"I forget what lap number I was that the rain finally came. I had virtually no brakes left in the race car. I couldn't have asked for the rain any sooner."
Sunday's weather forecast for Loudon, N.H., calls for favorable weather. This will please Newman.
"New Hampshire has always been a good place for me; I'm not 100 percent sure why," he said on a Tuesday conference call. "It's a very finesse racetrack. You can't overdrive the car there very much because it's so flat."
Teammate Tony Stewart collected his first win of the year at Chicagoland, extending his streak of winning at least one race to 13 consecutive years (the Cup record is 18, by Richard Petty). When Newman won at Loudon in July, Stewart was runner-up. Since Stewart is a two-time New Hampshire winner, they enter Sunday's race full of confidence.
Away from the tracks, Newman enjoys fishing. The driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet also has spent time at numerous military installations. Prior to the Sept. 10 race at Richmond, Va., Newman visited Arlington National Cemetery.
"At Fort Bragg [N.C.], I got to do some training missions," Newman said. "I went to Camp Atterbury, outside Columbus, Ind., where they were doing actual training missions and setting up mock towns exactly how they would be in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"Going to see the wounded warriors in places like Walter Reed [Army Medical Center], where people are going through life-changing experiences, it's sad. [But] it shows the bravery of the men [and women] that want to go back and be with their troops. U.S. Army American soldiers are amazing people."
Chase, Round 1
Kevin Harvick and
Dale Earnhardt Jr. are among those off to good starts in the Chase. After a runner-up finish at Chicagoland, Harvick leads Tony Stewart by seven points.
