RYAN NEWMAN 1986 Kokomo Quarter Midget Club Track Champion |
Newman has proven time and again that starting in the No. 1 spot is a distinct advantage, as he has scored top-10 finishes in half of the races where he has started from the pole. Along with his immense qualifying ability, Newman has proven to be an equally adept racer, having collected 13 Sprint Cup wins, including the biggest of them all - the 2008 Daytona 500.
"After the race, I said I could hear my dad's tear drops over the radio while he spotted for me as I came to the start-finish line to win, and I think that shows the importance of this race to me and my entire family," Newman said. "I always said that just competing at Daytona was an honor. When I was a kid, my dad would bring me to Daytona for the 500 and we would make fake passes with construction paper and glitter so that I could sneak into the garage and meet the drivers. Years later, being part of that was truly amazing.
"Winning the Daytona 500 was a dream come true. I still can't put into words how amazing it was to win the 50th Daytona 500 considering all the history and fanfare that was a part of that day.
"Winning that race was a tribute to my dad and everything he had done for me to support and encourage my career. It was for all the people that had given me a shot - people who had given me monetary support, people who had helped pay for my uniforms, people who let me race their cars - that win was for everyone who had played a role in getting me to where I am today."
Newman knew he was going to be a racer, and he began dreaming about collecting trophies in NASCAR and winning the Series' biggest race - the famed Daytona 500 - from the first time he climbed behind the wheel of a race car. For Newman, those dreams started at four-and-a-half years old when he drove his first Quarter Midget.
Beginning in 1982 with his first Quarter Midget race in New Carlisle, Ind., Newman wasted no time making his presence known on the racetrack. He was tallying race wins at just five years of age. By 1986, a nine-year-old Newman had amassed more than 20 wins, won the Kokomo (Ind.) Track Championship and captured the title of Eastern Grand National Quarter Midget Champion (Junior Stock Division).
Throughout the next few years, Newman scored more than 100 feature wins, earned six regional Quarter Midget championships and won another Grand National Quarter Midget Championship (Heavy Mod Division in 1988). Newman's impressive Quarter Midget stats led to his induction into the Quarter Midget Hall of Fame in 1993.
In May 1993, Newman made his move to the full-size Midget car and the All-American Midget Series. He scored one feature win and became the first driver to win both rookie of the year honors and the series championship in the same season. Newman, who was named the Michigan State Midget Champion, also captured wins in the United Midget Auto Racing Association, the ARCA Midget Series and the Northern Michigan Midget Auto Racing Series.
Newman moved up to the United States Auto Club (USAC) National Midget division in 1995 and scored nine top-10 finishes in 18 starts en route to rookie of the year honors. He followed that with a rookie of the year title in the USAC Silver Crown division in 1996, where Newman scored four top-10s in 10 starts.
His first major USAC win came in May 1997 when he drove the No. 39 midget car to victory in the 52nd "Night Before the 500" race at O'Reilly Raceway Park near Indianapolis on the Saturday night prior to the famous Indianapolis 500. It was the biggest win of Newman's young career, and one that he credits with putting him on the map. The prestigious win help vault Newman into victory lane two more times that year in USAC Midgets.
For Newman, the wins continued to accumulate in the USAC ranks. He won two more Midget races and one Sprint Car race in 1998. The following season, Newman tackled all three of the USAC's national series - Midget, Silver Crown and Sprint Car. In his Midget car, Newman captured seven wins, nine top-five and 11 top-10 finishes in just 14 starts en route to a second-place points finish. He scored one other win in the Silver Crown car and two runner-up finishes to claim the 1999 Silver Crown championship. Newman also earned one win and seven top-10 finishes in 15 races in the Sprint Car division where he was named rookie of the year. With that honor, Newman became the only driver to have ever won all three USAC National rookie of the year honors.
Newman's successes in the USAC ranks caught the eye of Roger Penske and led him to join forces with Penske Racing in 2000. While taking classes at Purdue University, Newman competed in all three USAC Series, tested for Penske Racing and began his stock car career with a limited schedule. That year, he scored wins in the USAC National Midget Series and the USAC Sprint Car Series and in July, in just his second ARCA Series start, he won his first stock car race at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa. Newman followed that up with two more ARCA wins at Charlotte and Kentucky Speedway in Sparta before he made his NASCAR Sprint Cup debut in November at Phoenix.
The following season, Newman competed in an unprecedented A-B-C schedule, which consisted of running two races in the ARCA Series, 15 races in the NASCAR Busch Series (now Nationwide Series) and seven point races in Sprint Cup.
He won the season-opening ARCA race at Daytona and captured the pole at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City in his only other ARCA start. Newman won his first Nationwide Series race in August at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn and also won six Nationwide Series poles. In the Sprint Cup Series, Newman scored his first career pole at Charlotte in May while also scoring two top-fives finishes, including a second-place effort at Kansas.
By 2002, NASCAR observers were expecting big things from Newman and he did not disappoint. He set rookie records for the most top-10 finishes (22) and the most poles (six) in one season. He also became only the second rookie to win the series' non-points All-Star race at Charlotte.
In September of that year, Newman started from the pole and led 143 of 207 laps en route to his first career Sprint Cup Series win in a rain-shortened race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon. The race win, along with his other impressive rookie stats, led Newman to a sixth-place point finish and resulted in him being named the 2002 rookie of the year over Jimmie Johnson in one of the most hotly contested rookie races in history.
