Sunday, May 25, 2008
Race 12 of 36
FOX 5:00 p.m.

Chassis Notes

PRS-555: The No. 12 Alltel Dodge for the Coca-Cola 600 is one of Penske Racing's second-generation COT cars. Although this weekend's race at Charlotte will be the car's first event, this No. 12 was tested at Darlington in March of this year.
PRS-558: The backup No. 12 Alltel Dodge is the same car that Newman drove to a fourth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway earlier this year.

Lowe's Motor Speedway

Concord, NC

Track Facts

Banking/Turns: 24
Distance: 1.5 miles
Shape: Quad-oval
Built more than four decades ago, the largest sports facility in the Southeast has 167,000 permanent seats, including 121 executive suites, and capacity for nearly 50,000 more spectators in the infield area. Lowe's Motor Speedway was the first superspeedway to host night racing in 1992 and was the first sports facility in America to offer year-round living accommodations when it released 40 condominiums for sale high above Turn One in 1984.

Contact Information

5555 Concord Parkway South
Concord, NC 28027
(800) 455-FANS

Track Stats

RYAN NEWMAN ENDURES LONG NIGHT TO FINISH 21st

CONCORD, N.C. (May 25, 2008) – Ryan Newman and the No. 12 Penske Racing Alltel Dodge team endured a night of ups and downs in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Sunday night. After running as high as ninth during the 400-lap race, Newman was hit with a pit road speeding penalty and was later caught up in an accident which caused substantial damage to the car. Newman finished in 21st place.

Newman is currently 14th in the NASCAR Cup point standings, 85 points shy of the 12th-place cutoff for the NASCAR Chase for the Cup.

"It was not the night we had hoped for with our Alltel Dodge," Newman said after the race. "I felt like we had a good car tonight as long as we could keep up with the changing track conditions and stay out of trouble.

"Unfortunately, we got a penalty for speeding on pit road after we had gotten into the top 10, which put us back in the pack. Then we got caught up in a crash on a restart with 100 laps to go when we were trying to work our way back up front. The damage was too much for our car to be competitive, so that pretty much ended our night. We're disappointed, but we are going to one of my favorite tracks next weekend (Dover International Speedway), and we're looking forward to making up lost ground there."

Despite qualifying 38th for the Coca-Cola 600, Newman was confident that the team had a top-10 car for the longest race of the year. The key, Newman said before the race, would be to stay out of trouble.

Early in the race, Newman's Alltel Dodge looked strong. Within 30 laps of the green flag, Newman had climbed 12 spots to 26th place. At lap 30, Newman told crew chief Roy McCauley that the car was too tight in the center of the turns and that it needed to be freed up to help him gain more positions on the track.

When green flag pit stops began on lap 46, Newman was in 24th place. The team pitted at lap 51 for four tires, fuel and a track bar adjustment. Newman returned to the track in 24th place.

After just a handful of laps following the stop, Newman reported that the car was still too tight. A caution on lap 61 gave the team the opportunity to make a wedge adjustment to help free the car up. Newman returned to the track in 20th place.

The adjustments seemed to work as Newman began to gain spots on the track. By lap 100, he had moved into the top 15. After another green flag pit stop for four tires and fuel, Newman was sitting just outside of the top 10 in 11th place.

When the caution flag waved again on lap 161, Newman told his crew that the car was still too tight getting into the center of the turns and was snapping loose coming out of the corners. Newman pitted for four tires, fuel and wedge and track bar adjustments. He restarted the race in ninth place.

Just 20 laps later, Newman told his crew that the adjustments had not helped the handling of the car and that it was still too tight. A caution on lap 185 gave the team another chance to improve the car's handling. Newman pitted for fuel and a track bar adjustment.

It was a quick stop, but NASCAR officials penalized Newman for being too fast exiting pit road. Newman was sent to the tail end of the longest line and forced to restart the race in 17th place.

