Working On My Redneck ™ » ryan newman

Newman Secretly Fined?

Leon — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 20:27:01 +0000

(workingonmyredneck file photo)

NASCAR officials wouldn’t say Monday whether #39-Ryan Newman secretly was fined $50,000 for allegedly punching #42-Juan Pablo Montoya during a meeting last month at Darlington. The two drivers were summoned to NASCAR’s at-track office on May 6 to discuss their ongoing feud, and NASCAR said afterward that the meeting “did not go as well as we had hoped it would.”

Commenting on a meeting inside the hauler was unprecedented for NASCAR, which promised a further review of the incident. No fines were ever announced, and NASCAR said the issue was closed.

But rumors of the penalty began to leak on Monday in response to NASCAR fining owner Richard Childress $150,000 for attacking Kyle Busch after Saturday’s trucks race at Kansas Speedway. Newman, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment. NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp also refused to comment on whether Newman was fined.

If true, it’s the second time NASCAR secretly has fined Newman. He was fined in April 2010 for comments he made about the style of racing at Talladega. It was not made public until the AP learned last July that Denny Hamlin had been secretly fined $50,000 for criticizing NASCAR on Twitter. Newman then admitted he, too, had been fined.

What is up with NASCAR secretly fining drivers? If the sanctioning body levies a fine, it should be transparent for all to see. What is the benefit of secretly fining a driver for apparently conduct unbecoming of NASCAR?

What is you views?

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Kyle Wins At Richmond Again

Leon — Sun, 01 May 2011 19:51:00 +0000

(photo courtesy Alan Marler)

Kyle Busch was victorious in the Crown Royal presents the Matthew and Daniel Hansen 400 at Richmond International Raceway Saturday evening, making it three years in row for the Spring race at that facility. For the last three years ol Kulie has celebrate his birthday with a victory at the Richmond facility! This victory was his second race win for the 2011 season, the other victory was at Bristol. Busch led a dominating 236 laps of the 400 lap race.

Busch beat Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin to the finish line by 1.805 seconds as both drivers conserved fuel during an 86-lap green flag to the finish. Busch has won the past three spring races at Richmond, with Hamlin winning the past two fall races.

Busch, who like Hamlin made it to the finish after pitting for the last time on Lap 293 of 400, ran out of fuel during his post-race burnout.

“We were late to the celebration,” Busch said after his car was pushed to Victory Lane. “This is pretty awesome. We had a really good car, and we knew that if we could play through traffic a little bit better than the 11 [Hamlin] that we had a shot at the win, and we did that [Saturday night].

“I learned from Denny Hamlin last fall — and I’m not going to say what I learned, but he might know. We did a good job of doing what we needed to do early in the run, and once we got out [front] and had to go through traffic, the traffic kind of fell our way, so we were able to pick our way through there.”

Hamlin acknowledged helping Busch on the short tracks but said it was a fair exchange for what he had learned from Busch about running intermediate speedways.

“Yeah, I opened my mouth — I never should have told him,” Hamlin said, though he, too, declined to reveal the secret he had shared with his teammate. “That’s the thing. If I don’t tell him the things I know on short tracks, and the crew chiefs don’t relay information, then it’s not a good team.

“We got paid back on the bigger intermediate tracks. I learned so much from him. Yeah, it might cost me a race here or there because he outruns me, but I think, in the grand scheme of things, it makes me an overall better driver.”

After surging to the front of the field during a 107-lap green-flag run to start the race, Busch and Hamlin owned the action — save for a four-lap foray by Jeff Gordon — until Martin Truex Jr. took Busch and Hamlin three-wide to the inside after a restart on Lap 245 and surged to the front on Lap 246.

A bump from Jimmie Johnson sent Joey Logano spinning off Turn 2 on Lap 256. That started a spate of cautions that scrambled the field by virtue of divergent pit strategies. All told, Laps 256-301 brought five cautions, the last of which flew because of a wreck on the backstretch involving Bowyer, Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, Paul Menard and David Reutimann.

Gordon retired from the race after his Chevrolet slammed hard into the inside wall.

Busch was fourth and Hamlin fifth for a restart on Lap 315, but Busch charged into the lead around the outside and passed Jeff Burton for the top spot on Lap 317, with Hamlin quickly following into the second position. At that point, both drivers were conserving fuel, but they had enough of a lead over Kahne that they could maintain an even pace without fear of losing their positions on the track.

