Buddy Baker's heart was pounding as he watched Ryan Newman, his
prize pupil, ricocheting off walls, with cars erupting in flames
near the start of the Winston Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Newman, who ignited a 27-car wreck when a cut tire sent his
Penske Racing South Dodge into the wall, walked away Sunday without
injury. That was a relief to Baker, a former Winston Cup star who
has helped bring last year's top rookie to the brink of
superstardom.
"If I had a third son, he'd be it," said Baker, the son of
two-time NASCAR champion Buck Baker and whose own boys, Bryan and
Brandon, briefly tried their hand at racing.
"They had talent, but it never was what they wanted to do more
than anything else," Baker said. "With me, I never thought about
doing anything else. Ryan Newman never did, either. From the time
he was 5 years old until now, he's never wanted to be anything
else."
Baker, who retired as a competitive driver in 1992, is an
instructor at his father's driving school at North Carolina Motor
Speedway in Rockingham.
He was contacted late in 1999 by team co-owners Roger Penske,
Don Miller and Rusty Wallace to see if Baker, winner of 19 Cup
races, would be willing to work with the then 22-year-old Newman.
Baker, whose teaching had consisted almost entirely of three-day
courses at his father's school, hesitated, insisting on first
meeting Newman and his family.
"There's a lot of people who could have 10 driving coaches and
they'd never make it," Baker said. "But there's just some people
made out of the right cloth. I'm very selective in people I work
with.
"When I started talking to Ryan, I could feel the energy that
he had, and the passion he had for the sport.
"Then, I met his dad, and right there I knew, OK, he's got a
good background. His father's been with him in go-carts, midgets.
He turned the wrenches for his son. It was an automatic fit for
me."
The program laid out by the Penske team leaders included lots of
testing and some experience in ARCA and Busch races before moving
up to Winston Cup.
"When we started out, we were not pressured to hurry him
along," Baker said. "We went to all the racetracks and tested. We
would go out in a passenger car and I'd show him the points on the
racetrack that work, the points that don't work, things to do,
things not to do."
Baker, the first stock car driver to run a 200-mph lap and the
1980 Daytona 500 champion, told Newman to listen to what he had to
say and then adapt it to his own style.
It's worked better than Baker could have hoped.
"If I told him that the seat needed to be on the roof, he'd
listen. That's the kind of kid he is," Baker said. "He's never
once questioned anything that I've told him, and therein lies our
success.
"It's been a great relationship. When I tell him something, he
takes it in, he refines and puts the Newman touch to it."
Newman, already one of the sport's top qualifiers, won his
second Cup race two weeks ago in Texas.
"Buddy has helped me out a lot," he said. "Buddy told me he
made mistakes when he was growing up driving or just as a person.
"He said, `I don't want you to make those same mistakes. If you
can avoid making those mistakes, you're going to make other ones,
but I'll eliminate the variables for you.' He's helped me so much,
in and out of the car."
It didn't start out so well, though.
Baker said the first test was at Gateway International Raceway
near St. Louis, and Newman wasn't getting much out of the car. They
went to Kentucky Speedway next, and again, Newman's performance was
lacking.
"I was stumped," Baker said. "I said, 'Ryan, you giving me
everything you've got?' He said, 'No, I'm taking it easy.' I said,
'You don't want to take it easy. You want to learn.'
"The next lap he came by, I ran to the other side of the truck
and said to the crew, 'If he makes it, we've got a driver.' He was
on the track record the next lap and he's been giving it everything
he's got ever since."
Newman, who has a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue,
drove midgets and sprint cars on the U.S. Auto Club's short tracks
before moving to stock cars. He won in every series and took the
1999 Silver Bullet Series championship.
He was an immediate hit in stock cars, too, winning in only his
second ARCA event.
"For some reason, the champions in open-wheel cars, when they
come in here, they have a leg up," Baker said. "Look at Tony
Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman. They understand their equipment.
"We started out with the ABCs. We started in ARCA, then we went
to Busch, then to Cup. The guys who work on that crew, all of them
are young like Ryan. They're all computer whizzes and most of them
are engineers, like Ryan. They get the resources they need. It's a
great situation."
Baker said he doesn't need to preach to his protege.
"He got the cap and gown last year. Ryan's an established star
now and he's only going to get better and better and better," he
said.