Penske:Noting Newman - Oct. 2, 2007

-- Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 12 Alltel Dodge Avenger, gave another lucky fan the chance to go Racin With Ryan last week in Manhattan, Kan. The Racin With Ryan promotion is sponsored by Alltel. At random locations throughout the season, Newman shows up at an Alltel Wireless store and surprises one lucky customer with a trip to a future race and the chance to have his or her name on the side of the Alltel Dodge. Last Thursday, Newman made a stop in Kansas and surprised a customer with tickets to the Nov. 11 Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. This was the third time this season that Newman had participated in the Racin With Ryan promotion. Earlier this year, he surprised a fan in Augusta, Ga., and awarded tickets to the spring race at Texas. His last surprise occurred in Rapid City, S.D., when he gave an Alltel customer tickets to the August Bristol night race.

-- Newman will make his 12th Cup start at Talladega Superspeedway. It will be his 218th career start in the Cup Series.

-- Newman has an average start of 12.4 and an average finish of 19.8 at Talladega. He has five starts inside the top 10, including two from the top five. Newmans lowest start at the 2.66-mile track has been 28th in April of this year.

-- Newman has four top-10 finishes at Talladega, including a ninth-place finish in April 2007. He has three other finishes inside the top 20, but his last four races produced finishes of 33rd or lower.

-- Newman has led 25 laps in six Talladega races. He has completed 1,707 laps of a possible 2,080 since he made his Cup debut at the restrictor-plate track in 2002. Newman has a completion rate of 82.1 percent at the Alabama track.

-- The primary car for Talladega is chassis PRS-521, a new car that was tested at Talladega last month. That's the only time the car has been on the track. The backup car is PRS-515. It was tested at Talladega and was used during the June race at Dover where Newman qualified on the pole and finished second.

Newman On Talladega: This weekend is pretty much going to be a blank slate for everyone. Its the first time any of us will really get a chance to see how the COT car works on a superspeedway and I dont think theres any one driver or any one team that has a noticeable advantage this weekend. Weve had some bad luck the last couple of weeks, so were hoping to see some improvement this weekend and get another top 10 at Talladega like we did back in April.