Top 35 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers: No. 9 - Ryan Newman
Stewart-Haas Racing driver Ryan Newman finished ninth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points standings. // Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Scene
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Many skeptics figured Ryan Newman was taking a big chance when he left Penske Racing for upstart Stewart-Haas Racing for the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season.
But Newman and Stewart-Haas proved it was a good move, as the 32-year-old driver improved on his last year with Penske and finished ninth in the Chase For The Sprint Cup.
Newman joined team co-owner Tony Stewart as drivers for the former Haas CNC Racing team as Stewart began an upheaval of the organization. Newman didn’t win any races, unlike Stewart, but both made the Chase.
Newman, a 32-year-old native of South Bend, Ind., earned $5,010,307 in purses.
During the offseason, SceneDaily is taking a look at the top 35 in 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup driver points. Here’s how Ryan Newman’s season unfolded:
By the numbers: In 2008, Newman’s final year with Penske, he won once – the Daytona 500 – and had two top-five and eight top-10 finishes. But in ’09, Newman had five top-five and 15 top-10s to make the Chase for the first time since 2005.
Season highlights: After a slow start through the first four races, Newman’s No, 39 Chevrolet team got on a roll. In the next 10 events, Newman didn’t finish lower than 16th and had five top-five finishes as he moved from 27th to sixth in the point standings.
Key setbacks: Newman would like to forget about the first four and last four races of the season. In the first four, he ended up 22nd or worse each time, and in the final four, he was 12th or worse each time.
Newsworthy moment: Newman hadn’t finished higher than 13th in the season standings in the three years before 2009. And he was joining the former Haas CNC team, which hadn’t done much in its existence. But Newman and crew chief Tony Gibson clicked, quietly turning in a solid season that ended with a Chase appearance.
In his words: "Making the Chase was a dream come true. To think back to Daytona where we basically went through three race cars and to climb all the way back after 26 races to make the Chase – it says a lot about the hard work that everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing has put into this effort. We really didn't know what to expect coming into this season. People asked about our expectations and our goals – and we had some goals – but we didn't know what the expectations would be. And people said it looked like a risk to leave Penske Racing, but to me, Stewart-Haas Racing looked like an opportunity. Yeah, there was risk associated with it, but it was an opportunity. We achieved a lot, but we're not totally satisfied either, and that's because we're not sitting at the head table in Las Vegas this year. Still, we've done a lot of great things as an organization.”
