second. This was the first time ever that Stewart-Haas Racing, which started first and second in the race, took the checkered flag in the first and second position as well.

    Newman dedicated the race not only to the soldiers but also to his grandfather. In fact, he became very emotional in victory lane as he acknowledged both in celebration of his win.

    “This one is for the soldiers and the U.S. Army,” Newman said. “Thank you guys.”

    “I want to dedicate this to a good friend of mine who we lost 14 years ago this weekend,” Newman said. “That was my grandfather. It’s sentimental for many reasons.”

    “It was a great day for Stewart-Haas Racing.”

    It was all about family in Victory Lane for the Newman family, with his dad, wife Krissie and daughter Brooklyn joining him in Victory Lane. Newman’s daughter was definitely celebrating with both of her parents on the impressive win.

    “We’re really lucky and blessed with a good baby,” Krissie Newman said. “And to have the ARMY on the car and for SHR as a whole to finish one, two was a great day for the entire organization.”

    Tony Stewart, behind the wheel of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet, scored his 15th top-10 finish in 25 races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It is his seventh top-10 finish in 2011.

    “One hell of a day boys — one hell of a day,” Stewart said to his team after the race. He finished just .773 seconds behind teammate Newman.

    “I just needed a weekend where we didn’t do anything stupid,” Stewart said succinctly.

    Denny Hamlin, piloting the No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota, took the checkered flag in the third position.  Hamlin had to battle his way back through the field to recover from a lap 171 spin after A.J. Allmendinger got into his bumper, turning him.

    “We got caught mid pack and we weren’t good on short runs,” Mike Ford, Denny Hamlin’s crew chief said after the race. “We ended up getting spun and were in the back.”

    “We made adjustments and the car came to life,” Ford continued. “Denny did a good job staying calm in the car and it just worked out.”

    “You always have to give back some track position during the day to be in the sequence to have track position at the end of the day.”

    This was Hamlin’s eighth top-10 finish in 11 races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

    Joey Logano, driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota, finished fourth and five-time champion Jimmie Johnson, behind the wheel of the No. 48 Lowes Chevrolet, made an amazing recovery from a spin on lap 240, where he hit the wall on turn two, as well as a lug nut issue on pit road to finish fifth.

    Several drivers, including Kyle Busch, who went into the Loudon race as the points leader, had tire issues. Because of the tire issue, the driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota, finished a miserable 36th and fell to fourth in the point standings.

    “Blew a tire,” Busch said. “There was too much brake heat.”

    “I had a pretty fast car and we were getting there,” Busch continued. “But the tire wouldn’t take it.”

     

  • Ryan Newman Compares Pole Run to a Good Mac and Cheese

    Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 US Army Chevrolet, not only scored the pole for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but he also set a new track record at a speed of 135.232 mph  and a time of 28.165 seconds.

    And all he could compare it to was making a good batch of macaroni and cheese.

    [media-credit id=62 align=”alignright” width=”220″][/media-credit]“I’ve always been blessed with really good cars here,” Newman said. “It’s like making good macaroni and cheese. Sometimes, it just tastes good.”

    Other than macaroni and cheese, Newman is not sure why he has had such good runs at NHMS. But for his qualifying effort, he believes the new tires played a part in his first pole of the 2011 season.

    “I don’t know what the chemistry is, but I like it,” Newman said. “It’s a new tire, which is one part of it. But even with the tire change, we’ve made the cars better.”

    “It’s a combination of things,” Newman continued. “The tires are the only things touching the race track, so when they change it’s a big change. But it works.”

    “I didn’t know exactly what to expect,” Newman said. “It wasn’t a perfect, perfect lap, but the car had a lot of speed.”

    With this pole, Newman now sits alone in tenth on the all-time poles list. This was the driver’s 47th pole in 351 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races.

    Newman was also quite proud as not only did he claim the Coors Light pole, but his team owner and teammate Tony Stewart scored the outside pole position.

    Stewart, piloting the No. 14 Office Dept/Mobil 1 Chevrolet, for Stewart-Haas Racing, posted his fifth top-10 start in 2011 and his 16th in 25 races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

    “It’s awesome,” Stewart said. “We have a great group of guys at SHR.”

    “We’ve got great engines and great chassis from Hendricks and I’m just really proud of our organization,” Smoke continued. “They keep focused and they keep working. This is for all our guys at the shop.”

    Stewart not only had high praise for his own crew and the entire Stewart-Haas Race team, but he also had high praise for his pole winner.

    “I’ve got a pretty good driver over there,” Stewart said of Newman. “He’s gotten two poles in two nights so he’s doing a pretty good job.”

    Newman will also start from the pole in the Whelen Modified Series race, also running at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  He will be competing for this third straight win in that event.

    David Reutimann, driver of the No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, continued riding the momentum from his runner up finish at Kentucky Speedway last weekend. The Michael Waltrip racing driver qualified third, with a time of 28.263 seconds and a speed of 134.763 mph.

