{"id":24071,"date":"2019-03-10T21:37:11","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T02:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=24071"},"modified":"2019-03-10T21:38:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T02:38:22","slug":"sunday-phoenix-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/10\/sunday-phoenix-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Phoenix Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

 <\/p>\n

Ryan Blaney overcomes extra pit stop to run third at Phoenix<\/b><\/p>\n

AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2013 For the third straight Sunday, Ryan Blaney had a negative that counteracted a positive\u2014a pit road miscue that hampered a fast race car.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 MoneyLion Ford, and Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 Hooters Chevrolet, take the green flag to start the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway on March 10, 2019 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Daniel Shirey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

In Sunday\u2019s TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway\u2014unlike the previous two races at Atlanta and Las Vegas\u2014the pit snafu didn\u2019t turn a contending car into a 22nd place also-ran.<\/p>\n

Blaney started from the pole in Sunday\u2019s race, led 94 laps and won the first stage. But on Lap 196, under the sixth caution of the afternoon, Blaney\u2019s crew failed to tighten all the lug nuts on his No. 12 Team Penske Ford.<\/p>\n

Blaney returned to pit road a lap later to correct the problem and restarted 18th on Lap 201. He regained track position with a two-tire stop on Lap 221 and restarted fifth on Lap 226 uncertain whether he could make it to the finish on fuel.<\/p>\n

On Lap 252, after two more cautions, Blaney passed Aric Almirola around the outside for the lead and held it until Kyle Busch\u2014who had taken four tires\u2014took over the top spot on Lap 296. Trying to save fuel in the late going, Blaney surrendered second place to Martin Truex Jr. on Lap 308 of 312 and held on to finish third, his best result of the season so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were on two tires and I just held on,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cActually, ours held on a lot better than what I thought it was going to, but then when it got to 30 to go or 25 to go, I got kind of tight, and I couldn\u2019t hit (Turns) 3 and 4 anymore, and then I ran up on lapped traffic, and it absolutely killed me.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we got passed, we were kind of close on gas, so it was full fuel-save mode when you know you\u2019re not going to win the race. It was a good call to take two tires. I don\u2019t think we would have got to third on four because it was hard to pass out there. I\u2019m proud of this team. We needed that. That\u2019s where we\u2019ve been running all year\u2014it just hasn\u2019t been where we\u2019ve been finishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Jimmy John’s Ford, leads a pack of cars during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway on March 10, 2019 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Matt Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

AFTER NINTH-PLACE RUN, KEVIN HARVICK HAS WORK TO DO AT BEST TRACK<\/b><\/p>\n

Kevin Harvick, the dominant driver at ISM Raceway with nine Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victories at the one-mile track, didn\u2019t lead a lap in Sunday\u2019s TicketGuardian 500.<\/p>\n

In fact, Harvick never ran higher than third in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, and after he was shuffled back on consecutive restarts on Laps 226 and 233, crew chief Rodney Childers opted to pit Harvick for four tires and fuel under yellow on Lap 234.<\/p>\n

Harvick restarted 21st on Lap 239 and drove to a ninth-place finish as the race ran green the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us I don\u2019t even know how long to get past cars that were six, seven, eight-tenths slower than us at the end of the race, so just extremely difficult to pass,\u201d Harvick said. \u201cWe got shuffled there on the restarts and just decided to come down and get tires and see if we could do something better than being in the middle on two tires, and it took us a long time to get back going.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the ninth-place run, Harvick fell one spot to third in the series standings, nine points behind race winner and series leader Kyle Busch and three behind second-place joey Logano, who finished 10th on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Freight Toyota, leads Martin Truex Jr., driver of the #19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway on March 10, 2019 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Matt Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

DENNY HAMLIN CONTINUES SOLID START WITH FIFTH AT ISM RACEWAY<\/b><\/p>\n

Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin started third in Sunday\u2019s TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway. But, unlike Joe Gibbs Racings teammates Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr., who finished first and second, Hamlin had difficulty holding his track position.<\/p>\n

The driver of the No. 11 Toyota was ninth for the final restart on Lap 239 of 312, and he charged to fifth at the finish, giving JGR three of the top five positions. Nevertheless, Hamlin was far from satisfied with his second top five and third top 10 of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Camry was fast,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cWe just got set back by some track position stuff\u2013a little bit in the pits again. Just had a couple of bad restarts. We started (ninth) and drove up to fifth. Super-fast Camry. We should have been right there where my teammates were. We just didn\u2019t keep the track position quite as good as they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrustrating. Trying to get track position when you have a fast car. You just can\u2019t drive through the field. You have to be patient and wait on everyone to kind of mess up or you\u2019ve got try to run a different line, but when you do it\u2019s just too much distance. Just the frustration of having a faster car, and you can\u2019t pass.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   Ryan Blaney overcomes extra pit stop to run third at Phoenix AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2013 For the third straight Sunday, Ryan Blaney had a negative that counteracted a positive\u2014a pit road miscue that hampered a fast race car. In Sunday\u2019s TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway\u2014unlike the previous two races […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24075,"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":[561,16],"class_list":["post-24071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-ism-raceway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/MENCS_HarvickStage2_031019.jpg?fit=1024%2C751&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6gf","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071","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=24071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24077,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071\/revisions\/24077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}