Indy Notebook: Newman fastest

Newman was the fastest driver in with a lap at 177.908 miles per hour around the 2.5-mile oval in a Ford Taurus.

Not bad for a driver who was a student at Purdue University last year.

"It's definitely a big deal for us being from Indiana," Newman said. "Some friends and family have come down to visit. It's special to be at Indy and it's special because Indiana is the home state. This is still home and it always will be."

Newman is competing in a schedule this year that includes ARCA, NASCAR Busch Series and Winston Cup events. He won the pole for the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte and is hoping to earn his second pole when qualifications get underway on Saturday.

"We did a qualifying set-up in practice," Newman said. "That will mean a lot because of track position here on Sunday. Me, not having Winston Cup experience or provisional starting positions, it's import for me to qualify well.

"The car feels pretty good. It's an tribute to all the people and my team mates behind me - Rusty Wallace and Jeremy Mayfield. I'm surrounded by a lot of good people. We have some good notes and with so many people to help us, their knowledge and experience is priceless. It should give us a leg up. We will work just as hard if we are first or 43rd today. We hope to qualify well for the Brickyard 400. There is a lot of prestige and tradition here with Penske Racing. For years, the Indianapolis 500 was the greatest spectacle in racing. To have the Brickyard 400 only enhances that."

Newman is hoping to continue Penske Racing's success at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year. Helio Castroneves won the 85th Indianapolis 500 in May with team mate Gil de Ferran finishing second.

"Being fast today really doesn't mean much," Newman said. "It does let us know the car is very capable. We went and tested well. We think this car will qualify well, also. My hat's off to the crew for preparing the car the way they did. I've not had a lot of laps here. So to be in the position is a great confidence booster."

Ricky Rudd, the 1997 Brickyard 400 winner, was second fastest at 177.637miles per hour in a Ford. Rudd is second in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series point standings entering this event.

"We ran one lap today," Rudd said. "We prepared last week. The weather will play big part in qualifying tomorrow. The cars that run in the morning will run better than the cars in the afternoon. In years past, we started later and the temperature stayed constant so it didn't play a role in it. When we came to test, we worked on race set-up with long runs. Based on that, we will run good. We're just going to place an order for a race win. If we don't win we will have a good race."

Jeremy Mayfield was third fastest at 177.452 in a Ford followed by two-time Brickyard 400 winner Dale Jarrett at 176.824 mph.

"We got a couple laps in," Jarrett said. "I don't know how much you can tell by that. It's hot, things are going to change. What I'm proud of is our guys went back and worked extremely hard on this race car that wasn't very good here in the test. We made it a lot better, and I know now I've got something that will allow me to race and have a chance to win.

"It's going to be totally different in the morning. It's going to be cooler. I feel like we've got a car that, unless people are holding back a whole lot, we've got something we should be able to get in the top five with."

Rusty Wallace rounded out the top five at 176.446 in a Ford.

"Team Penske is in the top five," Wallace said. "I put Jeremy's set-up in my car. I like it better than my own. We'll sleep good tonight with the Penske cars running so good."


NASCAR president Mike Helton said a report on the investigation into the death of seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt will be released "soon." It is believed the report will be released the week of August 21.

Helton also said he was surprised that Bill Simpson resigned as the president of Simpson Performance Products this past week. The 61-year-old Simpson said he had received death threats and his employees were harassed after NASCAR announced that the Simpson seat belt Earnhardt was wearing when he crashed in the last turn of the last lap of the February 18 Daytona 500 had broken.

"People can pick and choose what they want to do when they do it, but I'm a little bit surprised," Helton said. "His energy level in the sport has been very strong. For whatever reason, he chose to retire from what he's doing now, but that doesn't mean he won't come back. We chose not to play out the debate on his feelings or ours in this process. We do know that his heart and soul is in what he believes and it has contributed greatly to what has happened in motorsports to the aspect of safety."


In an attempt to end the season in a better climate, Atlanta Motor Speedway has given way to the season-ending NASCAR Winston Cup race beginning in 2002. The Homestead-Miami Speedway will be the sight of the last race of the season.

The Atlanta track has said the NAPA 500 will be run October 27, three weeks earlier than normal. It will be the first time since 1986 that the final race of the year will not be at the track 30 miles south of Atlanta.

Atlanta's November race often has been plagued by poor weather, and has been delayed or postponed twice in the past three years.


Ricky Rudd and Dale Jarrett both drive for Robert Yates Racing. Rudd is second to Jeff Gordon in the NASCAR Winston Cup points race and Jarrett is third.

With the points battle heating up, the two drivers were asked if that has effected the exchange of information between the two teams when it comes to car preparation.

"No, it hasn't," Jarrett said. "A lot of people are trying make it out that that's the way it's going to happen, but no, it hasn't. We see that, as we've said before, our best effort here to try to win the championship for Robert Yates Racing, the two of us against him, the guy down there at the end is who I'm talking about, is our best effort to be able to do that.

"We feel that if we continue to work together we'll at least give ourselves a chance to be in that position when we get to Atlanta, so there's no reason for us to stop doing that. Literally, as we've looked and talked about, all the way to Atlanta. And that might seem unrealistic to y'all, but we feel like that's our best chance.

"To give Robert what he's worked hard for, to give our sponsors, Texaco and UPS, that opportunity that we're going to continue to do that. As a matter of fact, I think as this has gotten closer, we've shared more information. We've realised, again, that this is our best effort, if we can do this and if we can continued to work together, things will be a lot better."

To prove the point, Rudd brought up the fact that this weekend, he has the same car that Jarrett drove to victory in 1999 and the same vehicle that Jarrett dominated the 1998 race, only to fall four laps down after running out of fuel on the backstretch.

"We ran the car here last year, but then again, I don't know how it got over there," Rudd said. "We were building, started this year, building every car that we have raced has been on own chassis designs out of our shop. We were trying to help them, they helped us with a road-race car and they were looking for some intermediate-type cars, and so it was a good trade for us. But, they have made a lot of changes, you wouldn't know it was the same car. But, what we saw in the test, it's still a very good car and will give them a very good chance to win."