    “It didn’t feel that good at all,” Reutimann said of his qualifying lap. “But thankfully the Aaron’s Dream Machine has been pretty good since we unloaded and it ended up being okay there.”

    “The lap itself didn’t feel all that good, but in the end it was good enough for third.”

    This was Reutimann’s third top-10 start at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  It is his fifth in 19 races this season.

    Penske Racing teammates Kurt Busch, in the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge, qualified fourth and Brad Keselowski, piloting the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge rounded out the top five in the time trials.

  • Ryan Newman Schools Students in the Name of Science and Technology

    Ryan Newman Schools Students in the Name of Science and Technology

    Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet for Stewart Haas Racing and a Purdue engineering grad, took some time away from the big track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend to school some science, technology, engineering and math high school students in the art of remote control car racing.

     

    [media-credit name=”Gary Buchanan” align=”alignright” width=”223″][/media-credit]Newman spanked the field of students with his remote control race car on a small track set up in the Neon Garage at the Speedway, all for the sake of furthering their education. The students were part of a new NASCAR partnership called Ten80 Education’s Student Racing Challenge.

     

    “I just really like the fact that it’s hands on,” Newman said of the Ten80 program. “There is a time to study, a time to read, and a time to apply all of those things to a piece of paper.”

    “But when you take the opportunity to do it hands on, as a group, you become a better team,” Newman continued. “Doing what they are doing with the ten scale cars is something that I did when I was their age.”

    “I had remote control cars,” Newman said. “I rebuilt them and tried to make them go faster too. I”m proud to represent the engineering group of the whole program, understanding the math and the physics and the science of it.”

    “It’s extremely important not just if they want to be involved in NASCAR but whatever else they want to do in their lives,” Newman said. “Racing a ten scale, remote control car will have an impact on the rest of their career, the rest of their lives and the rest of their professions.”

    Bobby Hutchins, Director of Competition at Stewart-Haas Racing, could not agree more with Newman.

    “Just seeing the enthusiasm on the students’ faces as we were out there talking with them was great,” Hutchins said. “We talked to them about there being jobs in our sport for engineering and technology people.”

    “I gave them a goal, to get through school, go to college and hopefully they can build their resumes and we can hire some of these kids into our race teams,” Hutchins said. “That’s a dream and a goal that Ryan and I had when we were kids a long time ago and we weren’t fortunate enough to have a program like Ten80.”

    “I hope these kids can come into our world.”

    The Racing Challenge uses a NASCAR-themed curriculum for students from grades six to twelve, simulating how big league race teams prepare for competition. In order to compete in the Ten80 Challenge, students had to build their own remote control race cars, similar to what their NASCAR counterpoints have to do every weekend with their stock cars.

    “We’re very exited about the partnership that we’ve just engaged in with Ten80 Education,” Jjim Obermeyer, NASCAR Managing Director of Brand and Consumer Marketing, said. “This is a partnership that helps NASCAR and Ten80 have success in getting into the schools to teach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).”

    “The program itself uses remote control cars at one tenth ratio to the cars that we have on track that allow for a lot of the setups with down force and camber set up the same way our teams participate,” Obermeyer continued. “We felt this was a great way to introduce ourselves into the schools in a way that separates us from all the other leagues in sports. This helps teach a much-needed territory for our youth today.”

    Teri Stripling, President of Ten 80 Education, shared that the most important part of the program is the creation of heroes.

    “The math and science concepts that students are learning all over the country, everyone single one of them is illustrated in NASCAR every week,” Stripling said.”When the cars are out on the track, the students can look out and see engineers on war wagons, looking at data and making decisions. From an engineering perspective that is very exciting and creates a bunch of heroes for engineers.”

    Stripling also likened her progrm to the little league, creating a career ladder to the big league of NASCAR.

    “So if NASCAR is the big leagues, Ten80 is the little leagues, Stripling said. “NASCAR makes sense to get students interested in science, technology, engineering and technology.”

    The most eloquent spokesperson for the Ten80 program, however, was Kiera Fischer, a junior from Legacy High School right in Las Vegas, Nevada.

    “NASCAR is something that I enjoy dearly and I’ve been a huge fan,” Fischer said. “When I found out my school was going to participate in Ten80, I was so excited that we would get to be involved with NASCAR.”

    “We got to build our own cars and we act like our own little pit crew,” Fischer continued. “We design our cars to run on different tracks and see what is the best. It allows us to work on our cars in a way that is much more fun than a textbook.”

    Fischer’s teacher got her into the Ten80 program and she was most excited to be able to build her car with her team and race against one of her racing idols Ryan Newman.

    “Unfortunately we lost,” Fischer said. “But we’re hoping to get this thing going and next year, win.”

    “NASCAR is definitely where I want to be,” Fischer said. “My dream is to own my own race team.”

    And thanks to Ryan Newman, Fischer along with many of her other Ten80 compatriots, will no doubt have the opportunity to learn, grown and ultimately realize their own NASCAR dreams.