Team: No. 6 Guaranteed Rate Ford Mustang
Crew Chief: Scott Graves
Twitter: @Roush6Team, @RoushFenway and @RyanJNewman
Race Format: 500 miles, 188 laps, Stage Lengths: 60-60-68
YellaWood 500 – Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, SiriusXM Channel 90
ADVANCE NOTES
Sweet Home Alabama, Talladega On Deck
· The final Superspeedway race of the 2020 season is on tap for this weekend, as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Talladega for a Sunday afternoon event. It marks the second race in the Round of 12, with the ROVAL at Charlotte Motor Speedway next weekend as the cutoff race.
· The starting lineup will continue to be set by three competition-based metrics, rewarding both season-long and single-race performance. Sunday’s lineup will be announced later this week prior to the action-packed racing on Sunday.
· Four weeks of NASCAR action were completed prior to the COVID-19 hiatus with races at Atlanta, Homestead, Texas, Bristol, Richmond, Talladega, Dover and Martinsville postponed before the schedule later picked back up in mid-May.
Newman Historically at Talladega
· Newman makes his 38th Cup start at Talladega on Sunday, where he has 15 top-10 finishes and seven top fives, with an average finish of 18.9.
· Newman was .007 seconds away from winning this race last fall, in the sixth-closest finish in NASCAR history. The runner-up result marked his second in the last three years, and fourth top-10 in the previous six races at the 2.66-mile Superspeedway.
· Dating back to the spring event from Alabama, Newman finished 24th after fuel mileage came into play late.
· Newman has one Xfinity Series start at Talladega, where he qualified on the pole and finished second in 2009.
Scott Graves Historically at Talladega
· In just eight Cup starts atop the box at Talladega, Graves has an impressive 11.6 average finish. Outside of the spring result of 24th with Newman, Graves has just one other run outside the top-15, with four top-10s and two top-five finishes.
· Graves led Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to a third-place run in the fall of 2013, and led Daniel Suarez to a 10th-place finish in 2018.
· Graves also called three Xfinity Series races at Talladega, all of which were top-10s. He led Buescher to a runner-up result in 2014 and followed that with a sixth-place finish a year later, before finishing seventh with Suarez in 2016.
QUOTE WORTHY
Newman on racing at Talladega:
“Any time we show up to Talladega and a Superspeedway race, we feel confident with the program Jimmy Fennig and his crew work hard on. We were as close as we could have been last fall in winning this race, and we have been strong on these tracks again this year. With a lot of scenarios playing out with the Playoffs, we have nothing to lose, and are looking forward to putting on the best show we can in the Guaranteed Rate Ford.”
Last Time Out
Newman worked his way well inside the top-10 late in Sunday’s race from Vegas after a series of late-race cautions, before being shuffled back on the final restart to finish 15th.
Where They Rank
Newman is 26th in driver points after 27 points races in his 2020 campaign. In owners’ points, the No. 6 is 25th.
On the Car
Guaranteed Rate returns to Newman’s Ford this weekend in Talladega, as part of the overall 12-race schedule for the brand to close out the 2020 slate.
Driven for a Cause
Throughout the month of October, Roush Fenway Racing will show its support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month by running special pink numbers on its Ford Mustangs. In addition, Roush Fenway Fords will sport pink ‘Driven for a Cause’ ribbon decals on its Ford Mustangs.
About Guaranteed Rate
Guaranteed Rate is one of the largest retail mortgage lenders in the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, the Company has more than 5,000 employees in nearly 350 offices across the U.S., and is licensed in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Since its founding in 2000, Guaranteed Rate has helped hundreds of thousands of homeowners with home purchase loans and refinances and funded more than $30 billion in loans in 2019 alone. The Company has cemented itself as Positively Different by introducing innovative technology, such as the world’s first Digital Mortgage, by offering low rates and by delivering unparalleled customer service. Honors and awards include: Top Lender for Online Service for 2018 by U.S. News & World Report; No. 3 ranking in Scotsman Guide’s Top Retail Mortgage Lenders 2019; Top Lender 2016, 2017 and 2018 by Chicago Agent magazine; Chicago Tribune’s Top Workplaces list for seven consecutive years; and Best Online Mortgage Lender, Best Mortgage Lender for VA loans and Best Conventional Mortgage Lender by NerdWallet in 2019. Visit rate.com for more information.
