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Lost a good chance
Beside the fact that we ran like crap, we blew a good chance to gain some needed points. We finished up around 23 or so and lost some more ground on the leaders. Not only that, but the fact that the 20 and 48 were not all that good. So if we could have stayed up front we could have gained some points. We struggled all day with the car being aero tight. I m no driver so I don't really know how that feels but you cant really fix aero tight. We cranked on the track bar and wedge all day and couldn't get it right. It reminded me of Kansas this year. Nothing we did was getting the car to where it needed to be. Oh well, it s all water under the bridge now. We are 107 points out and three races to go. We got to do some serious points catching up and were going to need some help along the way. This one is going to hurt for a while. I guess you got to let it go and move on to Texas.
October 31, 2005 in Race Day | Permalink
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Comments
Maybe next time you and the team work on providing Frankenstein with a car that doesn't win the pole but is race competitive.
Posted by: mike hunt | Oct 31, 2005 7:48:31 AM
Six straight poles at Atlanta. Only one top ten in 7 tries at Atlanta. A 23rd place finish was very predictable as is Newmans chances at winning the Cup, which are virtually nil.
The race is down to two, Stewart and Johnson with an outside shot for Edwards. But he would need at least one more win to do it.
Posted by: Marc | Oct 31, 2005 8:23:14 AM
Newman has a better chance of winning the title than M.Hunt does of getting laid, unless his dad puts out.
Posted by: joe | Oct 31, 2005 8:36:04 AM
Such an insightful comment Joe. And I would guess Mike's thoughts are far closer to reality than yours.
Newman has had 33 opportunities and only one win. At this point the ONLY chance he has is both a win and the top two having enough trouble in the next three events to cath up. Not very likely.
Posted by: Marc | Oct 31, 2005 9:24:44 AM
It's too bad that Ryan can't race well after getting on the pole. That one baffles me. Maybe you guys should concentrate more on race trim rather than qualifying. Just a thought, but that might help him run better. Ryan's a very good driver and will hopefully get a couple breaks before the end of the season. He's needs to go to that "luck well" that Kurt Busch used last year...LOL. Like you said Trent, gotta put it behind you and look forward to the next one. Good luck and Have a great week!
Posted by: Mandy24 | Oct 31, 2005 10:36:52 AM
LOL at Joe's comment. How true it is.
Mandy24, I think Newman's problem has been on the 1.5 and 2m tracks, they don't have the aero balance. They do fine on the smaller tracks. I still think it's the Dodge Charger. No Dodge driver has really been that competitive on the 1.5 and 2 milers.
Posted by: 19jay12 | Oct 31, 2005 10:48:38 AM
Joe, you got me with that clever and witty response. Did you injure yoursefl formulating it? I have no response to that barb.
Mock me all you want 19jay12, the fact remains that his results do not match how he qualifies. Maybe Frankenstein is overrated as a driver. How many wins does he have on his record without 2003?
He has 4 wins is 113 races without 2003. A whoping 3.5% of the time he wins. Granted this is better than the front row Joe's of the world, but not up there with the Stewarts, Jimmie Johnson and the Rusty Wallace's of the world.
Posted by: mike hunt | Oct 31, 2005 10:59:58 AM
Joe,
Mike Hunt has a pretty good point. Why is everybody making excuses for Newman and blaming his cars? His cars weren't that bad in 2003, were they? Didn't he win these races on fuel mileage since his team chose to use a smaller carbourator?
Maybe driver 12 is a qualifying master but not a good racer
Posted by: Chris Masters | Oct 31, 2005 11:11:58 AM
I agree with ya there Jay. It might be the new Dodge's don't have an answer for the 1.5-2 mile tracks. Someone should be working on that...Who was the highest finishing Dodge of the day anyways? Anyone know?
Posted by: Mandy24 | Oct 31, 2005 11:19:41 AM
Lets face it most of the 43 drivers in a race have the talent to win. Some just have better equipment than others. This is Newmans problem. While he does have good stuff, he doesnt have anything equal to Hendrix or Roush's stuff.
