Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Zoom Media Availability | Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 6 Kohler Generators Ford Mustang in the NASCAR Cup Series, participated in a NASCAR Zoom call from Martinsville Speedway earlier this afternoon.
RYAN NEWMAN, No. 6 Kohler Generators Ford Mustang — YOU ARE TESTING A MODIFIED AT MARTINSVILLE TODAY. HOW IS IT GOING? “It felt pretty good. We had a little bit of an engine problem in the first run this morning and got it adjusted and fixed, and then been working on the car and just getting some laps, some knowledge and practice of things that we haven’t done. I’ve never run a modified at Martinsville, obviously, but secondly it’s been so long since I’ve practiced anything, just getting back in the routine of things there.”
WHAT MAKES MODIFIED RACING AT MARTINSVILLE SPECIAL FOR YOU AND HOW EXCITED ARE YOU FOR THE APRIL SHOW? “If you look at the big picture of it, the modified is just an amazing race car. If you as an engineer had to draw up a car to design to make it go fast, turn left and accelerate, you’d draw a Whelan modified, so that’s the one part of it. So whenever I can fit it into my schedule and it makes sense geographically and time-wise, obviously, I do it. This year, I plan on doing the Martinsville race, which obviously I’ve got a ton of laps at Martinsville, it’s close to home and it’s Cup weekend, and then plan on doing the Richmond race when we can and the Loudon race that weekend, so just trying to fit things in when it makes sense. Gary Putnam and Bono Manion have put together a great modified as they usually do and it’s just fun racing against these guys. They do it for a living. We’re all hobby racing, but they do it for a living. They’re the best and it’s fun to come out and race against them.”
WHAT CAN YOU TAKE FROM THE MODIFIED TO ANY OTHER FORM OF RACING? “I’m definitely not here to learn things that are gonna apply to my Cup car or Cup team, but I am here because it’s a way to stay sharp. It’s just more laps, more experience. We’re here focusing on the Whelan modified, no doubt, but it’s like anything else, the guy that flies an F-16 can go back and fly a Piper Cub real easy, at least that’s the way I take it, so driving something that goes fast or turns better and has more acceleration just makes you better when you get to those bigger, slower stock cars.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY SORT OF ADVANTAGE AS A PROFESSIONAL STOCK CAR DRIVER RACING THE MODIFIEDS? “No, I think everybody that races when they come here has a good shot. I mean, obviously, guys with more experience, whether it’s in the car or at the racetrack, have a small advantage, but, realistically, anybody that shows up, in my opinion, has a shot. It’s such tight racing here at Martinsville that you can be caught up in somebody else’s mess real easy, and have the best car, the best practice, feel like you’re gonna win the race and lap the field and never get that chance. We’ve seen that at Martinsville and places like Bristol. So, just here to have fun and get some laps and experience.”
BRAD MEANS IS GOING TO FIELD A TRUCK FOR YOU AT BRISTOL. WHAT IS THE LURE OF RUNNING THE TRUCK RACE NEXT WEEK AT BRISTOL AND WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO LEARN? “I definitely want to learn for the Cup race on the Cup weekend, no doubt, but we wouldn’t go there without the mindset of winning and focusing on that. I’m really proud to announce that Coca-Cola and Aggressive Hydraulics, both been long-term sponsors of mine, are on board the truck. It is a Ford. The number is 39, so it’s kind of a retro throwback for me personally. It’s his first go-round in ownership and the dirt race at Bristol has a lot of opportunity, at least in my eyes and obviously his to have some experience and start what potentially could be something bigger for him. I have met Brad several years ago when he worked at RCR and kept in contact and our goals aligned and we have the opportunity with Aggressive Hydraulics and Coke to go out there and get some laps and have fun and the end goal is no different than any other weekend. It’s to win.”