Juan Montoya and Ryan Newman were involved in a succession of incidents, with Montoya retaliating against Newman on Lap 237. NASCAR warned both drivers.

It appeared to WOMR that JPM (Juan Pablo Montoya) intentionally retaliate and put Newman into the wall late in the race. At the end of the race Newman was not very happy with JPM! It also appeared that Newman went “hunting “JPM for a possible discussion of his (JPM’s) heritage!

Here is the unofficial results from the Crown Royal presents the Matthew and Daniel Hansen 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Next week it is on to Darlington!

TIL NEXT WEEK, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Stewart “Smokes” ‘Em At Atlanta

Leon — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:41:32 +0000

(photo courtesy Leon Hammack)

Tony Stewart, driving the Stewart-Haas Racing Office Depot/Old Spice Chevy, took the lead on a restart with just 24 laps to go, more importantly, he held on to the lead after a restart with 18 laps to go, and went on to win the Emory Healthcare 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway Sunday night. This was the first win of the 2011 season, and the first victory since the Kansas race last fall, for the two-time Sprint Cup champion.

Sunday night’s race featured two types of racers, safe racers and chance takers. Those teams which were safely locked into The Chase, or appeared to be safely locked into The Chase, raced a more intelligent and safe strategy at Atlanta. For those teams that were just on the cusp or slightly past the cusp of The Chase, their strategy was “Testes Ad Mureum“! A Latin racing phrase for aggressive driving!

One of the chance takers Sunday night was the Stewart-Haas Racing #39 Army Chevy of Ryan Newman. Newman’s 8th place finish in the Emory Healthcare 500 leap-frogged his team over both Mark Martin and Jamie McMurray into 13th place in the standings. Newman, however, is now 117 points out of the coveted 12th, and final spot in The Chase. With just one race to go, that 117 point deficit may be too big of a hill to climb next Saturday night in order to make it into The Chase!

With just one race to go before The Chase begins, it appears that the top 12 teams are fairly secure in making The Chase. Nevertheless, the race Saturday evening at the Henrico County Fairgrounds, aka Richmond International Raceway, will be exciting, fast, and furious, just as it always is at Richmond!

Here is the unofficial results of the Emory Healthcare 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Censorship In NASCAR?

Leon — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:43:03 +0000

(photo courtesy of NASCAR)

The word in the garage area this week is that two drivers were fined $50,000.00 each by NASCAR for comments that NASCAR deemed to be “detrimental to the sport”. However, NASCAR has decided not to identify the drivers that it fined, nor publish the statement that they deemed inappropriate!

Last year NASCAR encouraged the drivers to show their personality and was additionally re-enforced this year when Robin Pemberton issued the now famous phrase, “have at ‘em boys”! This year NASCAR has basically taken a “hands off” attitude and the net results is beautiful races cars are turning into scraps of crumpled sheet metal. Furthermore, without the dramatic increases in the safety equipment over the past nine years, in both the race cars and the racing facilities, the resultant affects would have been injuries to both the drivers and the spectators alike.

Suddenly this week NASCAR has decided to “secretly” fine two Sprint Cup drivers for comments that were made by them. Most likely the two drivers that were fined were probably Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman. Hopefully NASCAR will decide to publish their names and their comments so that all can decide if their comments warranted the penalties.

Ryan Newman may be getting fined for this statement made after the Gateway fiasco with Edwards and Keselowski.

“[The policy] ‘have at it boys’ means even if we crash each other or get into an accident or lose respect for one another, you go talk about it,” said Stewart-Haas Racing driver Ryan Newman. “That’s the ‘have at it boys’ [policy]. You go behind a trailer and you talk about it. We can get in each other’s faces. That’s ‘have at it boys.’

“Going out there and purposely crashing somebody, turning right or turning left just to crash ‘em on purpose, whether you’re winning the race or not, is not at all ‘have at it boys.’ Some people have thought of manslaughter or attempted manslaughter, but that’s closer to what [that] is. Brad just needs to go up and just lap one across his lip, and everything will be fine!”

If Denny Hamlin was the second driver to be fined, it could be over his comment about the middle of some of these long race just riding around and not racing.

