09/02/2020
Ryan Newman – Darlington Advance
Cook Out Southern 500 – Sunday, Sept. 6 at 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM Channel 90
ADVANCE NOTES
NASCAR Playoffs, Throwback on Tap This Weekend at Darlington
- The ‘Official Throwback Weekend of NASCAR’ and the start of the 2020 NASCAR Playoffs are on deck this weekend at Darlington Raceway, where the Cup Series will run 500 miles Sunday night.
- NASCAR’s award-winning throwback weekend will celebrate “NASCAR’s Champions…Past, Present and Future” for its throwback campaign.
- NASCAR will continue to use three competition-based performance metrics to determine the starting lineup and pit selection order for each race, replacing the random draw procedure.
- NASCAR will reward both season-long and single-race performance to determine the lineup and pit selection, using owner points position, the finish and fastest lap from the most recently completed race. Beginning this weekend, playoff cars will fill the top starting positions starting from the Round of 16, all the way through to the Championship 4.
- Four weeks of NASCAR action were initially completed prior to the COVID-19 hiatus with races at Atlanta, Homestead, Texas, Bristol, Richmond, Talladega, Dover and Martinsville postponed before the schedule later picked back up in mid-May.
Newman Historically at Darlington
- Newman will make his 24th Cup start at Darlington on Sunday. In 23 prior events, Newman has an average finish of 12.7 – his second-best track behind only Richmond – with 13 top-10s and seven top fives.
- Newman has finished top-10 or better in 57 percent of his outings at the 1.366-mile track, including a career-best runner-up finish in his first Southern 500 back in 2002. Newman has 339 laps led at ‘The Lady in Black.’
- Overall Newman has an average starting spot of 10.9, with 14 top-10 starts and one pole (2003 Southern 500). Most recently, Newman finished 15th in NASCAR’s Return to Racing at the track in May and followed that with a 14th-place run a few days later.
- Newman also made five starts in the Xfinity Series, earning the pole in each of the first two events in 2001. He went on to finish fourth in the 2001 fall race with an overall finish of 13.6 in the series at the famed track.
Scott Graves Historically at Darlington
- Graves will call his seventh Cup event at Darlington on Sunday. In six prior starts, he has a best finish of 14th – which came with Newman in May. He led Newman to a 15th-place finish three days prior, as part of the sport’s return to the track.
- In Xfinity Series action, Graves led Suarez to a third-place finish in 2016 after starting fifth. The prior year he and Chris Buescher paired up for a fifth-place result.
QUOTE WORTHY
Newman on racing at Darlington:
“Darlington Throwback weekend is always cool, and it’s especially cool for me this year because Oscar Mayer has given us the opportunity to throw it back to my Silver Crown Championship season in 1999, which seems like forever ago. It was a pretty special moment and year back in my resumé-building time to make it to the level, and I am thankful to be representing it again so many years later in the Cup Series. Darlington is one of my favorite tracks, and we’ve been close recently in dialing in our car down there, so we’re looking forward to unloading even better this weekend in the Oscar Mayer Ford.”
Last Time Out
Newman was caught up in a multi-car incident Saturday night in Daytona, finishing 36th in the Guaranteed Rate Ford Mustang.
Where They Rank
Newman is 26th in driver points after 23 points races in his 2020 campaign. In owners’ points, the No. 6 is 26th.
On the Car
Oscar Mayer returns to Newman’s Ford for the brand’s last race of the 2020 slate. Now in its third year as a partner with RFR, Oscar Mayer gave Newman the opportunity to throwback to a ride of his own, celebrating his 1999 USAC Silver Crown National Championship.
The No. 6 this weekend will match that of his 1999 machine, where he won twice and finished top-10 in 12 of 15 races. He became the first driver to win in all three major USAC divisions that season, and did it all while balancing studying vehicle-structure engineering at Purdue.
About the Kraft Heinz Company
For 150 years, we have produced some of the world’s most beloved products at The Kraft Heinz Company (Nasdaq: KHC). We are one of the largest global food and beverage companies, with 2019 net sales of approximately $25 billion. Our portfolio is a diverse mix of iconic and emerging brands. As the guardians of these brands and the creators of innovative new products, we are dedicated to the sustainable health of our people and our planet. To learn more, visit www.kraftheinzcompany.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
