{"id":26226,"date":"2019-05-27T07:58:46","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T12:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=26226"},"modified":"2019-05-27T08:25:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T13:25:48","slug":"nascar-coca-cola-600-charlotte-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/27\/nascar-coca-cola-600-charlotte-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Coca-Cola 600 Charlotte Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

 <\/p>\n

Does practice make perfect? Daniel Suarez certainly hopes so<\/b><\/p>\n

CONCORD, N.C. \u2013 Daniel Suarez liked his chances in Sunday\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway\u2014and with good reason.<\/p>\n

The driver of the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford was fastest in each of Saturday\u2019s two practice sessions, as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series teams undertook the difficult task of dialing in their cars for NASCAR\u2019s longest race\u2014one that starts in sunshine and ends under the lights.<\/p>\n

Though practice speeds aren\u2019t always indicative of which cars will prevail in race traffic, Suarez found the performance of his Mustang more than encouraging.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say one of the best for sure,\u201d Suarez said of the quality of his car after Saturday\u2019s final practice. \u201cI feel like this year I\u2019ve had some good race cars with an opportunity to finish in the top five and top 10, but I feel like this car has been pretty solid. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fast and it\u2019s not comfortable to drive 100 percent, but I don\u2019t feel like anyone out there is comfortable right now, so it\u2019s been sunny and hot and slick, and that makes things a little bit more difficult. But overall my team has been doing a very good job with Stewart-Haas Racing and Ford Performance. We have a good piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus far, seven drivers have secured their first Cup victories in the Coca-Cola 600: NASCAR Hall of Famers David Pearson, Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte, as well as Matt Kenseth, Austin Dillon, Casey Mears and David Reutimann.<\/p>\n

Suarez has another \u201cfirst\u201d he can accomplish when he wins his first Cup race. No Mexican driver has ever triumphed in NASCAR\u2019s premier series.<\/p>\n

NASCAR HALL OF FAMER WADDELL WILSON GOT AHEAD BY PLAYING IT STRAIGHT<\/b><\/p>\n

For a time, Bill France Jr. thought NASCAR Hall of Fame engine builder and crew chief Waddell Wilson had to be playing outside the rules, as fast as his cars were in the Daytona 500.<\/p>\n

Wilson, on the other hand, had gotten a stern admonition from team owner John Holman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned so much from John Holman,\u201d said Wilson, who was voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Wednesday. \u201cI remember him saying time and time again, he said, \u2018Waddell, if I ever catch you cheating., I\u2019ll fire you.\u2019 And I knew he would.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he taught me that we could win races without it. That\u2019s where Billy France Jr. and I became friends. He thought, when we were coming to Daytona and running as fast as we were, that we were cheating. Finally, he realized we weren\u2019t, and then we became friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Wilson won three championships as an engine builder and three Daytona 500s as a crew chief. Cars with his engines under the hood won 109 races and 123 poles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was fortunate enough to get good drivers because of John Holman,\u201d Wilson said during a question-and-answer session with reporters on Sunday at Charlotte motor Speedway. \u201cHe gave me a job, put me in the engine room, and it went from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been with A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, working with those guys. And then to get this award (the Hall of Fame vote), it\u2019s unbelievable. The drivers and the owners were the ones that got all the credit. We were just doing a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

JEFFREY EARNHARDT\u2019S CAREER-BEST RUN HAS SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

The first top-five finish of Jeffrey Earnhardt\u2019s NASCAR career couldn\u2019t have come at a more opportune time.<\/p>\n

In Saturday\u2019s Alsco 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the hood of Earnhardt\u2019s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota featured a tribute to officer Jordan Sheldon of Mooresville, N.C., who was killed May 4 during a traffic stop.<\/p>\n

Earnhardt hit the outside wall and spun during the final stage of the race but rallied to finish third\u2014his best result in any of NASCAR\u2019s top three national series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt meant a lot to me having Officer Sheldon on the car today,\u201d said Earnhardt, who received medical treatment after the race because of extreme heat inside the car. \u201cHopefully, he\u2019s smiling down on us after that run and us bringing the iK9 Supra home third. I wouldn\u2019t have thought we had a third-place car after practice on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t thank the guys at iK9 and Joe Gibbs Racing enough for letting us run this paint scheme, and just everyone for their support and the respect they\u2019ve shown. It\u2019s amazing how the community came together for him and his family. It\u2019s really touching, and it\u2019s been great to see the respect shown for a man that loved his job and loved keeping our town of Mooresville safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   Does practice make perfect? Daniel Suarez certainly hopes so CONCORD, N.C. \u2013 Daniel Suarez liked his chances in Sunday\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway\u2014and with good reason. The driver of the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford was fastest in each of Saturday\u2019s two practice sessions, as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":26228,"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":[233,245,16],"class_list":["post-26226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-charlotte-motor-speedway","tag-coca-cola-600","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/MENCS_CMS_RaceAction_052619.jpg?fit=3786%2C2524","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6P0","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26226","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=26226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26229,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26226\/revisions\/26229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}