Ryan Newman is out of the top 35 drivers but should rebound at Las Vegas

Stewart-Haas driver Ryan Newman had a good car for the Daytona 500.  Newman had a good car at Auto Club Speedway.  But, after these two races with two good cars, he finds himself in 36th place in the NASCAR standings and faces a long road back to get himself into the top 12.

What happened to Newman can just be catagorized as rotten luck.  At the Daytona 500, Newman was biding his time in the back and waiting to make his move toward the front when he was clipped by Elliott Sadler and his day was over.

Newman was in a great position in the Auto Club 500 at Fontana Sunday when he was running 2nd on a restart at lap 146. He spun the tires on the restart, on the next lap the engine blew and Newman was out of the race. Newman said the tire spinning had nothing to do with the engine but he finished 36th and dropped to 36th in the points standings.

"We just lost an engine," Newman said. "We had a really good car with the Haas Automation Chevrolet, but it just grenaded, basically. I couldn't tell you what happened, but it was big and there was smoke and that was the end of our day."

Look for Newman to have another good car at Las Vegas Sunday and start to work his way up the standings. 

Ryan Newman

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