WOMR thinks that NASCAR is speaking with a forked tongue these days! If they want some emotion and aggressiveness out of its competitors, then some of that emotions will spillover into comments about NASCAR and the competition. You can’t have one without the other, it is a matched pair.

Now one of the most outspoken drivers in the garage area, Tony Stewart, has come out wholeheartedly in support of NASCAR’s secret fines!

When Tony Stewart said at an appearance at Syracuse University this week that he supported NASCAR’s decision to allow words deemed harmful to the brand to not escape the garages, was he saying what he thinks or was he avoiding the hammer?

Is Smoke being believable or is he learning to sing the company tune? For a driver such as Stewart, who is quick to criticize NASCAR, G0oodyear,his team members, as well as other drivers who he thinks are not up to his standards, to do a complete role reversal, is very hard to take seriously and to believe! Can we all sing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore”?

What do you think NASCAR is doing with their “secret” fines? Is NASCAR exercising their total control over the competitors? What is your view?

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Kyle A Helluva Win At Dover

Leon — Sun, 16 May 2010 00:26:59 +0000

(photo courtesy nascar,com)

Kyle Busch, in his JGR #18 Combos Toyota thoroughly dominated the Nationwide Helluva 200 from Dover International Speedway Saturday. Busch led 191 laps of the 205 laps that included the green-white-checkered finish!

On the first of the late restarts, Busch jumped to the lead but just behind him second-place Clint Bowyer was rear-ended by Denny Hamlin. Several cars which had shots at the victory were also caught up.

Bowyer went to the pits but just before the next restart, he came back out onto the track and rammed and spun Hamlin, who would have restarted second.

“It was nothing intentional,” Hamlin said of hitting Bowyer on the first restart. “I barely misjudged it. I didn’t know how close I was (to Bowyer’s bumper).

“I just barely clipped him. It ruined his day and it ruined our day.”

NASCAR officials ordered Bowyer to pits and then to a meeting with officials. Can we say, “Hey Clint just sign the check!”

On the second restart, a green-white-checkered, Busch blew out to a big lead and won by 1.2 seconds over Ryan Newman, driving the Phoenix Racing #1 Chevy. Jamie McMurray, diving the JR Motorsports #88 Chevy, was third and Reed Sorenson was fourth.

The series points leader,”Blazingly Bad” Brad Keselowski, has a very eventful afternoon. After blowing a front tire, spinning wildly on the front stretch, and keeping the car off both walls, brought his Penske Racing Ruby Tuesdays #22 Dodge home in 7th place this afternoon. With his 7th place finish today, Keselowski was able to maintain his series points lead.

All in all, ol Kylie showed the nationwide boys the fast way around the track!

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Saturday Night Is Alright For Fighting!

Leon — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:24:42 +0000

(photo courtesy NASCAR)

Ryan Newman fought past Jeff Gordon on a green/white/checkered restart to win Saturday night’s Subway Fresh Fit 600 Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway. Gordon said he spun his tires on the final restart.

It was Newman’s first victory since he won the Daytona 500 in 2008. It gave him his 14th Cup victory but first as a driver for Stewart-Haas Racing.

“It’s the most emotional victory I’ve had in my career just because took so long,” Newman said.

Kyle Busch, who led 113 laps and appeared to be headed to his second victory in two nights at PIR as he had a big lead when a caution came out with four laps to go, finished eighth. His undoing appeared to be a decision to take four tires during the final pit stop while most others took just two.

“It was a tough call,” Dave Rogers, Busch’s crew chief said. “Everyone watched the Nationwide race yesterday and we decided before the race that if we’re going to hit pit road late like that, then you should take four (tires). Two tires, the cars are just out of control and the drivers are doing all they can to hang onto them. You saw that out there, but unfortunately, enough took two that somebody benefited from it. It was a tough call.”

On Friday night in the Nationwide race, Kyle Busch dropped into the pits and took four tires in a late yellow flag restart and emerged as the victor. However that pit strategy didn’t repeat itself Saturday in the Sprint Cup race. Busch finished in 8th place after dominating the race in the late stages.

Saturday night Ryan Newman ended a long 77 race victory drought! It was his first for his new race team, Stewart-Haas Racing.