WILL HE BE ABLE TO USE HIS DAD’S CREW FROM THE XFINITY TEAM OR IS IT JUST A GROUP OF GUYS HE’S BROUGHT TOGETHER? “Yeah, I would say the latter, mostly because there’s no necessity of a pit crew. There will be a group of guys, I’m sure, that meet the criteria for a team, but I’m sure they’re just a group of guys that he’s put together and I think in the grand scheme of things it’s no different than what we’re doing here for the modified race. It’s a group of guys that have experience in either a garage, a Cup garage, XFINITY garage or a Truck garage and you trust those people and you work hard together. That’s how you build something and I know Brad is working on building something.”
WILL THE BRISTOL DIRT RACE BE A RACE OF THROTTLE CONTROL? DANIEL SUAREZ THE OTHER DAY SAID IT COULD BE LIKE RACING IN THE RAIN AND WHERE DRIVERS WISHED THEY HAD LESS HORSEPOWER. “I think it’s gonna be a situation where there will be times the track has a lot of grip and there will be times where it slicks off, and there’s a chance that it might rubber up. I’ve seen that in the past at the truck race at Eldora, so not knowing what the track prep is gonna be like, how the track is gonna take rubber, our conditions for sunlight and stuff like that that contribute to it taking rubber on Sunday are all factors. I don’t think there’s any divine knowledge of what it’s gonna be like, but I can guarantee you one thing, it’s go through some significant transitions compared to what we’re normally experiencing on pavement.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT QUALIFYING AT ATLANTA BACK WHEN YOU WERE WITH PENSKE AND RACKING UP ALL THOSE POLES? “That was me feeling in Buddy Baker’s seat. I’m tied with Buddy Baker at Atlanta for most poles and I’ve been close. I don’t know if I get the tiebreaker on seconds and it doesn’t really matter to me, but the reality is those were some great times and if it wasn’t for Buddy Baker and obviously a great car and great crew and team, I wouldn’t have had that success and experience. I attribute most of it to the things that Buddy Baker taught me in a rental car driving around the racetrack.”
ANY CONVERSATIONS WITH ROUSH FENWAY ABOUT NEXT YEAR AND YOU RETURNING? “No conversations yet, and I really don’t want there to be any conversations yet until we get some performance on the racetrack. Otherwise, we’re just having conversation. The reality is I want to perform, they want to perform. The better performance we have together, the more it makes sense to carry on and I would say that no matter what team or organization in reference to continuing a responsibility of your job, I guess you could call it.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE TO DRIVE A MODIFIED AT MARTINSVILLE? “My quickest lap time this morning in our session was an 18.80, so I guess that’s three-quarters of a second quicker — at least a half-second quicker than the Cup pole, and we’re not even in qualifying trim with a modified. And that was basically our third run on the racetrack on tires, so my point is it’s faster. Every aspect of a Whelen modified makes it go faster and the end result is it doesn’t necessarily go faster at the end of the straightaway, it goes faster in lap time and that’s what matters, but it’s a lower center of gravity, offset to the left, bigger, fatter, wider tires that have more gumminess to them, I guess you could say, and that makes it a whole lot of fun to hustle the car around, and the tires fall off a little bit more, at least I think that they will because of they’re gumminess and we won’t see that until we get a whole bunch of cars out on the racetrack in race conditions.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE START TO THE CUP SEASON WITH FIVE DIFFERENT WINNERS AND ALL THE THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED? “I don’t know that you could say it’s what you expected or what you didn’t expect. In the grand scheme of things that’s why we come and do what we do when there’s 36 to 40 cars on the racetrack, whatever that number is on a given week. The parity that we have with all the cars it’s not out of the question to have some first-time winners and whatever the number is in however many races. We want to be that guy. I mean, everybody does, but I don’t think it’s anything really atypical. Maybe different from last year? Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s different from the way it’s been ever, so it’s just racing and it’ll continue to be. We might not see another winner for the next five races. It could repeat winners from here on out for five races, you just never know. We’ll see.”
