{"id":20806,"date":"2018-07-27T13:25:15","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T18:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=20806"},"modified":"2018-07-29T16:20:19","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T21:20:19","slug":"aric-almirola-ready-for-long-awaited-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/27\/aric-almirola-ready-for-long-awaited-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Aric Almirola: Ready for long-awaited win"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Perhaps it was the angst and palpable disappointment on Aric Almirola\u2019s<\/strong> face and in his voice even following his best outing of the 2018 season last week \u2013 a third place at New Hampshire Motor Speedway \u2013 that so powerfully displayed his competitive spirit.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Aric Almirola, driver of the #10 Smithfield Ford, leads a pack of cars during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 22, 2018 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Photo by Robert Laberge\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The 34-year old had led 42 laps \u2013 the third largest single-day tally out front in his seven-year career \u2013 and yet finished third behind the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series\u2019 championship leaders, Almirola\u2019s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick and Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Kyle Busch.<\/p>\n

After a few days to reflect on the outing, Almirola arrives at Pocono Raceway for Sunday\u2019s Gander Mountain 400 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) never having felt more motivated to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be a contender, we\u2019re going to be tough to beat,\u2019\u2019 Almirola said of his No. 10 Smithfield Ford team. \u201cThat\u2019s what I keep telling everybody. We\u2019re so new and so young. We\u2019re 20 races into working together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re good, we\u2019re not great. We have potential to be great because I don\u2019t feel like we\u2019ve reached our max potential just because everything is so new and we\u2019re still learning each other, learning what I like in the race cars and all of those things.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Almirola, who spent the first six years of his Monster Energy Series career driving the famed No. 43 for Richard Petty Motorsports, understandably feels that this SHR team, in this season, in this stretch, presents the best-case scenario for him to hoist a Cup winner\u2019s trophy again.<\/p>\n

He scored his first career victory in the rain-shortened Coke Zero 400 at Daytona in July of 2014. It earned him a Playoff shot and although he was certainly a fan favorite to advance, he finished 16th among the 16 championship-eligible drivers. His only top-10 in that 10-race playoff run was \u2013 perhaps ironically – a sixth place at New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Far from being disenfranchised, Almirola became even more determined to join the championship elite. His work this season at SHR has already earned the Tampa native a \u201ccareer year.\u2019\u2019 And there are still six races remaining before the playoffs start.<\/p>\n

Almirola has nine top-10s through the opening 20 races and his 113 laps led so far is a career best.  Also very telling, his average finish is an impressive 12.6.  And Almirola sits 11th in the points standings with a sizeable 53-point advantage over 12th<\/sup>-place Jimmie Johnson.<\/p>\n

Almirola, however, clearly doesn\u2019t want to \u201cpoint\u201d his way into the championship mix. He wants to win outright. And for him, that time has been long coming. Last weekend\u2019s near miss only reinforced the feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I have this opportunity here at Stewart-Haas Racing and equipment is not an excuse,\u2019\u2019 Almirola said. \u201cWe have the best of everything. We have everything we need to go out and compete for wins. It\u2019s up to me and my team.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, yeah, I do feel like there is justification running up front and racing with [defending Monster Energy Series champ] Martin Truex Jr., and Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch \u2013 all those guys who run up front on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me feel like I\u2019m capable and I can do it. That does make me feel better. At least I\u2019ll be able to sleep at night knowing that, given the right opportunity, I could perform at that level. Now we\u2019ve just got to figure out how to win.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Pocono\u2019s 2.5-mile \u201cTricky Triangle,” has been a particular upside in Almirola\u2019s season. In five of six starts at tracks two-miles or longer, Almirola has only one finish (accident at Daytona in July) outside the top-12. His seventh-place finish at Pocono in June was his first top-15 there.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the grand possibilities that Almirola expects on the schedule\u2019s \u201csecond visits\u201d that excite and provide promise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like going back to some of these tracks that we\u2019ll now have notes,\u2019\u2019 Almirola said. \u201cA lot of these tracks all year long we\u2019ve shown up kind of blind. We had no real notebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re going back to these races where we have a notebook. WE changed these things in practice, we\u2019ll start already with that in our car. We\u2019ll be able to fine-tune on that and make that better.  We\u2019ve learned what not to do. \u2026 It\u2019s as much learning what to do as what not to do. It\u2019s just building a foundation and a notebook.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Almirola acknowledged that while the expectations are high, so is his learning curve. But the big picture has never looked brighter. His teammate Harvick leads the series with six wins, his teammate Clint Bowyer has two wins and his teammate Kurt Busch is the top-ranked driver without a win. All four SHR cars look poised to make the Playoffs \u2013 and for Almirola that will be a big, BIG deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at the teams that are very successful, the big three (Harvick, Busch and Truex) that everyone talks about, they\u2019ve all been working together for three, four, five, six years now,\u2019\u2019 Almirola said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got a foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what has me excited about my relationship with [crew chief] Johnny Klausmeier, my engineers, this whole 10 team, is that we\u2019re young. We\u2019re all a young group of guys all in our early 30s. We\u2019re learning each other, we\u2019re new. And we\u2019re already starting to compete with these guys, 20 races working together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we have so much potential to continue to get better.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Perhaps it was the angst and palpable disappointment on Aric Almirola\u2019s face and in his voice even following his best outing of the 2018 season last week \u2013 a third place at New Hampshire Motor Speedway \u2013 that so powerfully displayed his competitive spirit. The 34-year old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":20585,"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":[272,16,252],"class_list":["post-20806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-aric-almirola","tag-nascar","tag-pocono-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/356891.jpg?fit=4175%2C2778&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5pA","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20806","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\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20806"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20808,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20806\/revisions\/20808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}