{"id":20519,"date":"2018-07-21T15:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-07-21T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=20519"},"modified":"2018-07-22T15:25:25","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T20:25:25","slug":"nascar-saturday-new-hampshire-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/21\/nascar-saturday-new-hampshire-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday New Hampshire Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Pole winner Kurt Busch expects performance pickup in season\u2019s second half<\/b><\/p>\n

LOUDON, N.H. \u2013 As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season moves into its second half, Kurt Busch hopes to build on the notebook he and crew chief Billy Scott have been building during their initial visits to the Cup tracks.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kurt Busch, driver of the #41 Monster Energy\/Haas Automation Ford, poses with the Busch Pole Award after posting the fastest lap during qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 20, 2018 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Scott worked with Danica Patrick on the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford last year but moved to Busch\u2019s No. 41 when Patrick departed at the end of the season. He and Busch have spent the first half of 2018 getting to know each other\u2019s nuances and idiosyncrasies, a process of acclimation Busch expects to bear fruit as the Playoffs approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely what we need timeline-wise on going back to tracks to capitalize on the upgrade, so to speak, on the notebook and on the things we keep track of during the race,\u201d Busch said on Friday, after winning the pole for Sunday\u2019s Foxwoods 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (1 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was with the 10 car last year, I was on the 41, and when you look at notebooks, it\u2019s different with the human experience in it. Now the two of us have been through half of the season. We\u2019ve got a great lead engineer with Will (Lee), a great car chief, great tire guy. Everybody is now meshing and jelling at the best level that we can get, and now we go back to these tracks and capitalize on little things we saw we left out from the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kurt Busch (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The winner of three poles this season, Busch has yet to sign a contract extension with SHR.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, I\u2019ve just been racing, driving, performing and doing all the things that I can do to exceed in all categories,\u201d Busch said. \u201cAnd so, whether it\u2019s teammate things, things on the track with performance, communication with Billy Scott, and then I don\u2019t know many drivers that have a primary sponsor with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonster Energy has been very loyal to me, and that\u2019s what they\u2019ve told me, so it\u2019s just a matter of when the time is to start talking about contract. Last year, it went long just because I felt like I deserved more, but the landscape is changing in NASCAR on primary sponsorship values, teams with the purse and the guarantee that they get off the historical performance. There are a lot of things that move, so we\u2019ll see how it all comes together.\u201d<\/p>\n

MICHAEL MCDOWELL GOES TO BACKUP CAR AFTER CRASH IN PRACTICE<\/b><\/p>\n

Happy Hour was not a joyous occasion for Ford driver Michael McDowell, who crashed hard into the outside wall at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after running seven laps in Saturday\u2019s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really sure what happened,\u201d McDowell said after the wreck. \u201cI got on the brakes and immediately the car started to turn around, so it definitely caught me off guard\u2014whatever it was\u2014and at that point, I was kind of just along for the ride. There wasn\u2019t any indication that something was going wrong other, than when it was already too late. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll go back and look and see if we can\u2019t get a better shot of it. It kind of felt like a left-rear tire went down to me, but it\u2019s really hard to tell. There\u2019s not a whole lot left of the race car to go through and see what happened first, but either way we\u2019ll roll out a back-up and be ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDowell was surprised by the severity of the blow he took when he hit the wall with the driver\u2019s-side door, after the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford spun.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was harder than I anticipated,\u201d McDowell acknowledged. \u201cYou\u2019re at a short track. You\u2019re at a flat mile race track. We know we\u2019re going fast, but you don\u2019t really think you\u2019re going to\u2026 I felt like I hit at a mile-and-a-half or something like that, probably because it was driver\u2019s side. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve done that, but it\u2019s never the hit you want to have.  <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just shows how great our cars are built and what a tremendous job NASCAR and all the teams have done to make it safe, because, driver\u2019s side, you didn\u2019t used to just get out and walk away from that easy. It\u2019s a hard hit. It hurts a little bit, but everything is good. I got checked out, and we\u2019ll be ready to go tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

With the prospect of rain on Sunday morning and scattered storms in the afternoon, NASCAR will start the Foxwoods 301 one hour earlier than originally scheduled to expand the window for the completion of the race. The new start time is 1 p.m., with coverage from NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio\u2026<\/p>\n

Three-time New Hampshire winner Denny Hamlin topped the speed chart in Saturday morning\u2019s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice session with a lap at 132.942 mph. Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, and Kyle Busch\u2014the three drivers who have combined for 14 wins in 19 races this season, were 1-2-3, respectively, in final practice, with Truex posting a lap at 131.624 mph. Harvick had the best 10-consecutive-lap average (130.904 mph).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Pole winner Kurt Busch expects performance pickup in season\u2019s second half LOUDON, N.H. \u2013 As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season moves into its second half, Kurt Busch hopes to build on the notebook he and crew chief Billy Scott have been building during their initial visits to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10942,"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":[16,466],"class_list":["post-20519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-new-hampshire-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/DIS_MENCS_KurtBusch_062917.jpg?fit=3424%2C2143&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5kX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20519","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=20519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20521,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20519\/revisions\/20521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}