{"id":15830,"date":"2018-04-06T13:30:32","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T18:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=15830"},"modified":"2018-04-06T19:10:37","modified_gmt":"2018-04-07T00:10:37","slug":"sadler-looking-forward-to-championship-run-xfinity-dash-4-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/06\/sadler-looking-forward-to-championship-run-xfinity-dash-4-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"Sadler looking forward to championship run, XFINITY Dash 4 Cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 Xfinity Series championship leader Elliott Sadler<\/strong> joked several times during Friday\u2019s press conference that he was just glad to come into the Texas Motor Speedway<\/a> media center and speak formally with the gathered NASCAR<\/a> press \u2013 an opportunity he has looked forward to as the championship points leader.<\/p>\n

\"\"

NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Elliott Sadler. Photo by Michael C. Johnson<\/p><\/div>\n

Sadler joined fellow Xfinity racers Christopher Bell, Justin Allgaier and Garrett Smithley, a 26-year old Georgia native, who proudly noted that Friday\u2019s presser was the first ever in his Xfinity career.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty cool,\u2019\u2019 Smithley said smiling. \u201cI\u2019ll be a big dork. I\u2019ve been kind of obsessed watching media center footage, so this is pretty cool.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Smithley earned a career-best fifth-place finish in February\u2019s Xfinity Series opener at Daytona International Speedway \u2013 his first top-five finish in three full-time seasons on the circuit. It was a promising outcome for his No. 0 Chevrolet, which debuts sponsorship from FAME\/fame-usa.com this weekend \u2013 and one he hopes his team will continue to build off.<\/p>\n

This weekend is a chance to make a name and to earn money as part of the series\u2019 Dash 4 Cash program, which debuts next weekend at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. A good showing would be hugely significant for Smithley and his team. Of course, the entire Xfinity Series field would echo the sentiment.<\/p>\n

The top-four finishing Xfinity Series regulars from Saturday\u2019s \u201cMy Bariatric Solutions 300\u201d race (3 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the 1.5-mile Texas high banks will qualify to compete in the first round of the popular Dash 4 Cash program next week at Bristol.<\/p>\n

The top finisher of the four qualified drivers at Bristol will receive a $100,000 prize. And the top four Xfinity Series regular finishers at Bristol will be eligible for the next Dash 4 Cash race at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. The program continues at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and Dover [Del.] International Speedway as well, with $100,000 on the line at each venue.<\/p>\n

It was certainly top of the mind for Sadler and the rest of his competitors Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking forward to the Dash 4 Cash and we\u2019ll try to qualify this week to be ready for next week,\u2019\u2019 Sadler said.<\/p>\n

His JR Motorsports teammate \u2013 and fellow championship challenger Justin Allgaier echoed the gratitude for the incentive program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Dash 4 Cash program having it back again, is something for us, it means a lot not only to the drivers but the teams,\u2019\u2019 Allgaier said. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to it. I think it\u2019s going to be a lot of fun. I like the format this go-round. Hopefully we can put ourselves in position. Bristol is a good race track for us.\u2018\u2019<\/p>\n

The teams return to competition this weekend after a two-week break. Sadler \u2013 a 2004 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race winner at Texas Motor Speedway \u2013 leads the Xfinity Series standings by four points over his JR Motorsports teammate, Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender Tyler Reddick.<\/p>\n

Sadler pointed out to media Friday that he was the first driver to ever wheel a race car on the track back in 1997 soon after its construction was finished, but prior to the inaugural April race. And he won here in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series in 2004 \u2013 in the closest margin of victory to date at the Fort Worth track; 0.028-seconds over Kasey Kahne.<\/p>\n

He does not have a victory at Texas among his 13 Xfinity Series wins, however, he has nine consecutive top-11 finishes here in the last nine races. He\u2019s finished worse than 13th only three times in 20 Xfinity Series starts at Texas and was fourth in the November race here last year. It all bodes well for him as he sets the pace atop the championship standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re off to a good start and have some momentum on our side,\u2019\u2019 Sadler said. \u201cWe want to keep building on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned as a driver, because I\u2019m 42 not 24 years old \u2013 it\u2019s all about [the season finale at] Homestead [Fla.], so yes, we\u2019re off to a good start but we\u2019ll keep building on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep our emotions level and plug it in the right direction. We look at this race a little differently because it\u2019s the playoffs when we come back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 Xfinity Series championship leader Elliott Sadler joked several times during Friday\u2019s press conference that he was just glad to come into the Texas Motor Speedway media center and speak formally with the gathered NASCAR press \u2013 an opportunity he has looked forward to as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15876,"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_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":[529,575,16,181,21],"class_list":["post-15830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-elliott-sadler","tag-my-bariatric-solutions-300","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-texas-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ElliottSadler.jpeg?fit=1280%2C853","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-47k","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15830","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=15830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15877,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15830\/revisions\/15877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}