Team: No. 6 Wyndham Rewards Ford Mustang
Crew Chief: Scott Graves
Twitter: @Roush6Team, @RoushFenway and @RyanJNewman
Ford EcoBoost 400 – Sunday, Nov. 17 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, SiriusXM Channel 90
Newman at Homestead-Miami Speedway
· Newman will make his 18th career Cup start at Homestead on Sunday. In 17 prior events, he has an average finish of 16th with six top-10 results.
· Two of those were top-five finishes – a third-place result in 2012 and a runner-up finish in the 2014 season finale. Newman finished sixth in his first-ever Cup race at Homestead back in 2002 and has finished seventh twice (2005, 2010).
· The 2003 NASCAR Driver of the Year has an average starting position of 12.1 at the 1.5-mile track with eight top-10 starting spots in 17 races. Despite not earning a pole yet at HMS, Newman has started fourth or better on six occasions including two outside pole positions (2005, 2007).
· Newman qualified eighth for this race a year ago, and has an average starting position of ninth in the past four events.
· Newman does have a win in the Xfinity Series at Homestead, which came back in 2005 after winning from the pole. Overall he finished 11th or better in his four career NXS starts at the 1.5-mile facility.
Scott Graves at Homestead-Miami Speedway
· Graves will call his fourth MENCS race at Homestead this weekend. In three prior events he has a best finish of 22nd with Ricky Stenhouse Jr., in 2013.
· Homestead is the site of one of Graves’ eight wins in the Xfinity Series. He led Daniel Suarez to a victory in the 2016 season finale after earning the pole and leading 133 laps. He also finished fifth (2014) and 11th (2015) with Chris Buescher prior to that.
QUOTE WORTHY
Newman on racing at Homestead:
“Heading into the last weekend of the year I’m certainly pleased with how we’ve done collectively on the 6 team. As expected, we had some growing pains early on, but I think we surprised a lot of people as the season progressed with our results. With that said we know we have more potential in us, and we’re looking forward to ending on a high note this weekend in Homestead to build some momentum entering the offseason.”
Recapping Phoenix
After running just a couple spots outside the top-10 in Sunday’s race at Phoenix, Newman was caught speeding on pit road under green-flag conditions, which resulted in an 18th-place finish.
