1on1: Ryan Newman

After winning the 50th running of the Daytona 500, Ryan Newman has quietly put together a solid season. He backed up his win with a 10th at California and two 14th-place finishes at Las Vegas and Atlanta.

Currently eighth in points, Newman talks about the tire issues in the sport, having Easter weekend off and what it's like having Dad as a member of the team.

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Fans have drivers they can admire and look up to, and their needs to be a female to fill that role as well. Raygan Swan says the search is over -- that female is Krissie Newman.

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Q: Amid all the talk about tires, you recently ran a tire test at newly repaved Darlington Raceway, how did that go?

Newman: I thought was fairly good. We came to some decent conclusions in the essence that we're going to go back one more time and do a final tire test with a different tire and try to hit a middle road with the two options that they had. One felt really good and wasn't going to last and the other one didn't feel so good and was going to last too good.

We'll work with Goodyear and the three teams that were there and go back to do another tire test -- a short abbreviated test -- where we can prove that the tires will be ideal for the track.

The track is great -- I like the old track better. But the track is great. They did an excellent job replicating what was there when they repaved it. It's super smooth -- the transitions are the same -- it's got a ton of grip. It's really fast. We ran a 28.12 on the 'controlled tire' and that I think is three seconds faster than the old race pace in race trim -- so it's super fast. The track drives the same -- other than the fact that you don't slip the tire.

Q: After running the tire test at Darlington, did you get a feel for how the race will be?

Newman: The abrasiveness and the bumpiness is gone. We're wearing out tires -- don't get me wrong. It's so sticky and I literally never slipped the rear tire when I was there, and I didn't want to. You take a track like that when it's a repave -- if you slip a rear tire, it's like an Indy car spinning, it's gone around and there's no saving it. We were conscious of that going into the test.

Racing wise, I've always said Darlington is not the perfect racetrack. To me, it's my favorite racetrack to drive, but racing wise, going three and four wide, you're not going to see it at Darlington, so it's going to be difficult. It's going to have its own set of difficulty as far as passing and working in traffic and things like that.

It's going to be a very important track position race in the essence that if you're out front, it's going to be easier to stay out front because it's difficult to pass there. It's always been a give-and-take track when it comes to passing. We'll have to adjust our speed and how the cars handle there with this new pavement for sure.

Q: Are you satisfied with just one tire manufacturer in the sport?

Newman: I think [NASCAR] only needs one -- that's my final answer. Would it be OK to have two? Yes. Do we only need one? Yes. I think that Goodyear has done a good job. There are times they could have done a better job [and] we've made them aware of it. And there's times where they've done a good job and haven't gotten the credit they deserved. It's OK the way it is. (Continued)