Ryan Newman: With Strong 2015 Start, Is NASCAR's Rocket Man Ready for Blastoff?

With back-to-back top-three finishes last week at Las Vegas and Sunday at Phoenix, NASCAR’s Rocket Man has initiated countdown to liftoff.

As in wins and perhaps even his first Sprint Cup championship may be in his flight plan.

With so much attention being given to Kevin Harvick thus far this season, Newman has been racing somewhat under the radar.

After finishing 38th in the season-opening Daytona 500, Newman finished 10th at Atlanta the following week, then third at both Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Those are certainly noteworthy achievements.

But an even greater accomplishment is this: Newman left Daytona ranked 34th in the Sprint Cup standings.

Three races later, he’s up to eighth place after Phoenix, a jump of 26 spots.

Sure, it’s early in the season and big point swings are not unusual. But to make a swing that large shows Newman and his team are on to something—and potentially even bigger and better things going forward.

Consider that Newman hasn’t won a race since 2013, when he captured the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis in his final season for Stewart-Haas Racing.

And then last season, in his first year with Richard Childress Racing, he did not earn a top-five finish until the end of June at Kentucky.

He’s already doubled that output in the first four races of 2015. And even though drivers often claim they don’t worry about their statistics, Newman is very well aware of what he’s done already this season.

“We’re four races in and have two top-fives,” Newman told Fox Sports after Sunday’s race. “It took us until June last year to get our first one.”

What’s more, Newman not only made the Chase for the Sprint Cup last season, he came within a hair of beating Harvick for the championship, ultimately finishing second in the final standings.

And how Newman did it—without a win and just five total top-five finishes (three of which came in the Chase—showed the Indiana native knows how and where to get the maximum impact for his effort.

There were obvious growing pains last season at RCR for Newman. He had to get used to a new team and organization, a new way of doing things, a new crew chief (Luke Lambert), a new pit road crew and so much more.

Still, the team jelled and almost pulled off one of the biggest season-ending upsets in NASCAR history.

That’s why it’s not a surprise to see Newman doing so well this early in 2015.

He and his team now have one full season under their belt, last season’s march to almost winning the championship (and how they did it) is still very fresh in everyone’s collective minds, and there’s a semblance of wanting to prove that RCR is still very viable as a championship contender.

I almost have to wonder if there is also an element of wanting to avenge Harvick’s departure after 13 seasons with RCR to move to Stewart-Haas Racing.

Newman is the veteran driver at RCR. While he technically replaced Jeff Burton in the No. 31 Chevrolet, it’s fairly clear that Newman also replaced Harvick as the veteran mainstay for RCR.

Newman has 17 career wins, and with Sunday’s third-place finish, he also has an even 100 top-five finishes in his Sprint Cup career.

Do you see a pattern here with Newman? He’s chipping away not only at Harvick, but also at the standings.

He’s primed for a win, be it this Sunday at Fontana, California, or perhaps in one of the upcoming races such as Martinsville or Texas, places he typically does well at.

One other point that can’t be overlooked is you can very clearly see the confidence with which Newman is driving.

That’s refreshing, considering the way he was unceremoniously dumped from Stewart-Haas Racing in 2013. He not only won the Brickyard, he also was the organization’s only representative in the Chase for the Sprint Cup that year.

And what did he receive in return? His walking papers.

Publicly, SHR said there was no sponsorship for Newman’s team in 2014, hence he was being let go.

It wasn’t personal, just business—or so it seemed.

Yet a short time later, team co-owner Gene Haas announced he had hired Kurt Busch to essentially replace Newman—and that he (Haas) would sponsor Busch’s car out of his own pocket in 2014 and beyond.

Newman could have laid down, he could have asked what did Busch have that he didn’t, and he could have been outspoken about what happened to him.

All the elements for a very ugly divorce from SHR were there, yet Newman was stoic and professional. He served out the rest of his contract in 2013 without a bleep of criticism at the organization and then moved on.

To this day, and to his credit, Newman still hasn’t put down SHR for what happened to him.

Not wanted at one place, he’s arguably in a better place now—and wanted more. And if the first part of this season is any indication, things are going to get better and better for Newman.

“We’re knocking on the door,” Newman said. “We’ll keep digging.”

Yes, the Rocket Man appears ready to blast off—and if he does, every other driver in NASCAR better watch out.

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski