The Exponent Online


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Student follows dream of racecar driving

By Megan Finnerty
Features Editor

Ryan Newman doesn’t make it easy for his mom, Diane Newman.

At age 23, Ryan’s been racing cars since he started with quarter midgets at age four, and he said he knows what he’s doing.

"It’s hard; it’s really hard," Diane said with a smile. "I’ve been around it for a long time, but I know anything can happen on any track, any place."

For the last 19 years, Ryan, a senior in the School of Interdisciplinary Engineering, has raced quarter midgets, then midgets, Silver Crown cars and finally sprint cars. He set the world speed record for midgets in 1997 in Pike's Peak, Colo., but his career really sped off when he met racing mogul Roger Penske at last year’s Daytona 500.

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Web sites offer alternatives to local bookstores

By Dave Stephens
Assistant Campus Editor

Students who are tired of paying bookstore prices for textbooks may have another option thanks to some of their classmates.

Textified.com, Boilerbooks.com, and Purdueonline.com are Web sites that are allowing students to sell and buy used textbooks on the Internet.

Jon Nagel and Andy Abbot are the co-founders of Textified.com, a Web site that hopes to provide students with the opportunity to save money.

"Basically, it's a classified ad for textbooks," said Nagel, a junior in the School of Management, "Students post an ad for their books and they set their own price. Usually the price they set will be higher than what the bookstores will buy it back for but lower than what the bookstore is selling it for."

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