SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Ryan Newman got the last word.
A week after a run-in with Daniel Suarez at Darlington Raceway left the duo sharing the hot seat on NASCAR’s playoff bubble, it was the Roush Fenway Racing driver moving on to compete for his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series title after an eighth-place run in Sunday’s Big Machine Vodka 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
MORE: Full race results | Who’s in, out
Newman was the 16th and final driver to advance to the 2019 running of NASCAR’s 10-race postseason stretch and — while it might be a tad bit sweeter knowing he’s in over his Stewart-Haas Racing rival — the veteran is focused on the gains his No. 6 team has accrued over its first 26 races together, and where they can take things from here.
“I guess if you look at our roster, there’s more new people on our team together for the first time than all the other teams put together and I’m proud that we’ve been able to take that and use our experience collectively,” Newman said on pit road following the race. “Not our experience together, but collectively, of our own knowledge from places and things that we’ve done and turned that into a playoff position. Now we’ve just got to do something with it. We were eighth today, and if we can do that three times we’ll be in good shape.
“We’re continuing to build (the 6 team) and today was another stepping stone. We’re focused on ourselves and we’ve got three races to prove that this is no spoof. We finished eighth today and I saw a lot of guys run out of talent, losing control of their car all by themselves. We’ve just got to take these cars to the best of our ability and roll on.”
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While Newman indicated the team has a ways to go before it reaches its full potential while also facing an uphill battle of finding the raw speed NASCAR’s elite group brings to the track each weekend, the list of drivers able to will themselves through the playoffs is a short one, but he’s certainly on it.
The 18-year Cup Series mainstay has a history of elevating his game once the calendar hits September — think 2014, when he finished second in the standings without a victory — and going into Full Ryan Newman Mode©.
“We didn’t have a fast enough car today to be able to be able to go up there and lead and we’ve got be able to do that for these next three races,” he said. “We’ve got some work to do. We’re still learning. This is the first time we’ve been here (as a group) and every race track we go to the rest of the reason with the exception of the Roval we’ve been to before so hopefully our experience will come to prove itself.”
And as far as experience goes, it’s something that has shown to be critically important in the history of this elimination format.
He summed that up quite frankly.
“I think they favor experience,” said Newman. “But to me it either favors experience or it favors a rookie who’s just clueless.”
Two things Newman isn’t — rookie, nor clueless.
Experienced.