The Dodge from day one has been behind the other makes. I always have questioned the HP of Penske's engines but the shape of a Dodge just doesn't make it a consistent winner. Until they change that body style and get rid of that front end Newman will continue to run top 10's but he wont win. Newman is a good driver but I just dont believe he has the abilities of a Stewart, Gordon, Jr etc....but who does? They are the best in the sport and everyone else plays catch up to their abilities and their equipment.
The thing is do you or Nascar for that matter really want a Ryan Newman to win the cup? No one with a personality has won this thing in years. At least when a Gordon or a Busch wins people can get all in an uproar because they hate them. Tony Stewart was the last guy to win the cup that had star power.
Newman would just be some guy in a long list of drivers to win the cup that no one will even care about.
see Kenseth and Labonte.
Posted by: Joebob | Oct 31, 2005 11:27:46 AM
Mandy24-
If the dodge's aren't competitive on 1.5's and 2 mile tracks, why is driver 12 sitting on the pole all the time? Seems to me the it ain't all the car...
Posted by: Mike Hunt | Oct 31, 2005 11:28:19 AM
OK I got a couple of responses. First, sittting on the pole is not a bad thing. Just ask Rusty Wallace "who worked on a race car instead of a pole car" how well that worked out for him. He started 35 and was wrecked on lap 5 or so. Starting up front doesnt hurt you. Second, Ryan is in the top three active drivers for winning percentage in his career, so to say he cant win and just sit on poles is faulse. The charger his been bad all year on 1.5 mile tracks. Just looke at the stats to see where Dodge ranks. I dont make excuses for us finishing badly, but if you want to talk nubmers then we can talk. As far as the comment about take away Newmans 03 season and what has he done. You can say that about every driver. Take away Stewart and Kenseth's championship seasons and there no better than anyone esle.
Posted by: trent | Oct 31, 2005 11:37:19 AM
I think Newman's problem with falling back after qualifying has been a consistent one dating back to before the new charger body of this year. I don't know why it is Newman seems to be able to qualify so well, be it driver ability or car set up, but poles don't equal points.
However, it does seem that Dodge is lagging behind the competition with only 3 wins compared to Chevy's 16 and Ford's 14. Maybe it's the body or maybe it's the Horsepower, or maybe it's just that they are still relatively new to the game and haven't worked out all the bugs. All I know is, I sure wouldn't want to be driving a Dodge if I had the choice. I wonder if Kurt Busch thought about that.
Posted by: Michael | Oct 31, 2005 11:39:45 AM
Mike-
Because there's a big difference between winning a pole and winning a race. You can be competative and never win a pole but win dozens of races. And vice-versa.
Posted by: Mandy24 | Oct 31, 2005 11:44:20 AM
Cheer up Trent. The weekend was not a total disappointment b/c the South Carolina Gamecocks beat the Tennessee Viles...I mean Vols! :-)
ROLL TIDE!
Posted by: Mindy | Oct 31, 2005 11:44:34 AM
Trent,
That's a load of hooey. When Gordon was winning his championships in the late 90's Ford's were winning most of the races. Gordon's car was won the bulk of the races for chevy those years. Chevy cried that they had an inferior car to the Ford's. After that It was Pontiac complaining that their cars weren't as good as the chevy's and Ford's. Then the 18 had the nerve to win a championship to bust up that theory.
I still say Driver 12 is overrated
Posted by: mike hunt | Oct 31, 2005 11:45:23 AM
Stewart and Labonte both won their championships driving the 'inferior' Pontiac. In 2000, Stewart won the most races (6) and Bobby won the championship.
Posted by: NarcarFan | Oct 31, 2005 11:50:21 AM
Okay, time for some reality here.
First of all, Ryan Newman can wheel a car with the best of them. You don't win 5 Busch races in a row by being a bad driver. Please don't play the "lesser drivers in Busch cars" card here. He's outrun every other Chase driver that's competed in the Busch Series at the same time, including Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart.
The Dodge Charger cup car was designed with a longer spoiler that was used in 2004. Before the 2005 season, NASCAR made the rule to shorten the spoiler which threw off the entire balance of the Charger on the downforce tracks. The Charger runs good on two types of tracks - short tracks where downforce isn't an issue and Restrictor Plate tracks where NASCAR did not shorten the spoiler.
