PHILADELPHIA
Ryan Newman is about out of time to make the field for the Sprint Cup's championship chase.
Newman is 15th in the standings, 118 points behind Clint Bowyer for the final spot with two races left to qualify for NASCAR's 12-driver, 10-race playoffs. Jamie McMurray is 13th -- 100 points behind Bowyer -- and Mark Martin is 14th -- 101 points back -- heading into Sunday night's Emory Healthcare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The field well be set after the Sept. 11 race at Richmond.
"It's a legit shot," he said, "But it's not the shot we would have preferred."
He won in April at Phoenix to snap a 77-race Cup winless streak but has had only five top-five finishes since.
He was sixth in the last race at Bristol and will need that type of finish -- and misfortune from the drivers ahead of him -- to get to 12th place. He won't use previous success as a guide the next two weeks. He has one career win and six top fives in 34 career races at Atlanta and Richmond.
If the pressure is building, he isn't showing it. "I don't change the way I race because of it. I don't change my approach," he said.
He also won't change his car, although he might have been tempted to Wednesday as he toured the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia museum. Newman, a classic car collector, showed great knowledge there.
"You've got the sickness, too," a smiling Newman said to collector and retired neurosurgeon Frederick Simeone. Simeone led Newman on a tour of cars, and Newman looked closely at a tire on one of the cars. It has a Penske Alltel Dodge marking on the rear right -- one he identified on his own, likely from 2000 or 2001 with Roger Penske Racing.
Daytona, site of his 2008 Daytona 500 win, may have derailed his Chase chances this year. He was 34th and 26th at Daytona and 35th at Talladega. Without those three finishes, he says, he'd be in the Chase and not a long shot to make the field.
He said he hasn't spoken to Joey Logano since the two tangled at Michigan. Logano's car got loose and tapped the left rear fender of Newman's car, causing him to spin out with 53 laps left. He confronted Logano after the race, but NASCAR officials quickly stepped in.
"When somebody crashes you and tells you you're to blame, that's the end of the story," Newman said. "What else do you say? ... When somebody crashes you, you just say, ‘Hey man I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get into you.' He never said that."
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