NEWMAN IN NEW CAR AT TEXAS

Ryan Newman will make his ninth Cup start at Texas Motor Speedway. It will be his 222nd career start in the Cup Series.

Newman has an average start of 14.2 and an average finish of 28.4 at the 1.5-mile track. He has three top-five starts, including two Bud Pole Awards, which he swept in 2005.
Newman has one win at Texas - March 2003. His next highest finish is a 16th in April 2005. His other six finishes have been 25th or lower.

Newman has led 80 laps in three Texas races. He has completed 2,306 laps of a possible 2,677 since he made his Cup debut at the track in 2002. Newman has a completion rate of 86.1 percent at the intermediate track.

Crew chief Mike Nelson and the Alltel team are taking chassis PRS-110 to Texas as their primary car. The car was tested at Kentucky, but it has never been raced. The backup car is PRS-108, which was raced by Newman last weekend in Atlanta. It qualified fifth, but finished 37th after an engine failure eliminated Newman from the race on lap 267.

Newman On Texas: "We're taking a brand-new car to Texas this week. We tested it at Kentucky, but that's the only time it's been on the track, so we'll see how it goes.
"Last week, we had problems with our car all weekend. It didn't qualify the way it usually does and then it just got worse as the weekend went on. We had some great momentum going into Atlanta, but we'll be able to get that back during these last three weeks and hopefully, we can win a second time at Texas."