[Don]

Ryan graduated from Purdue with a degree in Engineering. Prior to Talladega, he has made the point that the rear wing design creates lift rather than down force when the race car is in the air and/or is turned backwards.

From AutoWeek.com

Quote of the week: This is an excerpt from Ryan Newman's meeting with the media at the Texas Motor Speedway and refers to his ongoing complaints about the current aerodynamics on the COT when it comes to accidents at Talladega:

"From an engineering standpoint, whatever we can do speed-wise and aerodynamically to keep the cars on the ground, in particular things in the back of the car, when it sees the air first for downforce, keep the lift out of the back of the cars is what we need to focus on. There has been testing done.

"I learned some of that stuff on Wednesday morning talking to Mr. (John) Darby and Mr. (Robin) Pemberton, that they have tested. But I don't know that they have tested everything. I don't know that you can test everything. But obviously more testing needs to be done in order to make it safer for everybody. Speed is a part of it. The faster you go, the more likely you are to take lift.

"We were talking before, an airplane takes off at 160 miles an hour. We're 40 miles an hour above that at times. There's plenty of potential for a car to take lift, whether it's going forwards, backwards or sideways. We have to take everything into consideration, as drivers, as teams, as a sanctioning body, to control that situation."