#12-Ryan Newman’s bid to become the first multiple winner at Texas Motor Speedway ended with an unwelcome bang. The 2003 winner at Texas lost control in Turn 3 on Lap 196, and the throttle in his Dodge stuck. He veered hard into the concrete, then turned left and smacked the inside wall. “It sure would have been nice to hit a SAFER barrier,” said Newman, who criticized track owner Bruton Smith last week for not installing the “soft-wall” technology. “I was just bouncing off the walls with the throttle at 5,000 RPMs.” Texas is slated to install the SAFER barrier in the fall.(Richmond Times Dispatch)(4-5-2004)
