In his first season driving for Richard Childress Racing, Ryan Newman appears to be the front-running dark horse in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, after earning a third place finish in Sunday afternoon’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.
Yes, the Chase for the Sprint Cup is to reward winners on the tour, but winless Newman is looking to spoil the system with consistency, as three races remain in the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) season.
Newman wasn’t a factor until late on Sunday afternoon, in fact, the 17-time winner rallied from a speeding penalty early to post his fourth top-five finish of the season and second in the Chase.
“It was kind of chaos with the guys up there that stayed out and we had two tires,” said Newman, who matched his season-best finish. “Some guys we knew were going to be coming on four like the 22 (Joey Logano). It was a good run for the Quicken Loans Chevrolet SS and a great start to this bracket of the Chase. I have to thank everyone at RCR and ECR for giving us a good piece to work with and we are digging and we are going to keep digging.”
While the first event in the Eliminator round went smooth for the South Bend, Indiana native, the pressure seems to be somewhat relaxed as Dale Earnhardt Jr., a non-Chase driver won Sunday’s race, leaving just two of the final four spots open for Chase contenders to guarantee their entry into the championship race at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway on November 16.
Of course, to alleviate the stresses that come with vying for the championship, Newman, who hasn’t won since the Brickyard 400 last August, along with his team will have to find that one missing piece of the puzzle that will take the consistency of posting top-10s finishes to actually put Newman in position to chasing checkered flags, starting next weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.
There’s no hiding behind that Newman knows that too.
“We came here to do what we needed to do. We’re going to go to Texas to do what we need to do,” Newman added. “That’s a lot easier said than done. To me, it’s just another race. It’s an entirely different race than what we had today at Martinsville. Phoenix will be the same.
“But you have to approach it for what it is. If the outfield wall is a hundred foot closer, you don’t have to hit the ball as far. If you have a really good car at Texas, it makes it that much easier,” he concluded.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