"I didn't think that I was too fast exiting the pits," Newman said later. "I was right on my pit road speed, but that's not my call."

At the halfway point of the race at lap 200, Newman was battling to make up lost ground following the penalty. He was also fighting the track's changing conditions as the sun set and the temperatures began to drop. By lap 250, Newman told his crew that the Alltel Dodge was the loosest it had been all night.

The loose-handling condition was preventing Newman from making up any ground on the leaders, and he had dropped to 19th when the caution flag waved at lap 296. He pitted for four tires, fuel and a wedge adjustment to help tighten up the car. Newman returned to the track in 18th place.

That's when trouble struck. As the green flag dropped for the double-file restart on lap 305, a car in the lead pack mistimed the start. As several cars in front of Newman began to make contact and check up to avoid wrecking, the rest of the field became congested. With nowhere to go, Newman ran into the back of the car in front of him causing damage to the hood, the left front nose and left front fender of the Alltel Dodge.

The No. 12 team made a series of pit stops in order to change tires, pull back dented sheet metal from the tire and push down the hood and splitter. However, the damage was significant enough to affect the car's aerodynamic performance for the remainder of the race. Newman finished the night in 21st place as Penske Racing teammates Sam Hornish Jr. and Kurt Busch finished 13th and 16th, respectively.

The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action next Sunday, June 1 for the Best Buy 400 at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del. The race can be seen live on FOX at 1:30 p.m. EDT and coverage on MRN Radio begins at 1:15 p.m. EDT.

NEWMAN QUALIFIES 38th FOR COCA-COLA 600 ON SUNDAY

CONCORD, N.C. (May 22, 2008) - Ryan Newman, driver of the Penske Racing No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger, qualified 38th for the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Sunday.

Newman posted a lap of 181.867 miles per hour (29.747 seconds). Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M's Toyota, took the pole with a quick lap of 185.433 miles per hour (29.121 seconds).

"We had an okay car in practice – we were eighth pretty much all day – but we missed it tonight in qualifying," Newman said "We changed some things hoping that we would go faster, and we changed the wrong things.

"Hopefully, we'll have some good practices here on Saturday, and we'll have a good enough car that we can pass a lot of cars that we're starting behind on Sunday. It's a long race. We will have our work cut out for us."

On Sunday, Newman will try to capture his first victory at Lowe's Motor Speedway in the season's longest race. Newman has five top-10s in 14 starts at the 1.5-mile quad-oval.

Newman is currently 13th in the NASCAR Cup Series points standings, just two points shy of the coveted top 12, who will compete for the Series championship.

Coverage of the Coca-Cola 600 begins on the FOX television network on Sunday, May 25 at 5 p.m. EDT. The race can also be heard on the PRN at 5:30 p.m. EDT.

PENSKE RACING TEAMMATES

• 8 Kurt Busch
• 20 Sam Hornish Jr.

ALLTEL PIT CREW READY TO DEFEND TITLE

The No. 12 Alltel pit crew is set to defend its title in the NASCAR Pit Crew Challenge on Thursday, May 15 at 7 p.m. ET at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C. Last year, the Alltel pit crew won the overall title as the fastest pit crew in the challenge when they edged the No. 43 team by .33 seconds to grab the championship and the $70,300 prize. Despite being assessed a five second penalty in the first round for excessive fuel spillage, the Alltel Dodge team was flawless for the remainder of the competition. In each of the final four rounds, the No. 12 team posted the top time. The team made the quarterfinal round in 2006 and the semifinal round in 2005. "This competition is a big deal for the teams," said Trent Cherry, the team's rear tire carrier and pit crew coach. "It's bragging rights for one team for the rest of the year. We've been working hard this season, and we want to win again."

ALLTEL "MY CIRCLE 500"

Alltel is once again sponsoring the "My Circle 500" sweepstakes, a national text-to-win promotion that puts race fans in the driver's seat for a chance to win a grand prize of up to $500,000. From now until May 3, fans can enter the Alltel "My Circle 500" by texting RACE to 38229 or by logging onto www.alltelracing.com.

