September 22, 2019 | By Lee Spencer

Don't call Ryan Newman an overachiever, he's just doing his job

Ryan Newman was adamant on Friday that he isn't overachieving in the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford this season.

Yet once again on Saturday night at Richmond, the veteran driver delivered with his second top-five finish since joining the team. For comparison’s sake, the last time the No. 6 posted two top-five results in a season was 2017 with Trevor Bayne.

“That’s what I’m supposed to do, try to get everything I can out of my car and then more because I want to challenge my team and myself for that matter to be better," Newman said. "If I have a 10th place car, I want to finish seventh with it. If I have a seventh-place car, I want to finish fifth with it and so on.

“There’s a point where you try too hard and overachieve, no doubt. But if I’m crashing because I’m trying too hard or taking someone out or taking myself out, then I’m there. But I don't feel like I’m there yet."

Clearly, he has served as a catalyst for the turnaround of Roush’s flagship team—but like any racer Newman wants more.

“Overall, we’ve progressed as a team,” Newman said. “We keep proving that. There are so many new things this year—the cars are driving different, the people, the manufacturer—all the things that go into what we do in the garage and on the race track is so different than any time in my racing career.

“Playing catch-up is not easy to do in our sport, but I think we’ve been doing it with the 6 car and prove that we can make results. We just haven't gotten to where we want to be or where we need to be.”

Still, in the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway, Newman was in the mix. Despite a mediocre qualifying effort, he climbed from 19th to 16th in Stage 1, and as the race went from day into night, the Scott Graves-led team tuned on the car and Newman closed the second stage sixth. (He would be scored fifth and receive fifth-place stage points following Erik Jones disqualification in post-race inspection).

Newman’s pit crew allowed the driver to hold his position after pit stops. Over the next 30 laps, he ran in the top five along with Kyle Busch, eventual race winner Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski. When Reed Sorenson spun on Lap 243, Newman passed Busch and Hamlin for a race-high third. Although Busch regained the position, Newman maintained a top-five run until Jones nudged the No. 6 from fifth on Lap 294.

“It was just a good team effort, good pit stops,” Newman said. “The strategy wasn’t a whole lot to it, just put four tires on, but had a good short-run car.  One time we had a good long-run car, but we could never get both. 

“I think that if we would have had both, we could have run with those guys, but we were at our best probably when we were just holding good bias to a long-run car, but who would have known there were going to be that many green flag runs.”

Jones and Newman battled throughout the final 100 laps with the No. 20 Toyota solidifying his ground over the final 40 circuits. However, after Jones was DQed, Newman moved up to fifth for the race and ninth in the standings.

With 38 points for the race, Newman has climbed from the cellar to build a 14-point cushion over 13th-place Alex Bowman. Overall, it was a solid points night for Newman and the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford.

“Yeah, but I would have much rather won,” Newman said with a smile. “The best team performance all-around throughout the entire weekend. We failed at qualifying. We got the car too tight, but, overall, just a great team effort to get the Roush Performance Ford a good run. 

“What meant the most to me the most probably was just being better than we were the first race. We ran ninth in the first race and qualified 30th or something like that and we came back and showed that we were learning and we’ll keep learning.”