Bristol is an evil track, says Newman.

Ryan Newman's last appearance at Bristol Motor Speedway caused a lot of jaws to drop as he shattered the track record in qualifying. The 14.908 second recordsetting lap was the first one any driver had ever turned in the 14- second bracket at the .5333-mile concrete Bristol bowl.

What Newman wasn't able to do after ripping off such a spectacular lap was back it up with an equally impressive finish. That's because the 25-year old's last race at BMS in March ended with a 22nd-place finish that was embarrassing for Newman to talk about.

"The race at Bristol in March should have been a peak performance for the ALLTEL team after that awesome lap in qualifying," said Newman whose last BMS performance cost him three spots in the point standings. "The ALLTEL Dodge was extremely loose from the start. The guys worked on it, and it got better, but we were never able to get the track position we needed. The day was miserable for all of us. We had the best starting spot in the house, but wound up spinning and damaging the front-end. Then we got caught a lap down, then four laps down after problems in the pits. Things that last race just went from bad to worse."

So, will Newman have a similar qualifying effort this time around? The ALLTEL team shock specialist Patrick Stufflet says he'll be crossing his fingers, but everything has been done to mirror Newman's qualifying record and give him the best race car possible for Saturday night. Bristol is considered a track where shocks play an important role in how the car handles, and preparation for Bristol begins weeks prior to getting there.

"We're bringing the same car that we raced at Bristol back in March - 'PRS-046'," Stufflet said. "The car had a new skin put on since the March race. Bristol is a shock-sensitive track. It's high-banked and extremely fast. Because it's made out of concrete, there are a lot of junctures in it where the concrete slabs meet together. Between those junctures are bump inputs that can upset the car. Ryan has to feel comfortable in the car in order to get in a good lap time. We had a really quick lap in March, and we need to correlate that into more race laps this time around. We need to make Ryan more comfortable in a longer running car, not just a qualifying car."

Two weeks ago, Stufflet and members of the ALLTEL team performed a seven-post test, which allowed them to view the contact patch variances on all four tyres of the car. Along with that, they took the same car with the March qualifying setup and shook it in order to figure out what characteristics it had. It was then changed over to a race set up with various springs and bars and the March shock package. The crew then tried to tune that shock package to the different springs and bars in order to try to give Newman the same feel he had in the March qualifying run for Saturday night's Sharpie 500.

"It sounds like it's a lot of work, and it is, but in order to win races you need to go the extra mile," said Stufflet. "It was heartbreaking to kill the pole like we did at Bristol in March, but then have such a terrible race car. We went from hero to zero in just a few laps, and we're not looking for a repeat situation this time around. We've learned a few things during that seven-post test that we're going to try this weekend and hopefully give Ryan a great car he can handle for 500 grueling laps at Bristol."

Newman and the ALLTEL team head to the Tennessee Mountains after recording their fifth win of the season last week at Michigan. Before his last race, Newman felt as though the concrete surface at Bristol Motor Speedway owed him one, but now he's even more determined to collect. Even before his white-knuckled qualifying lap that shattered all previous records at BMS, Newman's statistics showed he wasn't afraid to hammer it down at the track known as Thunder Valley.

Newman, who has fought his way back up to eighth in the point standings this season, has five starts at Bristol to his credit. Two were in a Busch car and they produced his best finishes at the concrete track. The other three were in the Winston Cup series. Newman had good qualifying efforts in all three, but hasn't finished better than 22nd to date.

"My Busch races were my best finishes at Bristol," said Newman. "Last year's Winston Cup races were terrible, but not a result of our doings. Tony Stewart wrecked us in the first race, and I got caught up in another wreck during the second race while I was running fifth or sixth, and obviously the last race was just embarrassing. Bristol is an evil track and if you're not the chosen one, you could be in for a long miserable day."