YOU BECAME THE FIRST CARBON NEUTRAL TEAM IN NASCAR AND NOW LEBRON JAMES HAS BEEN ADDED AS A PARTNER FOR FENWAY SPORTS GROUP. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT AND WOULD YOU WELCOME HIS PRESENCE AT MORE NASCAR RACES IN THE FUTURE? “I just read about it myself yesterday. I had no clue of what was happening or why it was happening or how it affects our team on the Roush Fenway Cup side, but obviously from a global perspective it does have an influence, so, yes, as a teammate we want to include and be a part of everybody that’s invested in our program. That’s on the racetrack and off the racetrack. I’m not sure what advice he would have because I don’t know what advice I would have about dunking a basketball or shooting a free throw, but in the grand scheme of things we’re somehow related in business and that’s new to me, I’m sure it’s new to him. We haven’t had any kind of conversation, so I don’t know what would be the next step.”
ALMIROLA SAID YESTERDAY THAT A BAD WEEK AFFECTS THE FOLLOWING RACE BECAUSE YOU START IN THE BACK AND GET A BAD PIT SELECTION. DO YOU FEEL THAT WAY? “Yeah, there’s no doubt the qualifying procedure, in other words, the starting procedure is a big hindrance if you have a bad last week or are mired back after a couple bad races in points. That system, it is what it is and everybody’s got an opportunity, but I’d much rather personally prefer if it was a random draw. You’ve got a random draw for a starting position because in the grand scheme of things that’s what I think it really should be, but, again, it is what it is. We haven’t done a good enough job. We need to continue to do a better job and move up. When we had a good finish at Homestead, we didn’t make the best of it the following week and that’s on us, so we’ve got to sharpen up our pencils with respect to making our cars better, so that we can capitalize on the starting procedure, but it is no fun when you have a bad weekend and you have to start in the back, depending especially on certain racetracks where it is a challenge more so to pass and you’re sometimes counting on your pit crew to pass more cars than what you’re able to do on the racetrack.”
IS IT HARDER TO GO OFF-SEQUENCE AT A PLACE LIKE ATLANTA NOW BECAUSE OTHER TEAMS WILL LIKELY FOLLOW WHAT YOU DO? “It’s still an option, but it’s not the option it used to be, mostly because of the stage racing and the way that it’s broke up and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out when your tires are falling off three or four seconds over a run that you’re gonna split it up and it’s monkey-see, monkey-do at times. When the first guy comes in, the next guy is ready, everybody is ready when you’re three or four seconds slower compared to how you fired off to put new tires on. There’s different aspects of it. Because of the stage racing we see many fewer opportunities to have a fuel mileage race. That’s good and bad, in my opinion. It leads to some drama and some different strategy situations, but, again, it is what it is. The decisions have been made to be the program that we take and the entertainment package that we take to the racetrack and we’ve got to make the best of it as a team.”
FIVE DIFFERENT WINNERS IN FIVE RACES. DO YOU SEE THAT TREND CONTINUING THE REST OF THE SEASON? “I hope so. I definitely want to be one of those guys up until the point that we win and I don’t want anybody else to win, but that’s not my decision. That’s just what sounds good to me and I think, from what I’ve seen, the guys that have won have deserved to win. Nobody has had one land in their lap. I don’t think that it was expected based off of the season we had last year with if you want to call it the Kevin Harvick-Denny Hamlin Show of a big number of race winners, but that was last year and this is this year, and who knows what next year is gonna be like. Just keep watching.”
WHERE DO YOU FEEL RFR NEEDS TO IMPROVE? “I feel like we’ve made some pretty big gains for us on the 550 package. I think our 750 package needs a lot of work, based off of what I experienced in Phoenix and then a little bit of a combination of the road courses, so what I was fighting with my race car in Phoenix is very similar to what I was fighting with it at the road course in Daytona, as well as some races last year. I think that is one of the things, especially based off of our schedule with the number of road courses and the number of 750 low downforce package races that we have that we need to put a lot of emphasis on that.”
