{"id":25824,"date":"2019-05-18T20:25:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-19T01:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=25824"},"modified":"2019-05-19T11:27:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T16:27:49","slug":"nascar-saturday-charlotte-all-star-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/18\/nascar-saturday-charlotte-all-star-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Charlotte All-Star Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

 <\/p>\n

RYAN BLANEY: IT’S JUST A MATTER OF PIECING THINGS TOGETHER<\/b><\/p>\n

CONCORD, N.C. \u2013 Team Penske drivers have won four of the first 12 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points races this season, but Ryan Blaney has yet to share in the spoils of victory.<\/p>\n

Brad Keselowski won for the third time last Saturday at Kansas Speedway, and Joey Logano got his lone victory of the season so far at Las Vegas in early March.<\/p>\n

Blaney\u2019s season, on the other hand, has been one of feast or famine. He scored three of his four top fives in consecutive races\u2014a third at Phoenix, a fifth at Fontana and a fourth at Martinsville\u2014but his best finish in the last four events has been 15th.<\/p>\n

In his last start, at Kansas, Blaney came home a disappointing 32nd at one of his favorite tracks. Nevertheless, Blaney holds the 10th position in the series standings, well inside the cut line for the Playoffs, and his level of confidence remains high despite the inconsistencies of the first third of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cKansas was just a bad weekend for us,\u201d Blaney told reporters on Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. \u201cWe were just off, so that part stinks, but I feel like, obviously, our whole organization is good enough to win races. Brad put on a great show last weekend and was able to win that race, so the speed is still there. It\u2019s just about kind of cleaning things up.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur group is great. Our group is fine, and they do such a great job. Whether it\u2019s the road crew or the over-the-wall guys, they have it all together, and it\u2019s just a matter of everything coming together for you, whether it\u2019s throughout 400 miles, 500 miles or 600 miles. That part I\u2019m not worried about. It\u2019s just a matter of me doing my job and just piecing things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE MIND AND BODY TELL YOU CHARLOTTE IS A 600-MILE RACE<\/b><\/p>\n

Ever since its debut in 1960, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway has been NASCAR\u2019s longest race\u2014and one of its most grueling, taking a heavy toll on drivers and their equipment.<\/p>\n

For drivers whose minds and bodies typically are geared to race at a maximum length of 500 miles, the Coke 600 confronts them with an extraordinary challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re mentally programmed to go 500 miles, so your body kind of knows, when you\u2019ve done this for a long time, it kind of knows that, and it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, what are we doing here?\u2019\u201d said Kevin Harvick, winner of NASCAR\u2019s marathon event in 2011 and 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you mentally have to tell yourself that, really, when you look at the scoreboard and they tell you you\u2019re halfway done, it\u2019s really not that great of a sign, because you know that you have a long ways to go, and you already feel like you\u2019ve gone a long ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for us, it\u2019s a little bit different mental preparation in order to keep yourself from being wore out 400 or 500 miles in and make sure that you\u2019re ready for the last 100 miles that are extra.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvick will try for his third victory in the 600 on Sunday, May 26 (6 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

FOR ROSS CHASTAIN, VICTORY WAS A \u201cWRENCHING\u201d EXPERIENCE<\/b><\/p>\n

In the continuation of a remarkable season with under-funded Niece Motorsports, Ross Chastain scored his eighth top-10 finish in eight NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series races on Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

That 10th-place run, however, paled in comparison with last week\u2019s emotional victory at Kansas Speedway, the first in the series for both Chastain and his team.<\/p>\n

All that was left for Chastain was to find a way to commemorate the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the post-race interview with our crew chief (Phil Gould), he mentioned that he didn\u2019t have a 1\/16 wrench when he started the team,\u201d Chastain said. \u201cI thought it would be good to get him and the general manager (Cody Efaw) two-sets of 1\/16 wrenches, put them in a shadow box and put a plaque with the first win.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are we supposed to expect it until you win and know if you can do it? You have to prove it. We all thought we could, but until you do it, you don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   RYAN BLANEY: IT’S JUST A MATTER OF PIECING THINGS TOGETHER CONCORD, N.C. \u2013 Team Penske drivers have won four of the first 12 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points races this season, but Ryan Blaney has yet to share in the spoils of victory. Brad Keselowski won for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":25827,"comment_status":"closed","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":[233,16],"class_list":["post-25824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-charlotte-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CLT_MENCS_AS_GreenFlag_051819.jpg?fit=4928%2C3280","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6Iw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25824","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=25824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25825,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25824\/revisions\/25825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}