Saturday’s (April 13) 2019 Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway was a solid one for Ryan Newman. Nothing exceptional, nothing deplorable. Just solid all around, a 24th-place start turned into a ninth-place result that leaves him solidly inside the top 16 in the point standings heading to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Easter break.
“Our Roush Performance Ford Mustang was good,” Newman said. “We needed some track position to start and I think we could have done something with it. We had good lap times at points but just battled track positioning.”
The result is Newman’s second straight top 10 this season and 17th top 10 in his career at Richmond. It’s also the first back-to-back top-10 finishes for the No. 6 car since Matt Kenseth ended his career with them at Phoenix Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway last November.
“We got boxed in the pits there on the first stop, but the guys did a good job on pit stops and we fought back hard,” he said. “Think we might’ve had just a little better car than that at times, but that’s about what we ran most of the day lap-time wise. A good finish, especially from where we started and we’ll keep working on it.”
That's the 19th top-10 finish @RichmondRaceway for @roushfenway's @RyanJNewman and his third in the past five races at the track. Cheers — enjoy that ice-cold Coke (and the off weekend)! #ShareaCoke pic.twitter.com/8jw5nPMrGd
— Coca-Cola Racing (@CocaColaRacing) April 14, 2019
Heading into the off weekend with back-to-back top-10 results also gives the driver of the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford some momentum. He’s solidly in postseason contention with a team that went through a driver change and 34-race drought without a top-10 finish a year ago.
“I wouldn’t say a lot (of confidence), but some for sure,” he said of his 2019 program. “More than I had last year. It’s definitely a step in the right direction. It’s a good run for them, they typically don’t run that well at Richmond. When I say they, I mean us. We’ll build off of that.”
FULL RICHMOND RACE RECAP & RESULTS
RICHMOND RACE WEEKEND CENTRAL: POINT STANDINGS XFINITY & CUP
About the author
Davey is in his fifth season with Frontstretch and currently serves as a multimedia editor and reporter. He authors the "NASCAR Mailbox" column, spearheads the site's video content and hosts the Frontstretch Podcast weekly. He's covered the K&N Pro Series and ARCA extensively for NASCAR.com and currently serves as an associate producer for SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and production assistant for NBC Sports Washington. Follow him on Twitter @DaveyCenter.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.
I love watching the entitled ones try to pass Newman. Actually I love to watch any driver try to pass him. But especially the entitled ones and imagining their radio complaints.
“Why does he race me so hard?”