{"id":19830,"date":"2018-06-30T18:25:51","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T23:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=19830"},"modified":"2018-06-30T18:25:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T23:25:51","slug":"nascar-saturday-chicagoland-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/30\/nascar-saturday-chicagoland-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Chicagoland Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champ is fond of bumpy Chicagoland<\/b><\/p>\n

JOLIET, Ill. \u2013 Bring on the bumps.<\/p>\n

Reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup<\/a> champion Martin Truex Jr.<\/strong> says the bumps in the asphalt at Chicagoland Speedway<\/strong> make driving more difficult\u2014and for Truex, that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shots from Justin Hailey\u2019s visor cam in Friday night\u2019s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at the 1.5-mile track showed just how rough a ride the Cup drivers will get in Sunday\u2019s Overton\u2019s 400 (at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But in Truex\u2019s view, difficult conditions help elevate the quality of the on-track product.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s great,\u201d Truex said before Saturday morning\u2019s opening practice at Chicagoland. \u201cAnytime we can make the track more difficult, it can add to the racing. This place has been bumpy for the last few years and quite a long time. It seems like every year it gets worse. I think that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy this place because of that and seems like bumpy tracks put on really good racing. It kind of takes you out of your normal routine as far as the way you do things. You have to make compromises. Some guys are better in certain areas of the track, and that makes for more fun races. This place is unbelievable, and I look forward to racing on it here this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

There may be a modicum of bias in Truex\u2019s point of view. After all, he\u2019s the winner of the last two races at the Joliet track. But Truex also acknowledges that the bumpy asphalt demands modifications to the setup of his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota Camry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely changes how you practice and how you drive,\u201d said Truex, who celebrated his 38th birthday on Friday. \u201cChanges how you set the car up, and you definitely have to make more compromises when the tracks are bumpy with your setup, and you can\u2019t just run the car a 16th of an inch off the race track all the way around like you do at some places.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s definitely tougher to figure out, but it\u2019s a lot harder on the crew chiefs and engineers, for sure, because we complain about the bumps, and they try to fix them (with setup), and it hurts other parts of the track. So a lot of compromise here compared to other places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin Truex Jr. Interview:<\/strong><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CLS_MENCS_TruexJr_063018.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

DANIEL SUAREZ IS CONFIDENT HE CAN QUALIFY FOR THE PLAYOFFS<\/b><\/p>\n

Entering Sunday\u2019s Overton\u2019s 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, the 17th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the 2018 season, Daniel Su\u00e1rez is 19th in the standings.<\/p>\n

Nearly halfway through his sophomore season at NASCAR\u2019s highest level, Su\u00e1rez is still looking for his first victory. The best career results for the 26-year-old from Mexico are two third-place finishes, at Watkins Glen in 2017 and at Dover this year.<\/p>\n

But one thing Su\u00e1rez doesn\u2019t lack is confidence, and on Saturday morning at Chicagoland Speedway, he called his own shot where the Cup Series Playoffs are concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really know (how), but we\u2019re going to make it,\u201d Su\u00e1rez asserted. \u201cI will tell you that. Somehow, we are going to work very hard like we\u2019ve been doing. It\u2019s a real shame that we haven\u2019t showed the results we deserve, because the speed has been there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have shown the ability to finish in the top-10 every race. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know what I am doing wrong. Maybe some of my stuff, it needs a little bit of luck, but I don\u2019t believe in luck 100 percent. We\u2019re going to be fine. Maybe in a month, we\u2019re going to be in a different position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Su\u00e1rez can make the final 16 either with a victory or on points. As it stands now, with Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon 18th in points, Su\u00e1rez would have to overtake 15th-place Alex Bowman to qualify for the Playoffs.<\/p>\n

Though Su\u00e1rez trails Bowman by 73 points, he doesn\u2019t view that deficit as insurmountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy points is very doable,\u201d Su\u00e1rez said. \u201cI think if we have the speed to go out there and win a race, we will take that chance. But if we don\u2019t and have to finish top-five or top-10, we\u2019re going to be consistent and play that way, winning the stage points and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean 70 points in 10 races is not a lot. It\u2019s doable, but you have to race smart, and a lot of people freak out a little bit. I am not one of those. I have to stay calm. We will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel Suarez Interview:<\/strong><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/CLS_MENCS_Suarez_063018_01.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

NASCAR WHELEN EURO AND PINTY\u2019S SERIES TO STAGE UNPRECEDENTED DRIVER SWAP<\/b><\/p>\n

For the first time in NASCAR history, two international series\u2014the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series and the NASCAR Pinty\u2019s Series run in Canada\u2014will engineer an exchange of one driver from each series to compete in the championship race in the other\u2019s series later this year.<\/p>\n

A driver from the Whelen Euro Series will race in the August 10-12 Grand Prix de Trois Rivieres (GP3R). The European driver will be the regular season winner of the Whelen Euro Elite 1 Championship, to be determined after Sunday\u2019s Oval World Challenge in Tours, France.<\/p>\n

That driver will compete for the Dumoulin Competition race team in a Spectra Premium team car on the Canadian GP3R street course.<\/p>\n

In the October 19-21 Whelen Euro season finale at Zolder in Belgium, Canadian driver and Spectra Premium ambassador Jean-Francois Dumoulin will complete the driver swap.<\/p>\n

Spectra Premium Industries, which has developed high-performance radiators for several stock car series and recently introduced its parts into the European market, made the exchange possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champ is fond of bumpy Chicagoland JOLIET, Ill. \u2013 Bring on the bumps. Reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. says the bumps in the asphalt at Chicagoland Speedway make driving more difficult\u2014and for Truex, that\u2019s a good thing.   Shots from Justin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19835,"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":[488,16],"class_list":["post-19830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-chicagoland-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/356478.jpg?fit=4306%2C2866&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-59Q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19836,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830\/revisions\/19836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}