SOUTH BOSTON, Va. — Ryan Newman has a singular focus heading into the 99-lap SMART Modified Tour race that headlines the Hitachi Energy Power Up Race Day event on Oct. 12 at South Boston Speedway.
“We’re here to win,” Newman said at a recent testing session at South Boston.
The Oct. 12 race at South Boston is the next-to-last race of the season for the SMART Modified Tour powered by Pace-O-Matic and is a key race in determining the tour championship.
The tour championship will be determined in a playoff among the top five drivers in the point standings heading into the South Boston event. Two playoff drivers with the least amount of points after the South Boston race will be eliminated, with the top three drivers in points, known as the SMART 3, advancing to compete for the tour championship in the Oct. 19 season finale at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway.
However, if one of the two drivers with the least amount of points wins the race, that driver will become one of the SMART 3, and the next lowest driver in points would be eliminated.
Newman, a two-time winner on the tour this season, sits fourth in the standings, 30 points behind third-place driver Danny Bohn, 38 points behind second place driver Luke Baldwin and 58 behind tour points leader Carson Loftin.
Winning the 99-lap race at South Boston Speedway guarantees him a shot at the tour championship in the season finale.
“Our goal is to win the championship, and there would be no better way to do that than win the last two races,” Newman pointed out. “I don’t know what the math is to know what it takes to get to third place or if it’s mathematically possible. Ultimately, we’re coming to South Boston Speedway just like we would any other race to put our best effort forward and win for our team and the sponsors that have helped us.”
The 18-time winner on the NASCAR Cup Series said the key to success in the upcoming race at South Boston Speedway is simple.
“Everything has got to be right,” Newman remarked. “We’ve got to execute well on the racetrack and off the track and make the best of our day. You’ve got to have a good fast racecar that is good on the straightaways and good in the corners like any other track. The corners here are pretty similar, more similar than on some of the other tracks that are on the SMART Tour as far as end-to-end of the racetrack, so typically, once you get it right you’ve got it right all the way around.”
Newman was having a good run in the SMART Modified Tour’s King of the Modifieds event at South Boston Speedway in March only to have his race cut short by a crash.
“We had a really good test here in the spring and got crashed in the big $20,000-to-win race,” Newman noted. “We want to redeem ourselves from that.”
Along with the 99-lap race for the stars and cars of the SMART Modified Tour powered by Pace-O-Matic, South Boston will host a 50-lap, $1,000-to-win feature race for the STAR Super Stock Tour, the Southeast’s Premier Super Stock Tour.