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| 2005 Season |
| Final Points Standing | 6th
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| After First 26 Races | 10th
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| Earnings | $7,259,518
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| Starts | 36
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| Poles | 8
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| Wins | 1
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| Top 5 | 8
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| 6-10 | 8
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| Laps Led | 391
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| Lead Lap Finishes | 29
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| Bonus Points | 95
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| Races Led | 19 |
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| 2005 Performance |
| Below is the ranking of the team on each type of track along with the driver's best finish. |
| Track Type | Ranking |
| Flat Tracks | 8th
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| Best Finish | 1st, New Hampshire
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| Intermediate Tracks | 6th
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| Best Finish | 5th, Darlington, Dover, Lowe's
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| Plate Tracks | 15th
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| Best Finish | 4th, Talladega
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| Road Courses | 15th
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| Best Finish | 9th, Infineon
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| Short Tracks | 12th
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| Best Finish | 3rd, Richmond |
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2006 Spin
Ryan Newman and the AllTel team are a hard group to figure out. They seem to have all the ingredients needed to make a run at the championship — talent, smarts, funding — but have come up well short each year.
How can a car be so stout in qualifying and on short runs, only to turn to junk on long runs in race trim? A major portion of the blame falls on the Dodge Charger. No Dodge team has been able to fully solve the aero issues associated with the nose of the car. The decision by Roger Penske to run the Intrepid at Homestead last season was a political statement. Each Dodge team in our rankings has been dropped roughly two spots due to the unstable nature of the vehicle.
Fridays and Saturdays are still Newman's favorite two days of the week. He won eight poles last season and nine the season before. The advantage is that Newman is afforded the opportunity to get his bonus points for leading a lap early in each race. And it's a good thing, as he has sunk like a stone in many of the races after starting up front.
Matt Borland should lead this team back into the Chase with an ever-analyzing Newman behind the wheel. Newman's victories should max out at three or four, and he will once again be more of a threat on pole day than race day.
2006 Recap
While Ryan Newman's 2005 season was nothing to scoff at, the AllTel crew set the bar so high in 2003, when it scored eight wins and 11 poles, that anything less seems a failure.
Last season got off to a rocky start, as Newman was only able to average a finish of 17.2 over the first quarter of the year. Early summer, however, was a return to form. The AllTel team picked up the performance through May and early June, racking up four straight top 10s, which boosted the team to fourth in the standings.
Unfortunately, the run of good fortune was short-lived, as Newman's average finish was 19.8 in the 13 races leading to the Chase, where he squeaked in at 10th place.
The team got a needed shot in the arm at New Hampshire, where it won the first Chase race and was catapulted to third in the standings. But inconsistency plagued Newman for the season's remaining races, and he settled for a final sixth-place finish.
• The Good: Not slowed by the new impound rules, Ryan Newman led the series for the fourth year in a row with eight poles.
• The Bad: The decision not to pit at Darlington left Newman a sitting duck for the green-white-checker restart. He settled for a fifth-place finish in a car capable of winning.
• The Ugly: The wreck in qualifying at Texas in November was ugly. The backup car was a handful all day, resulting in a disappointing 25th-place finish. He lost 67 points to the leader, ending his title hopes.
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