{"id":42759,"date":"2023-05-28T13:15:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-28T18:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=42759"},"modified":"2023-05-29T11:04:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T16:04:30","slug":"nascar-sunday-charlotte-notebook-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/28\/nascar-sunday-charlotte-notebook-3\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Sunday Charlotte Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer <\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR Wire Service <\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Returning to action, Alex Bowman knows he\u2019ll be playing hurt <\/b><\/p>\n

CONCORD, N.C.\u2014After testing at North Wilkesboro, Alex Bowman made the judgment he was ready to return to action. <\/p>\n

Bowman\u2019s doctors concurred, and the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is back behind the wheel, starting with Sunday\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A detailed view of Goodyear Eagle tires are seen in the garage area as it rains prior to the NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 28, 2023 in Concord, North Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

But Bowman knows the next few weeks in the NASCAR Cup Series car won\u2019t be pain-free. The laps he ran at North Wilkesboro didn\u2019t constitute the perfect preparation for Charlotte. <\/p>\n

Bowman suffered a compression fracture of the spine in a sprint car accident Apr. 25 at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, and he\u2019s prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of occasional discomfort as the price of returning after a three-race absence. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctor was like it\u2019s healing, and you can do it based on pain tolerance, but you can\u2019t simulate what it\u2019s going to be like without getting in a race car,\u201d Bowman said Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. \u201cAnd even that, you can\u2019t simulate Charlotte at North Wilkesboro, so I don\u2019t have a clue. It\u2019s going to hurt. I don\u2019t know how much it\u2019s going to hurt. <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, it doesn\u2019t hurt very much, because at North Wilkesboro it didn\u2019t. All we did was make long runs there to try and simulate being here and how long the 600 is. But we had two sets of tires, two hours and a flat race track that is really slick and doesn\u2019t give you any G-forces. We have five-and-a-half hours (at Charlotte) with a ton of G-forces and a ton of grip, so it\u2019s about as different as it could possibly get. But yeah, I think I\u2019ll be all right.\u201d<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Jimmie Johnson: from seven-time champion to racing dilettante <\/b><\/span> <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout his NASCAR Cup Series career, Jimmie Johnson expected to win. He did so 83 times and accumulated a record-tying seven championships in the process.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

After his retirement from full-time Cup racing in 2020, Johnson spent two years in the IndyCar Series without threatening to win a race.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s back in the NASCAR garage as co-owner of Legacy Motor Club and an occasional driver in the Cup Series\u2019 marquee events.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, Johnson is busy checking off bucket-list items in other forms of racing. Next up is the June 10-11 Centennial edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Johnson will team with Mike Rockenfeller, Jenson Button and reserve driver Jordan Taylor in the No. 24 Garage 56 entry, a collaborative effort between NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet, Goodyear and IMSA.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

But first things first. Johnson is slated to drive in the Coca-Cola 600, and with practice and qualifying canceled, he\u2019ll take to the track with no seat time in the Next Gen Cup at 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s really been about identifying marquee races around the world and trying to figure out how to run in them,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cLe Mans is a great example of that. Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600\u2014these are the marquee events. I\u2019m very thankful for the opportunity I have to race this weekend.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel about as ill-prepared for a race than I ever have in my life, though, with the threat of rain and not getting any seat time in a Next Gen car at this particular track. I ran a couple of hours out in Phoenix before the season started to get a feel for things, and that\u2019s about the only oval experience, comparable oval experience, although it\u2019s still pretty different.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

With the starting lineup set by metrics, Johnson was scheduled to start last (37th<\/sup>) in the Coke 600, a race he has won four times. <\/span><\/p>\n

23XI Performance is a source of pride for Denny Hamlin <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Admittedly, Kyle Larson drubbed the rest of the NASCAR Cup Series field in last Sunday\u2019s NASCAR All-Star Race at reborn North Wilkesboro Speedway, but the performance of 23XI Racing wasn\u2019t lost on team co-owner Denny Hamlin. <\/span><\/p>\n

23XI\u2019s drivers\u2014Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick\u2014finished second and third, respectively, in the $1-million-to-win exhibition race. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me feel good,\u201d said Hamlin, who co-owns the team with NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan. \u201cIt means our team is a high-level, elite team, and one that kind of carried the Toyota banner last week. It makes me feel good about it that they are taking the information and fitting it to their drivers, and the drivers are doing a good job.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBubba, especially, in this past year has taken huge strides, and Tyler has been a proven winner. He has continued to work on his craft to get better as well. It really says a lot about that whole team, and what they have been doing on the competition side to get better, working on the small details that make a difference each week.\u201d<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer  NASCAR Wire Service    Returning to action, Alex Bowman knows he\u2019ll be playing hurt  CONCORD, N.C.\u2014After testing at North Wilkesboro, Alex Bowman made the judgment he was ready to return to action.  Bowman\u2019s doctors concurred, and the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is back behind the wheel, starting with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":42755,"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":[233,16],"class_list":["post-42759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-charlotte-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/GettyImages-1494108970-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-b7F","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42759","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=42759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42761,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42759\/revisions\/42761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}