{"id":23601,"date":"2019-02-22T13:55:39","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T19:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23601"},"modified":"2019-02-23T10:38:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T16:38:45","slug":"michael-annetts-watershed-moment-came-long-before-first-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/michael-annetts-watershed-moment-came-long-before-first-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Annett\u2019s watershed moment came long before first victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

HAMPTON, Ga. \u2013 To Michael Annett<\/strong>, the criticism was justified.<\/p>\n

He was the anchor on the JR Motorsports roster, and not in a positive sense. While a succession of teammates won races and contended for championships, Annett was winless in two full seasons with the team, posting just one top-five finish (a second at Road America) in 66 starts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Michael Annett, driver of the #1 Pilot Flying J\/American Heart Association Chevrolet, poses with te winner’s sticker in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series NASCAR Racing Experience 300 at Daytona International Speedway on February 16, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Annett got a regular roasting on social media for his lack of performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe results weren\u2019t there, honestly,\u201d Annett said during a question-and-answer session on Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, host track for Saturday\u2019s Rinnai 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series race (2 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). In really good equipment, just sitting there watching Justin (Allgaier) win five races last year\u2014all my teammates the last two years being up front and contending for wins\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we just weren\u2019t. It was simple to say that I deserved everything\u2014maybe not as harsh as some people could be. They could have been a little more supportive, but it\u2019s just the nature of our sport, and that\u2019s what we signed up for.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was particularly uncomfortable for Annett to attend JRM\u2019s end-of-year championship lunch with a resume bare of notable achievements.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Michael Annett, driver of the #1 Pilot Flying J\/American Heart Association Chevrolet, crosses the finish line to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series NASCAR Racing Experience 300 at Daytona International Speedway on February 16, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t toasting anything I accomplished,\u201d he said. \u201cNot only that championship lunch, but we have quarterly lunches where we go over the stats of all the teams. There was nothing that I was really proud of that they could announce.\u201d<\/p>\n

That all changed last Saturday, when Annett took the No. 5 JRM Chevrolet to Victory Lane at Daytona International Speedway, where he claimed his first trophy in his 230th<\/sup> career Xfinity start and earned a trip to the Playoffs in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo finally get that monkey off the back\u2014you could see the look on my guys\u2019 faces,\u201d Annett said. \u201cI think the hardest thing was looking around on those days, knowing they\u2019re working just as hard or harder than the guys on the setup plate next to us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t have any \u2018win\u2019 stickers on their boxes. They didn\u2019t have a banner with their picture on it hanging above the shop. It was just so cool to give that back to those guys. They\u2019ve deserved it for such a long time, and they\u2019ve stuck with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Michael Annett, driver of the #1 Pilot Flying J\/American Heart Association Chevrolet, celebrates after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series NASCAR Racing Experience 300 at Daytona International Speedway on February 16, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Much has been made of the dramatic change in the level of commitment and dedication Annett has shown during the offseason, but the driver said the moment of truth and self-examination came much earlier, when he failed to make the Xfinity Playoffs. Right up until the September cutoff race at Las Vegas, Annett expected to be competing for the series title.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started right after Vegas, when we didn\u2019t make the Playoffs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe kept thinking, \u2018We\u2019re going to turn this around, we\u2019re going to get on a roll here, get those points, get ourselves into the Playoffs. When that checkered flag dropped and we weren\u2019t in, it was like, \u2018We\u2019re going to do everything we possibly can to make sure this never happens again, we don\u2019t have this feeling again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed in myself that it takes a moment like that to get your head screwed on right, but it did happen, and it could have gone a bunch of different ways. It definitely went toward the positive and put us where we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HAMPTON, Ga. \u2013 To Michael Annett, the criticism was justified. He was the anchor on the JR Motorsports roster, and not in a positive sense. While a succession of teammates won races and contended for championships, Annett was winless in two full seasons with the team, posting just one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23419,"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":[52,683,16],"class_list":["post-23601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-atlanta-motor-speedway","tag-michael-annett","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/NXS_DIS1_WinnerSticker_021619.jpg?fit=4089%2C2726","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-68F","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601","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=23601"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23603,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601\/revisions\/23603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}