By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Ryan Newman was one of the guys who looked from the outside when he entered Richmond Raceway Saturday morning on the playoff grid.
Following a 10th-place finish last week in Las Vegas, the Roush Fenway Racing driver left Richmond with a fifth-place finish, good enough to push him over the 13th-place cutline and into ninth place.
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Newman now sits 13 points above the cutoff zone entering the elimination race at the Charlotte Roval next weekend. For Newman, it was a good night in Virginia.
“It was just a good team effort, good pit stops,” Newman said. “The strategy wasn’t a whole lot to it, just put four tires on, but had a good short-run car. One time we had a good long-run car, but we could never get both.”
Newman believes the lack of balance between short runs and long runs left him too far off from the Joe Gibbs Racing juggernaut.
“I think that if we would have had both we could have run with those guys,” he said. “But we were at our best probably when we were just hold good bias to a long-run car. Who would have known there were going to be that many green flag runs.”?
For the first time in exactly two years, Newman earned a top-five finish on a non-superspeedway track. It came at a good time.
“The best team performance all-around throughout the entire weekend,” he said. “We failed at qualifying. We got the car too tight, but, overall, just a great team effort to get the Roush Performance Ford.
“What meant to me the most probably was just being better than we were the first race. We ran ninth in the first race and qualified 30th or something like that and we came back and showed that we were learning, and we’ll keep learning.”
With much to fight for in one week’s time at the Charlotte Roval, Newman is going to take what he can.
“I don’t know that I’m looking forward to the Roval,” he said. “I don’t really know anybody that actually is, except for maybe [Martin] Truex Jr.”