{"id":25215,"date":"2019-04-13T23:57:09","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T04:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=25215"},"modified":"2019-04-14T11:43:05","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T16:43:05","slug":"nascar-saturday-richmond-notebook-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/13\/nascar-saturday-richmond-notebook-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Richmond Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

 <\/p>\n

Kurt Busch takes quantum leap in qualifying in stride<\/b><\/p>\n

RICHMOND, Va. \u2013 You would have thought Kurt Busch would have been elated at his third-place qualifying effort for Saturday\u2019s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway.<\/p>\n

After all, in the previous two races\u2014at Texas and Bristol\u2014Busch had failed to advance past the first round under the knockout format and started those races 30th<\/sup> and 27th<\/sup>, respectively.<\/p>\n

And in the first round of time trials on Friday, the driver of the No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet posted the fastest lap of the day at 125.815 mph before securing the third spot in the final round.<\/p>\n

But was Busch overjoyed at his performance? Not outwardly, at least.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was three good runs,\u201d Busch said matter-of-factly. \u201cThe car had a good bit of rear grip to it, which has been our struggle, so I\u2019m really happy that (Friday\u2019s) practice run and the qualifying runs showed us that the car\u2019s got the grip level. Now we just need to make sure the balance stays with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to be more consistent and not have any weak areas. And I think the changes they made, we\u2019re trying to adjust to the weaker areas. So that should help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch may not know what to do with a start at the front of the field. His average qualifying position this year is 20.1, but he has picked up on average 11.5 spots during the races, heading into Richmond. Busch\u2019s average finish of 8.6 is significantly better than his career average of 16.3.<\/p>\n

GOODYEAR UNVEILS CHARLOTTE SIDEWALL HONORING FALLEN HEROES<\/b><\/p>\n

On Saturday afternoon outside the Richmond Raceway media center, Stu Grant, Goodyear\u2019s general manager of worldwide racing, unveiled a special sidewall all Goodyear tires will display for the Charlotte races on Memorial Day weekend.<\/p>\n

This is the 10th<\/sup> year Goodyear will replace its familiar \u201cEagle\u201d branding with an inscription honoring the United States military and fallen heroes. This year\u2019s tires will display the lettering \u201cHonor and Remember,\u201d a national Virginia-based organization whose mission is to \u201cperpetually recognize the sacrifice of America\u2019s military fallen service members and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGoodyear and the military have always had a strong association,\u201d Grant said. \u201cWe supply ground tires for a lot of military vehicles. We supply aircraft tires to a lot of military aircraft around the world. We\u2019ve got programs to supply this kind of consumer tires to military bases around the world, and we\u2019ve got a corporate initiative to hire veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupporting the military is one thing, but what we want to do is also to support the fallen. That\u2019s why we\u2019re partnering up with Honor and Remember. They\u2019re a terrific organization. They recognize the fallen, but in addition, they recognize the families of the fallen with a positive message.\u201d<\/p>\n

SHORT STROKES<\/b><\/p>\n

Honorary pace car driver Ronde Barber, a Pro Bowl defensive back with the Tampa Bay Bucs, said Friday at Richmond Raceway his identical twin brother and Giants running back could beat him in a foot race. \u201cBack in the day, Tiki was always a little bit faster than me,\u201d Ronde said. \u201cHe\u2019s turned into a marathoner. He\u2019s like Jimmie (Johnson). He runs the New York Marathon. I think he\u2019s going to Paris to run a marathon. So I don\u2019t think that I can outrun him. However, he drives around New York with a bunch of big SUV\u2019s or whatever. I have the sports cars at my house. So I think I\u2019m the better driver.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Eight cars, including those of second-place qualifier Erik Jones and three-time Richmond winner Denny Hamlin, failed post-qualifying inspection on Saturday and had their times disallowed. Joining Jones and Hamlin at the rear of the field were Aric Almirola, Daniel Suarez, Jimmie Johnson, Joey Gase, Chase Elliott and Matt Tifft. The cars of Elliott, Hamlin and Tifft all failed twice, and their teams suffered the additional penalty of the ejection of a crew member from the track. With the demotion of Jones, Kurt Busch earned the outside-front-row starting position next to pole winner Kevin Harvick.<\/p>\n

Ronde Barber – <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   Kurt Busch takes quantum leap in qualifying in stride RICHMOND, Va. \u2013 You would have thought Kurt Busch would have been elated at his third-place qualifying effort for Saturday\u2019s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway. After all, in the previous two races\u2014at Texas and Bristol\u2014Busch had failed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":25241,"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":[16,486],"class_list":["post-25215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-richmond-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/RIR_MENCS_FourWideStart_041319.jpg?fit=2095%2C1395","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6yH","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25215","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=25215"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25264,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25215\/revisions\/25264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}