{"id":14459,"date":"2018-01-23T21:26:29","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T03:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=14459"},"modified":"2018-01-24T21:35:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T03:35:57","slug":"nascar-tuesday-media-tour-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/23\/nascar-tuesday-media-tour-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Tuesday Media Tour Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

HARVICK SAYS DANICA STARTED STOCK CAR CAREER AT A DISADVANTAGE<\/b><\/p>\n

CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2013 On February 18, in the 2018 Daytona 500, Danica Patrick will drive a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series car for the 191st time.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Kevin Harvick. (Photo by Chris Trotman\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It will also be the last.<\/p>\n

Last November at Homestead-Miami Speedway, a tearful Patrick announced she would end her driving career with the \u201cDanica Double\u201d\u2014final appearances in both the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n

Patrick confirmed on Monday she will drive the No. 7 GoDaddy Chevrolet fielded by Premium Motorsports in her stock car swan song. Both the car number and sponsor harken to her NASCAR debut.<\/p>\n

Patrick will leave stock car racing disappointed with a record that includes no victories or top fives and seven top 10s in her first 190 starts in NASCAR\u2019s top series.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, she will take with her the memory of a pole position for the 2013 running of the Great American Race and a career-best fourth-place finish in the NASCAR XFINITY Series event at Las Vegas in 2011.<\/p>\n

With her seven top 10s in the Monster Energy Series, Patrick is tied with Janet Guthrie for most ever by a female driver.<\/p>\n

But former Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick reiterated on Tuesday during NASCAR Media Day hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway something he had expressed a few years earlier\u2014that Patrick had begun her career in stock cars at a disadvantage to more experienced drivers and had little prospect of closing the gap.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, this is a conversation that I had with her,\u201d Harvick said. \u201cI had 20 years on her when she started in a stock car. That is experience, and the things that come with that, you are never going to make up that ground. As long as I\u2019m still racing, I\u2019m going to be 20 years ahead regardless. I think it never is going to be easy to go from (IndyCars to NASCAR) if you are going to be at the top level of that sport for a long time because the cars are…<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never driven an IndyCar, but based on everything I\u2019ve heard, the characteristics and how you drive them are 180-degrees different. It has been very hard for a lot of the open-wheel guys to come over here and drive these (3,300-pound) cars. It\u2019s the total opposite of everything they have been taught their whole lives.<\/p>\n

In Harvick\u2019s opinion, the career path a driver chooses at an early age is a good predictor of performance in the respective disciplines.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the kids we have coming up through our ranks now have been in stock cars since they were 12 or 13 years old,\u201d said the 2014 series champion. \u201cIt\u2019s much different. I think you have to pick a path. If you want to race open-wheel cars and do those things, it\u2019s probably going to be carts and into an open wheel series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very few people that have been able to do them both. Tony Stewart and (Juan Pablo) Montoya have done it the best in my opinion. Might be somebody else I am missing. But there have been a lot that have tried.\u201d<\/p>\n

KYLE BUSCH: NO-RIDE-HEIGHT RULE PROMOTES SAFETY AT SUPERSPEEDWAYS<\/b><\/p>\n

Last year, NASCAR mandated post-race ride height measurements only at the superspeedways\u2014Daytona and Talladega.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Kyle Busch. (Photo by Josh Hedges\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year, cars at those two restrictor-plate tracks are also exempt, and that, says Kyle Busch, is a bonus when it comes to the well-being of the drivers.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s going to be better for the safety aspect,\u201d Busch said. \u201cI think, obviously, with all of us trying to get our cars as down and as low as possible that that’s going to be really good for us for lift off speeds and things like that. When the car gets turned around, it’s not going to want to lift as fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of saw that a couple years ago. I think Matt (Kenseth) actually went upside down at Talladega\u2014well, a few guys went upside down, but Matt most notably. When the car turned sideways, it automatically lifted and then it just kind of went over. Now when the car gets sideways and turned, it’s not going to lift because it doesn’t want to rebound. It doesn’t want to be pushed back up because of the soft springs and the ride height rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch isn\u2019t certain how the new rule will affect the handling of the cars on the plate tracks, but he hopes it makes them more difficult to drive.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe hopefully it’ll make the cars drive worse, so then there is some handling that comes into play,\u201d he explained. \u201cI would enjoy that. I would like that, because I think any time you have an opportunity to out setup someone or out handle someone at a racetrack, that’s what creates racing. That’s what makes passing.”<\/p>\n

CRAFTON RETURNS TO HIS ROOTS WITH MANUFACTURER SWITCH<\/b><\/p>\n

In his early days in NASCAR racing, Matt Crafton was a Ford driver.<\/p>\n

In 2000, Crafton won two races and the NASCAR Southwest Series championship driving the No. 46 Ford, the same make and car number his father, Danny Crafton, used in the series.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Matt Crafton (Photo by Bob Leverone\/Getty Images for NASCAR)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When he transitioned to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series a year later, however, Matt Crafton found himself behind the wheel of Duke Thorson\u2019s No. 88 Chevrolet\u2014and he lost a fan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my old Southwest Tour days in 1997, I started racing a Ford out west, and that\u2019s all my dad has ever owned and raced,\u201d Crafton said on NASCAR Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center. \u201cHe always said whenever I first started racing another manufacturer, \u2018I don\u2019t know if I can root for you, because I\u2019ve only driven a Ford and you\u2019ve only driven a Ford.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2012, ThorSport Racing switched to Toyota, and Crafton followed with back-to-back championship seasons in 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n

But to this day, he has never driven a Ford in Truck Series competition\u2014until this year. Crafton found out last week that ThorSport had struck a deal with Ford Performance to run F150s in the series this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo now I\u2019ve got a new fan in my dad,\u201d Crafton quipped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HARVICK SAYS DANICA STARTED STOCK CAR CAREER AT A DISADVANTAGE CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2013 On February 18, in the 2018 Daytona 500, Danica Patrick will drive a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series car for the 191st time. It will also be the last. Last November at Homestead-Miami Speedway, a tearful Patrick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-14459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-3Ld","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/MENCS-TSS-KyBusch1-10132017.jpg?fit=3435%2C2287","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14464,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14459\/revisions\/14464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}