Supporting this idea is the success of Ryan's Busch Charger. It's got the same nose as the Cup Charger but has the longer spoiler it was designed to run with. Thus, Ryan has been able to dominate with the car on any type of track.
If NASCAR would give Dodge a break to allow them to be more competitive on the intermediate tracks, you'd see Ryan in victory lane more often.
Posted by: revs KZ550 | Oct 31, 2005 11:50:31 AM
I don't think Newman is overrated, but I would suggest to everybody reading this blog and look at the list of Ford drivers, comapre it to the list of Chevy durvers, then compare it to the list of Dodge drivers. Look at the drivers for each of the MFG's and compare things like win totals, top5's, top 10's, poles and championships.
No offense, but with a couple of exceptions (most noteably the 12 and the 2), the bulk of Dodge's stable of drivers have the talent of your average journeyman driver.
Posted by: Cliff Wahl | Oct 31, 2005 11:51:03 AM
Winning races isn't everything, especially with the Chae format. As long as Ryan can be consistent with Top 5's and Top 10's, I'm extremely pleased. I hope Ryan wins every weekend, but obviously that isn't gonna happen. Starting from the pole doesn't mean that you will win automatically, but everyone seems to apply that thinking to Ryan. When Gordon, Stewart, Johnson, or Biffle get the pole and finish 13th or so, no one says anything about it. Why is it that Ryan is expected to win the race every time he wins a pole? Winning the pole is more about starting up front and staying away from the Stanton Barrett's of the world than winning in my opinion.
Posted by: Shane | Oct 31, 2005 11:54:40 AM
And you don't make the Chase the first two years of its existence by being a bad driver. Newman's not overrated, no one ever said that he was the world's best race car driver. Besides, he's 4th in the points. How can you be overrated and be 4th in points?
Posted by: Shane | Oct 31, 2005 11:58:01 AM
Trent - I'm sure the whole team is disappointed with the finish yesterday, but you should all be proud of how you preformed. I don't have Trackpass, but from what I've heard other fans that do say, ya'll were spot on in the pits yesterday - mostly 12s with a multitude of changes thrown in there. Congrats on that and keep the momentum rollin'!
Now - for those complaining that all Ryan focuses on is winning poles. Ya'll heard what scanner reports Ryan had yesterday during the broadcast - the dirty air was killing the car. Sounds like the best position to be in for the Dodges this year to have the right handling is out front. I don't know what happened on the start yesterday, Ryan didn't lead the first lap - but how many times have we seen him start on the pole and take off. Not only does the pole position give Matt Borland first chance to pick their pit box, it also gives Ryan the clean air the car needs to handle, and keeps the 12 car away from most of the wrecks.
Posted by: Janelle | Oct 31, 2005 12:01:53 PM
that clean air worked very well yesterday didn't it Janelle. After lap 1 he was what, 5th?
Posted by: mike hunt | Oct 31, 2005 12:28:34 PM
The rule to shorten the spoiler threw the balance off on every car in the Nextel Cup series. Why do you think Hendrick and Roush won most of the races in the first half off the year? They have more teams to test with and they were able to figure out the balance of the cars before anyone else. All teams should be aware that NASCAR changes the rules all the time and there were also rumors going into the chase last year that they were going to shorten the spoiler again. To base your whole design off of one template and not being able to adapt to change is the fault of the Dodge teams, they all had a hand in it. NASCAR will not change the rules at this stage in the game because of the 'common template'. The car of tommorrow will make all the car makes more similar than ever.
The only way to fix the tight condition when you get the air off the right front is to make the cars more boxier so they are not so dependent on the aero package they have. It doesn't take an engineer to figure that out.
Posted by: Mike | Oct 31, 2005 12:59:29 PM
Why do you insist on discounting 2003. Let's review, he won Texas by being the faster car.
He dominated the 1st Dover race.
Chicagoland was fuel mileage
Pocono he led the most laps and was the best car all day.
Michigan was fuel mileage.
Richmond he was the fastest car
Dover was fuel mileage but he also he the fastest car.
Kansas was fuel mileage.
Maybe newmanhaters need to review the 03 season before trying to use that.
Posted by: 19jay12 | Oct 31, 2005 1:12:24 PM
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