{"id":22612,"date":"2018-11-02T18:56:39","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T23:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=22612"},"modified":"2018-11-02T18:58:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T23:58:44","slug":"nascar-friday-texas-notebook-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/02\/nascar-friday-texas-notebook-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Friday Texas Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Martinsville still hurts, but Truex is maintaining focus at Texas<\/b><\/p>\n

FORT WORTH, Tex. \u2013 Still smarting from the last-lap bump-and-run at Martinsville that cost him a win, Martin Truex Jr.<\/strong> is trying to keep his focus elsewhere as he approaches the second race in the Round of 8 of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Martin Truex Jr., driver of the #78 Bass Pro Shops\/5-hour ENERGY Toyota, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

After clearing Joey Logano off Turn 2 on the final circuit, Truex fell victim to the bumper of the No. 22 Ford in the final turn. Logano took the checkered flag and the automatic berth in the Nov. 18 Championship 4 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the contact rubbed Truex the wrong way. The reigning series champion vowed after the race that Logano would not win the title this year.<\/p>\n

After cooling down for a while, Truex sent Logano a text to let him know what he thought of Logano\u2019s move. Logano responded, but from the sound of it, the animosity wasn\u2019t completely defused.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen things calm down, you think about it a little bit,\u201d Truex said. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect to hear from him, so I wanted to tell him how I felt\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to get his point of view and what he was thinking. What he thought about it. Now I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Truex doesn\u2019t want to think about the incident as he prepares to race in Sunday\u2019s AAA Texas 500 at Texas motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/TMS_MENCS_Truex_110218.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got three races to go,\u201d Truex said after opening practice on Friday. \u201cWe have two important races here where I\u2019m in a position to run for a championship. I\u2019m not going to let what happened last week take my focus off of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s something that stays on the top of your mind. If you get in a certain situation where it would be wise to remember what happened, that\u2019s there. I really haven\u2019t thought past that. I know what\u2019s on the line this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a lot of focus and mental strength to do this job. And to do it at a high level. I\u2019m going to approach this weekend like I do any other.\u201d<\/p>\n

ARIC ALMIROLA BACK IN MUST-WIN SITUATION AT TEXAS<\/b><\/p>\n

Aric Almirola is a poster child for the value of winning stages and races in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series\u2014every time points are reset in the Playoffs, the driver of the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford is back in a hole.<\/p>\n

After advancing through the Round of 16, Almirola won at Talladega to secure a spot in the Round of 8. Having accumulated only six playoff points over the first 32 races, however, he started the Round of 8 in the cellar.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday at Martinsville, Almirola finished a respectable 11th<\/sup>, but he accumulated only one stage point. With Joey Logano winning the race and advancing to the Championship 4, Almirola enters Sunday\u2019s AAA Texas 500 (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) 50 points below the current cut line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the situation we were in going into the playoffs that the only round where we could make it through on points was the first round,\u201d Almirola said before Friday\u2019s opening practice at Texas Motor Speedway. \u201cOnce we got through the first round, at that point, we were far enough behind on bonus points that we were going to need to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t count on that many people in front of you on points having worse weekends than you. There\u2019s a reason that the guys are who they are. The top eight or top 12\u2014it\u2019s because they always run in the top-10. They are the same people challenging to win races. You can\u2019t bank on just out-pointing them. We\u2019re in a similar situation where we\u2019re showing up here and we are like 50 points out. You aren\u2019t going to make that up in two weeks. It is pretty plain and simple for us. We have to go win.\u201d<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/TMS_MENCS_Almirola_110218.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

CHRISTOPHER BELL TRYING TO LOOK AHEAD AFTER KANSAS FIASCO<\/b><\/p>\n

Christopher Bell got a jarring wake-up call two weeks ago at Kansas Speedway.<\/p>\n

On the first lap of the opening race in the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, a slip in Turn 2 by fellow playoff driver Justin Allgaier knocked Bell out of the race. Gone in an instant was the security blanket Bell had accumulated with six wins in the series this season.<\/p>\n

Instead of leading the standings, Bell fell to fourth with his 37th<\/sup>-place finish. Facing a cutoff race Nov. 10 at Phoenix, Bell has a razor-thin one-point margin over fifth-place Matt Tifft entering Saturday\u2019s O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway (4:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NSCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be honest, the days after Kansas I started to get pretty apprehensive just because nobody expected that, and it\u2019s just kind of a wakeup call, right?\u201d Bell said of the Kansas wreck. \u201cThat could have happened on a green-white-checkered restart and the outcome, hopefully I would have gained stage points, but the outcome would have been really similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can happen at any time and it\u2019s very easy to do. I started getting apprehensive thinking about that and just talked to some of my mentors, and they gave me really good advice. They just said, \u2018You can\u2019t worry about that; the only thing you can do is control what you can control.\u2019 If we can go out here and perform like we know we\u2019re capable of and like we should, then we\u2019ll be in really good shape, but if it\u2019s not meant to be, it\u2019s not meant to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just going to go out here and enjoy driving race cars. We have three really fun races left, so I\u2019m excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Martinsville still hurts, but Truex is maintaining focus at Texas FORT WORTH, Tex. \u2013 Still smarting from the last-lap bump-and-run at Martinsville that cost him a win, Martin Truex Jr. is trying to keep his focus elsewhere as he approaches the second race in the Round of 8 of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":22617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[11],"tags":[366,16,21],"class_list":["post-22612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-aaa-texas-500","tag-nascar","tag-texas-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/775251032_JC_4663_A177AD2553E3335E07A8F1604F785E6B.jpg?fit=3966%2C2640","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5SI","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22612","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\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22612"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22619,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22612\/revisions\/22619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}