The 10 sweepstakes finalists and their 'Circle of Friends' will win an all-expense-paid trip to Charlotte, N.C., May 23-26 to compete in the second annual Alltel "My Circle 500." The finalists will get in the driver's seat and take one lap around the go-kart track. Then, it's up to their 'Circle of Friends' to change four tires on the No. 12 Alltel Dodge. The fastest team will be declared the winner and take home at least $200,000. The champions will receive an additional $300,000 if they beat the time of 2008 Daytona 500 champion Ryan Newman and the Alltel pit crew – increasing the grand prize purse to $500,000.

Notes

• Ryan Newman, driver of the Penske Racing No. 12 Alltel Dodge Charger, has seven poles, three top-five and five top-10 finishes at Lowe's Motor Speedway in 14 NASCAR Cup Series starts. Newman's best finish at the 1.5-mile track was a second-place effort in the fall of 2003.
• Newman finished sixth in the NASCAR All-Star race at Lowe's Motor Speedway last weekend.
• Newman scored the first NASCAR Cup Series pole of his career at Lowe's Motor Speedway in the spring of 2001. The pole came in just his third Cup start, tying Mark Martin's record for earliest career pole. Newman currently has 43 career poles and is tied for 10th on NASCAR's all-time pole list with Buck Baker.
• Newman's name is nearly synonymous with the pole position at Lowe's Motor Speedway. In 14 starts, Newman has taken the pole position seven times — including in both 2007 points races. He has started outside of the top-four only twice in his career.
• Newman has two NASCAR Nationwide Starts at Lowe's Motor Speedway, both coming in 2005. Led by current crew chief Roy McCauley, Newman finished in third-place in the spring (May 28) and won in the fall (October 14).
• Penske Racing is just one win shy of reaching the milestone of 300 victories across a variety of racing series since 1966. Newman has claimed 24 of Penske Racing's win total.

Newman Quotes

• QUALIFYING AT CHARLOTTE: "Winning poles is a goal that the Alltel team has every year. It's something we want to do, and being able to win the pole at Charlotte is a big deal. We want to be the fastest car on everyone's home turf. I don't know why I do so well at Charlotte. But qualifying well takes having a good team behind you, having the ability to hit your marks and being able to live on the edge for a couple of laps. Winning the pole gives our team that extra bit of momentum as we head into the race, and that's something we would like to have."
• RACING AT CHARLOTTE: "This is a big race. It's a tough race because it is the longest race we have all year. But I like this race, and I look forward to it. We had a good test in Charlotte, and our intermediate program has really improved over the past year. I think the Alltel Dodge is going to be a really competitive car this weekend. We have had a lot of success at Charlotte winning poles, and we won a race in the Nationwide Series. Now, we want to transfer that success to the Cup race. I've been close to winning at Charlotte, and I've been leading in the closing laps and had something happen. We want to turn all that around this weekend."

McCauley Quotes

• THE BENEFIT OF TESTING AND THE ALL-STAR RACE AT CHARLOTTE: "We definitely learned a lot over the past few days at Charlotte. The test was a good opportunity to evaluate race setups on the tire we are running. The test gave the drivers more time to get comfortable with running the COT car and it gave us crew chiefs more time to work on the race cars, so it was a welcome test and I think it might make the racing more competitive this weekend. The All-Star weekend was another help to us. We were able to learn about tire wear and learn which tire pressures were best for us. I think that any crew chief will tell you that this weekend gave them more notes and more ideas on what might be important during the Coca-Cola 600."
• QUALIFYING AT CHARLOTTE: "Ryan has a history of being a strong qualifier, particularly at Charlotte. His record there is pretty incredible, and we are going to try our best to continue his dominance there. We saw this weekend how important track position was so winning the pole on Thursday would be a step in the right direction."