I chose Ryan Newman as my favorite Nascar driver way back in late 2001 because we both share the very same last name!

Both of us were born and raised in Central United States as neighbors plus I also have family living in Indiana. It was a good fit for me as a fan! I was mainly a football/baseball/bowling fan before I got hooked on Nascar.
I was doing a "ride along" in the cruiser with my cousin who happens to be a local police officer of many years. He mentioned to me about a driver named Ryan Newman from Indiana. Said he was a very promising Nascar driver that I should be a fan of. At this time. Brian(my cousin) was a fan of Dale Jarrett and his wife was a Tony Stewart fan. I immediately ran out and got me a Ryan Newman tee shirt at a local Nascar shop. It was a little snug on me but wore it with pride.
You can imagine becoming a fan of Nascar for the first time and watching your very first Nascar race with your newly chosen driver having this horrific wreck as Ryan did at Daytona 2002! Little did I know after all these years just how many times I would witness so much roller-coaster emotional disappointment following the greatest driver with the worst luck! I know, these things happen to other drivers but you end up with "tunnel vision" only concentrating on one driver from race to race!
There has been good times bad times and many dry spells as a Newman fan. I guess you just can't expect much from race to race year to year. Very few problems have been caused by Ryan as the driver. That's what is so irritating!
Since Newman has joined S/H Racing his stats are:Out of 146 races........3-wins/25-Top 5's/60-Top 10's/6-poles/11-DNF'S.(glaring number) Doesn't look all that bad on paper folks but that only depends who you are comparing Ryan's numbers to? But I digress...........
I guess the hardened old fans just say,"That's racing" and move on. But what they won't tell you is......that's super easy to say when it's NOT your favorite driver huh!