So gang, Elton John had it right years ago!

Saturday night is alright for fighting!

McMurray Wins Amp Energy 500!

Leon — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:15:21 +0000

(Photo By Todd Warshaw/Getty Images)

As this reported crept onto the property through the fog and the mud to find a parking spot at Talladega Superspeedway at 6:15 am Sunday in the rental car, it appeared that the race may be in jeopardy of postponement for lack of visibility! The actual visibility at that time was approximately 150 feet. The fog resulted from all the rain that fell in the area from Friday evening through Saturday afternoon, saturating the ground and providing all the humidity in the air.

What started out as a cold, muddy, soggy, and extremely foggy Sunday morning in Talladega, Alabama turned into a bright joyous celebration for the victorious Roush-Fenway #26 Irwin Tools Ford driven by Jamie McMurray. McMurray’s Ford ran up with the front runners all afternoon on the 2.66 mile high banked race track at Talladega.

However, the racing itself was single file and very boring for the first 160 laps. That was, in part, the doing of NASCAR President Mike Helton who issued one big directive to the race car drivers during the pre-race drivers meeting. Helton instructed the drivers not to bump-draft in the turns. The NASCAR officials would be scrutinizing the cars very closely, and there had better be spaces between the bumpers in the turns! There would be penalties handed out if the drivers disobeyed that directive!

With that very strict edict from the “grand pooba” of NASCAR, the racing, or lack thereof, was actually a “follow the leader” type race for 178 laps. That mundane, follow the leader, single file racing came to a screaming halt when the first “Big One” happened involving the Stewart-Haas Racing #39 Army Chevy driven by Ryan Newman who had a spectacular pirouetting flip on the back stretch, coming to a halt on his roof.

When the race was restarted, the drivers threw caution to the wind in trying to race for the win. Unfortunately, that forced another carnage filled wreck in the tri-oval. The HMS #5 Carquest Chevy driven by Mark Martin to got caught up in the melee and became airborne and flipped. Unlike Newman’s crash, Martin ended up coming to a rest on all four wheels!

Workingonmyredneck believes that Mike Helton’s edict did more harm than good for the race at Talladega. His stern warning to the drivers put them on notice more than was necessary. More importantly that warning took the raciness right out of the drivers hands, and therefore there was 180 laps of mostly follow the leader.

NASCAR sanctions automobile “racing” not single file driving! Let the drivers police themselves, but by all means let them RACE!! That is, after all, what we as fans pay big money to see!

What is your take on Mike Helton’s stern admonition? Did NASCAR go way too far in instilling fear of repercussions from NASCAR for bump drafting?

TILL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Where There Is Smoke….

Leon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:45:26 +0000

(photo by Tony Bush)

Kansas is the home of Dorothy, Todo, and the Wizard of Oz. But on Sunday Tony Stewart made himself right at home with his fourth victory of the 2009 season. After leading the points for the “regular season”, and kind of sputtering in the final 4 races before the Chase started, it now seems that the SHR #14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevy has gotten itself back on track.

Even though Stewart wasn’t the dominate car Sunday, he and his pit crew rose to the occasion in the final pit stop of the race. On that final pit stop, his crew was able to get him off pit road quickly enough to assume the lead for, what was to be, the last restart of the race. That, my friends was all “Smoke” need to hold off the charge of Jeff Gordon and the rest of the top five finishers.

With the culmination of the Kansas race there were four teams that have watched their chances of winning the championship go up “in smoke”! The #83 Red Bull Racing Toyota of Brian Vickers is now 250 points behind the leader, Mark Martin, and their chances have all but evaporated for winning the championship in 2009. The Richard Petty Motorsports #9 Budweiser Dodge, likewise, is 190 points behind the leader and stands an extremely slim chance of catching Mark Martin. Additionally, the Roush-Fenway Racing #99 Aflac Ford is 165 points behind the leader and has a slim to no chance at all of charging to the front of the pack. Lastly, the Kansas race has dashed the hopes of the SHR #39 Army Chevy driven by Ryan Newman of winning the championship in 2009.

Could this be the year that an owner/driver wins the championship? It has been since 1992 when Alan Kulwicki pulled off that fete.

But where there is “SMOKE” there could be fire!! SSSSSSSSSS!

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!