{"id":6836,"date":"2011-08-18T12:57:42","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T16:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2011-08-17T20:58:12","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T00:58:12","slug":"ryan-newman-time-turn-%e2%80%98wix%e2%80%99-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/ryan-newman-time-turn-%e2%80%98wix%e2%80%99-michigan\/","title":{"rendered":"RYAN NEWMAN – Time To Turn Up the \u2018WIX\u2019 at Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"

RYAN NEWMAN – Time To Turn Up the \u2018WIX\u2019 at Michigan<\/strong><\/p>\n

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. (Aug. 17, 2011) \u2013 Ryan Newman and his No. 39 Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) team are looking to turn up the \u201cWIX\u201d as the battle for a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship heats up and winds down.<\/p>\n

With four races remaining until the Chase, Newman & Company are poised to be one of the 12 contenders fighting it out for the 2011 championship.
\n
\nCurrently eighth in points, with one win to his credit \u2013 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon just four races ago \u2013 Newman is 66 points behind championship points leader Kyle Busch and 52 points ahead of 11th-place Clint Bowyer.<\/p>\n

Despite Newman\u2019s stronghold on a spot in the top-10 in points, the No. 39 WIX Filters team\u2019s goal remains the same since the start of the 2011 season: maintain a top-10 position in the points while at the same time battle for another victory each and every week, beginning with this weekend\u2019s Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

The 2-mile oval nestled in the Irish Hills of Michigan could be the perfect place for Newman to solidify his position as a 2011 championship contender. After all, over the years, the racetrack has played a pivotal role in Newman\u2019s racing career.<\/p>\n

When Newman was signed as a developmental driver for Penske Racing more than a decade ago, he made his first start at a place the 33-year-old still refers to as his home track. In June 2000, Newman made his stock car debut in the ARCA Series for Penske Racing at Michigan. He qualified on the outside pole and led three laps en route to a seventh-place finish.<\/p>\n

Since that first stock car start at Michigan, the track has continued to play an important role in the Purdue University engineering graduate\u2019s racing career.<\/p>\n

It was at Michigan, on Aug. 18, 2001, that Newman drove to his first-ever NASCAR victory by winning the Nationwide Series race in dominating fashion. After qualifying on the outside pole, Newman wasted no time taking over the point and he never looked back. He led 119 of 125 laps and won by 1.3 seconds. Four years later, in 2005, Newman won his second race in Nationwide competition at the track.<\/p>\n

In Sprint Cup competition at Michigan, Newman has one pole, two wins, four top-five and five top-10 finishes in 20 starts. Newman\u2019s two victories actually came back-to-back. He won the August 2003 race and followed it up with a repeat performance in June 2004. In 2003, Newman started on the outside pole and led 32 laps en route to the win. In the 2004 race, he started fourth and led 22 laps on his way to taking the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

This past June, Newman & Company earned a sixth-place finish at Michigan \u2013 his first top-10 and best finish at the track since his win in June 2004.<\/p>\n

As the battle for a spot in the Chase winds down, Newman\u2019s No. 39 team, with crew chief Tony Gibson at the helm, have gambled when necessary to overcome the odds, and are now putting the heat on the other competitors trying to land a spot in the top-10. In just the past five races, Newman has posted three top-five finishes \u2013 including his win in Loudon \u2013 and he hasn\u2019t finished lower than 16th.<\/p>\n

Newman\u2019s record behind the gold-and-black colors of the No. 39 WIX Filters Chevy isn\u2019t too shabby, either. In two starts with WIX Filters on the hood of the No. 39, Newman has two top-10 finishes \u2013 a sixth-place effort at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway last August and a third-place finish in the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in February.<\/p>\n

With Michigan being such an important track in Newman\u2019s history, it seems only fitting for the South Bend, Ind., native, to have another breakout race this weekend at the 2-mile oval and solidify his spot in this year\u2019s Chase for the Championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RYAN NEWMAN – Time To Turn Up the \u2018WIX\u2019 at Michigan KANNAPOLIS, N.C. (Aug. 17, 2011) \u2013 Ryan Newman and his No. 39 Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) team are looking to turn up the \u201cWIX\u201d as the battle for a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship heats up and winds down. With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[15775],"class_list":["post-6836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}