Ryan Newman has signed a one-year contract extension with Stewart-Haas Racing, team sources have confirmed.
Newman is the third major driver to make Silly Season news in the last 48 hours. On Tuesday, Matt Kenseth announced that he would replace Joey Logano at Joe Gibbs Racing next season. Later that day, Logano said he would move to Penske Racing, where he will replace Sam Hornish Jr., who is expected to remain at Penske in a NASCAR Nationwide Series ride.
A native of Indiana, Newman drove for Penske for seven full NASCAR Sprint Cup seasons before moving to SHR when his boss and fellow Hoosier Tony Stewart started that team in 2009.
For his career, Newman has 16 race victories, 49 poles, 84 top-five and 160 top-10 finishes in 393 career starts. He has won one race in each of the last three seasons at SHR and has made the Chase for the Sprint Cup twice. Newman has an outside chance of making the Chase this year, but will need a victory at Richmond and additional help to get in this time.
SHR is looking for additional sponsorship next year for both Newman’s No. 39 Chevrolet and the No. 14 Chevy of SHR driven by Stewart. Last week, SHR announced that it was losing Office Depot, one of Stewart’s primary sponsors, and earlier in the season, the U.S. Army said it would not return to Newman’s No. 39 Chevrolet in 2013.
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.