Confident in his team, confident in his chances to make the Chase and apparently confident in his ability to score the victory this weekend, Ryan Newman put his No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet atop the speed charts in Saturday’s final practice session for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Running a total of twenty-five laps, Newman’s fastest was his first – a lap of 30.823 seconds at a speed of 179.866 mph. One of his best tracks in terms of qualifying (seven poles in fifteen attempts), Newman is still searching for that first Atlanta Motor Speedway victory, but with the cutoff for the Chase looming, the ‘Rocketman’ will settle for a solid finish.

“I’m confident with our teams and I’m confident with our abilities, but I just don’t know racing-wise if something crazy is going to happen in front of us or whatever,” Newman explained Saturday morning. “I’m fully capable of running out of talent, I’ve done it before.  It’s just a matter of -- you get these two good races in, two top-10 finishes answers everything and we can’t lose there.”

Mark Martin once again put the No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Chevrolet second on the speed charts for the second time today. Running a session-high fifty-five laps in the opening practice, Martin only took seven turns around the speedway in the final practice, but was still strong enough to post the second-fastest time.

Looking to race his way into the Chase, Red Bull Racing’s Brian Vickers was third fastest in Saturday’s final practice. The Michigan winner ran forty-one laps, with his fastest – a lap of 30.915 seconds at 179.330 mph – coming on his first.

Clint Bowyer was fourth fastest, while Jeff Gordon rounded out the top-5. David Stremme, Juan Pablo Montoya, rookie Scott Speed, Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards made up the rest of the top-10.

Qualifying for Sunday’s Pep Boys Auto 500 is scheduled for 4:40pm later this afternoon.

 MORE NASCAR NEWS