LUCAMA, NC – Ryan Newman will be competing at Southern National Motorsports Park for the first time in his illustrious career in Saturday’s North-South Shootout.
Newman, a former winner of the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 during his storied NASCAR Cup Series career, will be racing in a Tour-Type Modified. The 48-year-old from South Bend, Indiana, has won six races in the SMART Modified Tour since 2022 with his most recent win coming at Dominion Raceway in September 2025.
While Newman has not competed in the Shootout, he is excited about the change of venue after attending the race last year where his daughter, Brooklyn Newman, competed in a 602 Modified race.
“I was there at the North-South Shootout last year for my daughter and I watched the tour race,” Newman said. “In my opinion, it was a disaster of a tour race, so I really look forward to the change and hopefully, the flow of the show and the satisfaction of the fans there make it repeatable. I think it was time for a change and I’m excited to be a part of it and to bring my daughter down to race a 602. It’s just another opportunity to win. That’s why we do what we do is to win. I mean, not everybody does that. Some people do it just to show up and say they did but my goal is for us to win.”
While Newman has never raced at Southern National, he is used to adapting to new racetracks without the aid of modern tools such as simulators.
“I’ll show up and race,” Newman stated. “I ‘ve got enough experience that I don’t think it’s an issue for me. It’s gas on the straightaway, brake in the corner, gas on the straightaway. I think it’s more complex than that, don’t get me wrong, but I know how to adapt once I see it and what the character is and just look forward to the opportunity.”
Expected rainfall on Friday has already prompted event organizers to cancel Friday’s practice and condense the schedule into a one-day show on Saturday, throwing an additional curveball at all the teams.
“I think it’s going to be new for a lot of us, especially with the weather and not getting to practice on Friday,” Newman continued. “We’re going to have to have our ducks in a row, so to speak, after the rain to be fast and be competitive and have a car that’s good for the end of the race.”
Competing in the North-South Shootout gives the father-and-daughter team of Ryan and Brooklyn Newman one more weekend at the racetrack together, much like the weekends they have spent at the track when the Carolina Crate Modified Series is a support division for the SMART Modified Tour.
“That’s been a whole lot of fun,” Newman explained. “It’s fun for me to get to race and it’s also fun for me to get to watch a race and then we can connect those two together with, just like the North-South Shootout, but with the SMART Tour as well and the Carolina crates piggybacking off the schedule. That was eight of 15 races this year, so more than half of them, we get to spend race day together at the same racetrack talking about the same bumps and grip and the changes to the racetrack and, you know, just how to adapt and have fun racing. So I try to teach her what I can without being too pushy but, at the same time, she’s willing to listen and we have fun doing it together.”
“I am excited to get one more 602 race in this year at a new track,” Brooklyn Newman stated. “Especially with my dad being there racing the tour car. We have a lot of fun when we get to do that, and the North-South Shootout is a special race.”
Brooklyn Newman is chasing her first win in a Modified. She has three top-five finishes and 17-top 10s in the Carolina Crate Modified Series dating back to March 2025. Her most recent top-10 was a seventh place finish at Carteret County Speedway on Labor Day Weekend.
The 24th Annual North-South Shootout, which makes its debut at Southern National Motorsports Park after being held at Caraway Speedway since 2020, and from 2011-2014. The event has also been contested at Hickory Motor Speedway (2019) and the now-defunct Concord Speedway (2003-2010; 2015-2018).
The green flag will fly at 5:30pm on Saturday, with Legends, Chargers, Any Cars, and Vintage Modifieds & Sportsman also on the schedule along with the 125-lap Tour-Type Modified main event and 75-lap 602 Modified feature.
Tickets are available online at snmpark.com and at the gate on race day. The race will also be available as a pay-per-view broadcast on Ultra Broadcasting.
For more information about the 24th Annual North-South Shootout, visit snmpark.com/nss.
