FanHouse Ryan Newman

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- If pressed to find one thing Ryan Newman would change about his season, of course, he'd like to score a win in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup season finale at Homestead Miami Speedway.

After being close to victory circle a half-dozen times this season, that's about the only thing he feels is missing from a stellar debut season with the essentially start-up Stewart-Haas Racing team. Newman won two pole positions in the No. 39 U.S. Army-sponsored Chevrolet and, after an ominous start at the season-opening Daytona 500, still qualified for the 12-driver Chase for the Championship.

In our last installment of Inside the Chase for the Championship with Ryan Newman, FanHouse looks at the evolution of the season and how Newman evaluates his fresh start.

For two mornings this week, Ryan Newman struggled just to lift his head off the pillow to get out of bed, his neck muscles still sore from a frightening airborne smash-and-roll wreck at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway last Sunday.

Even as he suited up Friday to practice for Race 8 of NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the Championship at Texas Motor Speedway, he was still aching from the crash, and bristling that it even happened.

Newman had been outspoken about NASCAR's immediate need to keep the race cars from launching into the air during accidents -- only to take that scary ride himself Sunday afternoon.

Notes, quotes & commentary from a NASCAR weekend at Talladega.

What a weekend it was, huh? Yes, I do have some comments and ideas about the overall product at Talladega this week. I'm going to wait, though, until the end of this post. First, the finer notes on Sunday.

Can anyone make sense of NASCAR's pit road penalties? Had Sunday's race been at another track where track position isn't so easily gained like it is at Talladega, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart and eventual race winner Jamie McMurray would have been downright hosed.

And good or bad as it relates to your particular driver, the rule that nabbed them just isn't fair.

Before Ryan Newman's horrific Talladega flip-roll-smash-and-slide on Sunday, there was Carl Edwards' car somersaulting into the front stretch fencing.

The late Dale Earnhardt had one of his most frightening accidents at Talladega Superspeedway, barrel-rolling through the tri-oval. Before that it was Ricky Craven and Bill Elliott on E-ticket rides. In 1993, driver Jimmy Horton's car flipped over the Turn 1 wall and landed outside the track.

Rusty Wallace's Talladega crash footage -- pick a year -- used to be standard play before any NASCAR restrictor plate race.

The point is -- while there is a justifiable outcry at the scary accident involving Newman this weekend -- spectacular, highlight-reel wrecks here aren't news. They are old news.

Ryan Newman left Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday obviously sore and presumably irritated after flipping violently in a late-race crash near the end of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' AMP Energy 500.

Newman, who was uninjured, was trapped in the car for almost 15 minutes as safety crews cut him out from exactly the type of wreck he had warned NASCAR against after an amazing crash involving him and Carl Edwards at the same track in April. And after being checked out of the infield hospital, Newman didn't hesitate to get on NASCAR again.

"Drivers used to be about to race each other and respect each other," said Newman. "Guys like Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison -- all those guys have always done that. I guess they [NASCAR] just don't think much of us [drivers] anymore."

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Depending on your perspective, Ryan Newman either had the best seat in the house or the worst during NASCAR's last visit to the mighty and unpredictable Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

Carl Edwards, Sprint Cup rookie Brad Keselowski and Newman were 100 yards in front of the checkered flag, set to decide the winner amongst themselves, when Keselowski and Edwards collided directly in front of Newman. Edwards' Ford went airborne, bounced off the hood and windshield of Newman's Chevy, then flew into the fencing along the front stretch grandstands in a horrific-looking accident that led the country's sports highlight reels.

If you haven't seen the video, you will. It'll be played over and over and over all weekend as the Sprint Cup Series makes its Chase for the Championship visit to Talladega this week.

Where: Martinsville Speedway
Time: Sunday 1:30 p.m. EST
TV/Radio: ABC, MRN Radio
Twitter: Updates @ FanHouseRacing
Forecast: Mostly sunny, High 60s
Distance: 500 laps (263 miles)
Pole Winner: Ryan Newman
2008 Winner: Jimmie Johnson

In this week's edition of Inside the Chase, FanHouse's Holly Cain visits with Ryan Newman, the driver of the U.S. Army-sponsored No. 39 Chevrolet, to talk Talladega safety improvements, a rough qualifying lap at California Speedway, reading to school kids, a vacation to Jackson Hole and the benefits of earning his college degree.

Ryan Newman is currently ranked ninth among the 12 drivers vying for the Sprint Cup title as the series stops at Auto Club Speedway of Southern California for the fourth of the 10-race Chase for the Championship.

Newman was a vocal proponent of having NASCAR make safety modifications in light of a horrific airborne crash at the spring Talladega 500-miler. In the midst of a multi-car accident at the front of the field, Newman's car launched Carl Edwards' car into the front stretch catchfence. Debris injured seven people in the grandstands.

As NASCAR's Chase for the Championship enters week 3 of its 10-week playoff run, FanHouse delivers its third installment of Inside the Chase with Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet.

Newman sits seventh in the championship -- 110 points behind leader Mark Martin -- as the Sprint Cup Series visits the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway for Sunday's Kansas 400. Newman won this race in 2003 and has three top-5 finishes in eight starts.

Sponsorship obligations, press tours, cross-country travel, high speeds and risky maneuvers -- those are just the requirements of Ryan Newman's day job.