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Newman would like to ground NASCAR

Saturday, November 7, 2009
(Updated 7:20 am)

FORT WORTH, Texas --Ryan Newman stresses that the car needs to be changed before the Sprint Cup series returns to Talladega next April to limit the likelihood of it getting airborne.

Newman met with Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, and John Darby, Sprint Cup series director, on Wednesday to discuss his accident in last weekend's race at Talladega. Newman also talked to them about the emergency crew's job in tipping his car back over so he could exit it.

Newman was vocal about restrictor-plate racing after his accident and criticized series officials, saying, "it is a shame that not more is getting done. I guess maybe I expect NASCAR to call me. I am the only (driver) out there with an engineering degree. I would like to have a little respect on my end.''

He said Friday that Pemberton and Darby told him in their meeting about testing that has been done with the cars.

"But I don't know that they have tested everything,'' Newman said. "I don't know that you can test everything. But obviously more testing needs to be done in order to make it safer for everybody.''

Pemberton said series officials are studying the accident. He noted that the roof flaps deployed properly.

"The car didn't scrub enough speed off,'' Pemberton said. "We'll just have to take that and the video and see what we can do. We have to make every effort to make it better.''

Newman is not convinced that replacing the wing with a spoiler would prevent a similar occurrence. He mentioned Matt Kenseth's flip in a Nationwide car -- which has a spoiler -- at Talladega in the spring, although that accident and Newman's were not similar in how the cars got airborne.

"Can it be a part of the fix?'' Newman said of a spoiler. "Yeah, potentially. Is it a better alternative in conjunction with other things you can do to the car? Maybe. Those are the things that NASCAR and the teams have to test collectively so that we can make it safer and better for the drivers and, like I said, more importantly, the fans.''

Pemberton said series officials are looking into scheduling wind tunnel time, which often has to be done well in advance because the demand can be so great.

Newman wasn't the only car to go upside down at Talladega. Mark Martin's car rolled over at the finish.

"My car turned over so fast, it makes me wonder if the nose of (Martin Truex's) car didn't go under the rear frame rail behind the rear tire and tip my car over,'' Martin said. "I know they do tend to turn over when they go sideways that way because they are heavy (on the) left side.''

Martin called Newman's accident a "horrible thing'' and said "we need to try to fix it.'' Even Martin admits that isn't easy.

"It is really hard to stop the cars from doing that when they get around like that,'' he said. "I think that we need to work on it, but we did keep the cars out of the grandstands.''

Newman also said he wasn't dissatisfied with how crews tipped his upside-down car right-side up -- a process Newman estimated taking 10 minutes -- but he said things could be done better by the emergency crews.

"That's my responsibility because the next guy might be me again,'' Newman said.

 

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long @news-record.com

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