{"id":25362,"date":"2019-04-26T17:30:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T22:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=25362"},"modified":"2019-04-28T11:57:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T16:57:52","slug":"nascar-friday-talladega-notebook-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/26\/nascar-friday-talladega-notebook-3\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Friday Talladega Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

 <\/p>\n

Rule change doesn\u2019t throw Brad Keselowski for a loop<\/b><\/p>\n

TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 After Kurt Busch topped the speed chart at 202.671 mph in opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Talladega Superspeedway, and 21 drivers exceeded the 200-mph mark, NASCAR added a one-inch wicker to the nine-inch-tall spoiler and gave teams the option of changing gears to lower engine rpms.<\/p>\n

So what happened? With cars drafting in larger packs, Ryan Newman paced second practice at 204.157 mph, and 24 drivers topped 200 mph.<\/p>\n

Between the practice sessions, Brad Keselowski didn\u2019t seem taken aback by the rule changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think pretty much everyone coming here thought there was a large potential for an audible along the way,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201cI\u2019m not frustrated. I\u2019m just focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the taller spoiler, the cars punch a bigger hole in the air, giving Keselowski an idea of what Sunday\u2019s GEICO 500 (2 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) might look like.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot like a truck race, just 500 miles,\u201d he quipped. \u201cPerhaps a little more attrition.\u201d<\/p>\n

RYAN BLANEY SAYS BLOCKING MAY BE A BIT MORE CHALLENGING<\/b><\/p>\n

To Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney, Friday\u2019s practice at Talladega was both productive and enjoyable, as drivers acclimated to the characteristics of the new superspeedway competition package.<\/p>\n

The immediate first impression was that the closing rate was substantially faster than it had been in recent years. That could present a problem on Sunday when a race leader attempts to block runs from competing lanes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get bigger runs on people, way bigger than last year, way bigger than Daytona this year\u201d Blaney said. \u201cThere\u2019s really no more of that air bubble. It\u2019s very small. But you can get huge runs on people. As the leader, we played around a little bit with it in our drafting practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have that beachball effect to where it stalls them out or pushes you away. They just keep coming at you because they\u2019re picking up so much mile-an-hour. You\u2019re going to see some blocks that people would make before this race\u2026 and they\u2019re not going to work out, and they might end badly.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s what we practice for. But it\u2019ll be tougher to make a block\u2014that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

JIMMIE JOHNSON WAGES WAR WITHIN HIMSELF AT BOSTON MARATHON<\/b><\/p>\n

For Jimmie Johnson, the Boston Marathon was a struggle\u2014within himself.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s competitive spirit was driving him to try to complete his first try at the 26 mile, 385-yrd distance in three hours or less.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion wanted to enjoy his first experience in one of the world\u2019s most prestigious marathons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe race itself was awful and amazing at the same time,\u201d Johnson said on Friday at Talladega Superspeedway, venue for Sunday\u2019s GEICO 500. \u201cI had a goal in mind to run a certain pace and tried to hang onto it, so I didn\u2019t really slow down and enjoy the experience as much as I maybe should have.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a few arguments with myself along the way like, \u2018Look, you just need to enjoy this and take it all in.\u2019 So there was definitely a mental battle going on throughout the 26 miles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson got plenty of encouragement from his fellow runners, and at the halfway point, he stopped looking at his watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first reality check was mile seven,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt was the first flat stretch of road, and I couldn\u2019t run the pace that I had hoped to at the heart rate that I had desired to run for the entire distance, and I\u2019m like, \u2018All right, pull it back.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then at halfway, I was a minute, 20 (seconds) off the split time I needed, and I knew I wasn\u2019t going to get any faster on the second half with the hills. So I honestly got into a pretty aggressive argument with myself and just told myself to stop looking at my watch and run comfortably.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next time I looked at my watch, I was on the final road, and I saw it was a 3:08 and something as I was approaching the finish line. I went, \u2018Damn, I ran pretty good.\u2019 \u2018Cause I didn\u2019t look that second half of the race. I just had to go to a different place mentally to get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson finished the course in 3:09:07, good enough to qualify automatically for next year\u2019s Boston Marathon\u2014if he decides to run it the day after the spring race at Richmond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   Rule change doesn\u2019t throw Brad Keselowski for a loop TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 After Kurt Busch topped the speed chart at 202.671 mph in opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Talladega Superspeedway, and 21 drivers exceeded the 200-mph mark, NASCAR added a one-inch wicker to the nine-inch-tall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":25366,"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":[209,745,16,208],"class_list":["post-25362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-geico-500","tag-moneylion-300","tag-nascar","tag-talladega-superspeedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/TSS1_MENCS_Practice_042619.jpg?fit=4878%2C3255&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6B4","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25362","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=25362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25363,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25362\/revisions\/25363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}