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Ryan Newman (L) and crew chief Tony Gibson. (credit: Cameras in Action)

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 39 HAAS AUTOMATION IMPALA SS, met with members of the media at Phoenix International Raceway and discussed his team’s start to the season, if a being with a new team will hurt his chances for the pole and more. Full transcript:

HOW WAS YOUR CAR THIS MORNING: “We were really good in race trim and not so good in qualifying trim. So we are going to change qualifying trim and leave it in race trim the way it was. We just couldn’t go any faster. I don’t know why, in qualifying trim that was it, that was all we had.”

YOUR TEAM GOT OFF TO PRETTY MUCH A SLOW START THIS YEAR, IT SEEMED TO TURN AROUND A LITTLE AFTER BRISTOL, WHAT DO YOU FORSEE IN THE FUTURE FOR THE REST OF THIS SEASON? “I have hope and I feel like we’re capable and can make the Chase. With all gremlins aside, excuses and everything else and the bad luck, we continually move forward in the points over the rest of the season. Even with the not so good finish at Texas we moved one spot up in points. We just have to keep working on it. I’d said looking back at it, it would have been beneficial for us as a team to test. In the same breath Tony (Stewart) had a new group of people and didn’t but just had a better start to the season than we did. It’s been very positive. It’s been an eye opening and humbling experience at times but in the end the guys have done a good job getting better each week.”

DO YOU AND TONY HAVE TOTALLY DIVERSE DRIVING STYLES AND YOU LIKE YOUR CARS SO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAT YOU HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO PLAY OFF OF EACH OTHER AT ALL? “Well we have and we do. In the end that’s just one of the variables that there is in a multitude of variables a thousand or whatever there are in different springs and shocks and chassis, bodies and everything else. We definitely take information but we take feedback probably more from the subjective feedback than the actual spring rate, track bar height to make both teams better for that matter.”

YOU WERE WITH PENSKE FOR MANY YEARS, I’M NOT SURE IF YOU HEARD THAT HELIO CASTRENEVES WAS FOUND NOT GUILTY IN HIS CASE, CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PRESSURE AT PENSKE RACING? “How do you find somebody not guilty? Obviously it’s a weight off of Roger’s (Penske) shoulders I can say that and more so a weight off of Helio’s shoulders. That’s their deal and their thing and everybody has their own situation.  They could have been high jacked by pirates, you just never know. I am not joking about that, seriously, he could have been. Anybody.” (LAUGHTER)

ON LAKE NORMAN RIGHT? “We’re not too far from the ocean.”

YOU ARE A CONSISTENT POLE SITTER HERE, HOW DO YOU FEEL HAVING A NEW TEAM MIGHT AFFECT THAT? “I’m really confident in race trim and in qualifying trim I’m still confident that we can make the car run faster. We’ve done a few big changes before qualifying here. I really enjoy qualifying here. I enjoy this race track. Being 24^th in practice is kind of not where we wanted by any means but I have confidence we can make the car faster I just don’t know how much faster.”

PIT ROAD IS PRETTY TOUGH THIS SEASON, DALE (EARNHARDT) JR. SAID IT IS WHERE YOU START, IS WHERE YOU FINISH, IS PIT ROAD MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE RACE TRACK IN TERMS OF WINNING RACES AND LEADING LAPS: “It depends when the last caution flies. I think the more that the competition has gotten as far as competitiveness the more difficult it is to pass therefore the more important it is to have good pit stops and come off pit road. If you tell me my lap times over the last 40-laps of the race and I’m two-hundreds of a second faster than the guy that’s in front of me there’s a really good chance unless he makes a mistake that I’m not going to pass him. It’s just the way it is. It’s tough. That’s why it’s so important to be able to get through the traffic and make situations to be able to pass guys some times.”

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), one of the world’s largest automakers, was founded in 1908, and today manufactures cars and trucks in 34 countries.  With its global headquarters in Detroit, GM employs 244,500 people in every major region of the world, and sells and services vehicles in some 140 countries.  In 2008, GM sold 8.35 million cars and trucks globally under the following brands:  Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling.  GM’s largest national market is the United States, followed by China, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia and Germany.  GM’s OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services.  More information on GM can be found at www.gm.com.

- GM Racing Communications, Press Release