AS I RECALL | RYAN NEWMAN
As told to Rick Minter, for the AJC
Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Chevrolet at Stewart-Haas Racing, earned his nickname “Rocket Man” for his performances on qualifying days. He has won 50 Sprint Cup pole positions, including seven at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he and the retired Buddy Baker are tied for most poles. Newman recalls what it’s like to run 200 mph on a NASCAR track.
From 140 mph on up it all feels the same, and the analogy I always give is when you take off in an airplane you’re usually leaving the ground at about 120 mph.
You can feel the speed up to 120, but from that point on, you can feel it accelerate a little bit, but you don’t realize you’re going 600 mph, or 500 mph or 350.
You don’t have the acceleration to feel the speed, and that’s the same feeling in a race car. When you leave pit road and get halfway up to speed, the rest of it is just a matter of the faster you go, the better the car sticks because you have more downforce. But at the same, the tires want to slide, so there’s a happy medium in there that we all try to hit as drivers.
The difference in going 140 and 200 is that when you’re going 200 and you hit something or a tire blows, or whatever, it’s going to be compounded by the next hit and the hit after that and who comes up and hits you at 200 while you’re sitting still.
How it feels to go 200 mph also depends on the conditions. If you’re at Michigan, where it’s a little more wide-open, it’s one thing. And if you have a tire that kind of locks you in to the race track, that’s one thing. But like at Atlanta, where you’re going almost 200 mph you’re almost in a controlled slide. That’s good because you’re controlled, but you’re still sliding.
It’s part of what we do in taking race cars to the edge, but ultimately whoever is sliding the least is leading.
And 200 mph is different in every situation you’re in. Sometimes you’re trying to maintain a long-run pace. Sometimes you’re out of control sliding around, getting every little bit of speed you possibly can at the expense of the tires. And then you go to a place like Indianapolis, where it’s 200 mph at the end of the straightaway, 215 sometimes, and you have to get it “whoa-ed up” and you’re using the brakes. Whereas at Michigan, Charlotte, Atlanta, the brakes are more of a mental thing than a physical thing.
Going 200 mph doesn’t mean anything as long as the guy next to you is going 200 mph. It’s the difference in speed that makes a difference. That closing rate is like being in rush-hour traffic. If you’re all going the same speed there’s really no difference. It’s when somebody checks up and you have to get on the binders because you weren’t paying attention, that’s when there’s a difference.
