For the first time in nearly 30 years next month, NASCAR will host a points race in the Cup Series at the historic North Wilkesboro Speedway. The race weekend will be a mark of the sport returning to its roots.
Preceding the top-level Cup Series race that weekend will be a Truck Series race on July 18, which will feature a comeback for one of the sport’s greatest drivers.
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Former Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman will get behind the wheel of the No. 25 Ram for Kaulig Racing, marking the first time he’s competed in a NASCAR event since 2023.
The No. 25 Ram Truck has rotated through a cast of all-star drivers this season. Tony Stewart piloted it at Daytona, Travis Pastrana hopped in at Charlotte, Clint Bowyer drove it at Dover and Jamie McMurray steered it at Naval Base Coronado last weekend. Parker Kligerman, Carson Ferguson, Corey LaJoie, Ty Dillon and AJ Allmendinger have also driven the truck this season, with Allmendinger notching a best finish of sixth place at Watkins Glen.
“I’m really excited to get back behind the wheel at North Wilkesboro and to be part of Ram’s Free Agent Program,” Newman said in a statement. “It’s special returning to a brand I had so much success with early in my career, and racing at Wilkesboro is always cool.”
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Back when Dodge Ram was a manufacturer in the Cup Series, Newman had some of the best seasons of his career behind the wheel of their machines from 2003 to 2008 with Penske. He won eight races in the No. 12 Dodge in 2003, a season in which he was named Driver of the Year. He also notched his 2008 Daytona 500 victory in a Dodge.
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From 2001 to 2012 during Dodge’s modern era run in NASCAR’s Cup Series, no driver had more wins of the manufacturer than Newman’s 13. Parent company Chrysler spilt brand into Dodge and Ram in 2009, with the latter specializing in heavy duty trucks.
Newman would leave Penske after the 2008 season and finish the rest of his career in Chevrolets and Fords with Stewart-Hass, Richard Childress Racing and Roush. In all, he won 18 races in the top-level Cup Series, securing a second crown jewel victory at the 2013 Brickyard 400. He also won the All-Star race in 2002, and in 2023 was named one of NASCAR’s 75 greatest drivers.
In the Truck Series, Newman has had a lot of success in limited chances. In seven Truck Series races he ran in from 2008 to 2018, he finished in the top-five six times — including a 2008 win at Atlanta. Newman also notched seven wins in the second-tier O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
He’s one of five drivers to win at least three times at New Hampshire, joining Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin. New Hampshire won one of the speedways that inherited North Wilkesboro’s dates when NASCAR left the track in the hills of northwestern North Carolina in the 1990s. Newman has only raced there in the Whelan Modified and SMART Modified tours, winning a race there in 2022.
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Many fans who remember Newman’s career will think of his horrific crash on the final lap of the 2020 Daytona 500, where his car went airborne after hitting the outside wall’s SAFER barrier nose first, then tumbled through the air a second time after getting hit by Corey LaJoie. His car burst into flames and slid roof-down through the finish line. It took 16 minutes to extract an unconscious Newman from the car before he was transported to a nearby hospital. Two days later, he walked out the hospital unaided, holding his daughters’ hands. It was a reminder of how dangerous the sport can be, but also of the safety innovations that NASCAR had made in the decades following Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001 at the same track.
Through its partnership with Kaulig in the Truck Series, Ram is back in NASCAR after a 13-year hiatus.
FS1 will carry the live broadcast of the Truck Series race at North Wilkesboro at 1:30 p.m. ET on July 18.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ryan Newman returns to NASCAR in Truck Series at North Wilkesboro in July
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