{"id":22347,"date":"2018-10-13T15:50:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-13T20:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=22347"},"modified":"2018-10-14T14:37:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T19:37:38","slug":"nascar-saturday-talladega-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/13\/nascar-saturday-talladega-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Talladega Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Aric Almirola has put Dover disappointment behind him<\/b><\/p>\n

TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 \u201cDover\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took Aric Almirola<\/strong> a full day of reflection to be able to say those words, after a promising race at Dover International Speedway<\/strong> ended in disaster.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Aric Almirola, driver of the #10 Smithfield Bacon for Life Ford, practices for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on October 13, 2018 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Almirola led 64 laps overall and appeared headed for his first victory of the season last Sunday when a front suspension failure sent Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Clint Bowyer into the outside wall between Turns 3 and 4 at the Monster Mile.<\/p>\n

Taking four tires under the resulting caution, Almirola dropped from the lead to sixth for a restart with four laps left in regulation. Trying to hustle his No. 10 Ford through the first two corners, he clipped the outside wall near the exit from Turn 2 and triggered a five-car wreck that damaged the cars of four other Playoff contenders.<\/p>\n

Instead of winning the race, Almirola finished 13th<\/sup> as Chase Elliott took the checkered flag in overtime and earned automatic advancement to the Round of 8. Almirola dropped to ninth in the Playoff standings, tied with Bowyer, and comes to Sunday\u2019s 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) needing to make up ground.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday night was difficult Almirola, because Dover wasn\u2019t the first victory that has slipped from his grasp this season. He also had winning chances at New Hampshire and Chicagoland but failed to close the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like, obviously, Sunday night was rough\u2026 pretty frustrated and just a bunch of emotions all at once, just because you feel like you\u2019re so close, and the same thing at Loudon, so close, and Chicago, so close, and having a fast car and not getting to Victory Lane and wanting it so bad,\u201d Almirola said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the worst part is like when you go into it with low expectations and you\u2019re not a dominant car and then, all of a sudden, you pop up and you\u2019re running up front and it gets taken away you\u2019re like, \u2018Yeah, well, shoot, we could have won that one.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cBut when you\u2019re like the dominant car, and you\u2019re leading laps and you\u2019re running up front, and you really feel like you\u2019ve got a shot to win and it gets taken away, there\u2019s a lot of emotions that go through that, and just frustrated and mad and sad and angry and all of those things all at the same time. I was upset Sunday night, some of Monday and by midday Monday, I was already focused on Talladega.\u201d <\/p>\n

A visit to the race shop was all it took to shift Almirola\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d already been on the phone several times with Johnny (Klausmeier), my crew chief, and Tuesday morning got up and was at the shop bright and early and seeing the guys,\u201d Almirola said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd once you see the guys and see that everybody else is over it, and they\u2019re already working on Talladega cars, Dover\u2019s over and everybody is focused on making sure our Talladega car is prepared and ready and fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

ALEX BOWMAN LOOKING FORWARD TO CHANGES AT HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS<\/b><\/p>\n

Though his No. 88 Chevrolet team will be largely unaffected by the upcoming personnel changes at Hendrick Motorsports announced Wednesday, he does think the moves will bring a new dynamic to the organization.<\/p>\n

The major news from Hendrick was the impending breakup of the driver Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, who have accumulated a record-tying seven Monster Energy Cup Series championship in 17 seasons together.<\/p>\n

Knaus will move to the No. 24 Chevy of William Byron, while Kevin Meendering will move from JR Motorsports and the NASCAR Xfinity Series to call the shots from Johnson\u2019s pit box. Byron\u2019s current crew chief, Darian Grubb, will take an executive role as technical director.<\/p>\n

But will those changes have a noticeable effect on Bowman\u2019s No. 88 team?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say a little bit, in that Darian is moving to a different position and Kevin is coming on board,\u201d Bowman told the NASCAR Wire Service on Saturday morning at Talladega. \u201cI know Kevin a little bit from when I was at JR Motorsports, and just kind of working closer with him will be neat. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe four of us work pretty closely together, the four teams do. Some new faces or a new face there, Chad moving over to a different car and all that. It will be a little different, but not really much different.  It won\u2019t affect the No. 88 team. All our people are going to stay the same and all that. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s an interesting move, for sure. I\u2019m excited to see how it plays out. I\u2019m excited for Jimmie and for William and for Chad and everybody involved. It\u2019s going to be pretty cool to watch.\u201d<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Talladega2_MENCS_ABowman_101318.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

MARTIN TRUEX JR. EYES BACK-TO-BACK CUP SERIES TITLES<\/b><\/p>\n

Other than Jimmie Johnson\u2019s record streak of five straight Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championships from 2006 through 2010, no other driver has won back-to-back titles since Jeff Gordon accomplished the feat in 1997-1998.<\/p>\n

But reigning series champion Martin Truex Jr. believes he has an excellent chance to repeat in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, that\u2019s our goal right now, and it\u2019s going to be a challenge,\u201d Truex said. \u201cI think we\u2019re up to it. I feel like we\u2019re as good or better than we were last year, and we\u2019ll just have to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many things that have to go your way. If we can just shake the bad luck and shake the fact that we seem to get in bad positions here lately, we\u2019ll have a shot at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A good first step would involving finishing Sunday\u2019s 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, where Truex\u2019s last four starts have ended early\u2014the result of an engine failure and three wrecks.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Talladega2_MENCS_MTruexJr_101318.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Aric Almirola has put Dover disappointment behind him TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 \u201cDover\u2019s over.\u201d It took Aric Almirola a full day of reflection to be able to say those words, after a promising race at Dover International Speedway ended in disaster. Almirola led 64 laps overall and appeared headed for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":22348,"comment_status":"open","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":[16,208],"class_list":["post-22347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-talladega-superspeedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/358182.jpg?fit=3747%2C2494&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5Or","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22347","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=22347"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22354,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22347\/revisions\/22354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}