CAREER OVERVIEW
Before reaching the NASCAR level, Ryan was the 1996 USAC Silver Crown Rookie Of The Year and won the USAR Silver Bullet Championshp in 1999. When Ryan reached the cup level in 2002, he instantly took off and won rookie of the year. In 2003, he won 8 races yet finished sixth in the standings and last year, he finished seventh in the standings with 2 wins. Ryan has proven to be a huge threat on pole day by dominating the Bud Pole Award standings.

In 2005, Ryan won 1 race and finished 6th in the standings with 8 poles.

Ryan only got 1 top 5 on the plate tracks this year with 2 other finishes being 14th and 20th. Ryan will need to improve his plate program overall for the season and it looked as if he was by that 4th place finish at the last plate race of the season.

When Ryan can manage to stay out of trouble, he can get a top 12 finish. So all Ryan has to do is stay out of trouble and try to turn thoes top 12 finishes into top 10 finishes.

Like on the short tracks, when Ryan stays out of trouble he can get a good finish. So all Ryan has to do for road courses is stay out of trouble and he's good to go.

Like on short tracks and road courses, they only reason Ryan has bad finishes on the flat track is due to trouble. So all Ryan has to do for here also is stay out of trouble.

Ryan's cookie cutter finishes are awesome except for the few wrecks so like in other sections, he just needs to stay out of trouble.

So for Ryan to become a even better championship contender, he will need to avoid trouble and improve on his plate and short track finishes. And that is a goal that I see to look to be pretty easy.

(C)Ashley M, Dec. 7th 2005
(R)The NASCAR Palace, Dec. 7th 2005