{"id":46740,"date":"2024-06-15T12:45:56","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T17:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=46740"},"modified":"2024-06-16T19:25:43","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T00:25:43","slug":"nascar-saturday-iowa-speedway-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/15\/nascar-saturday-iowa-speedway-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Iowa Speedway Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer<\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR Wire Service<\/em> <\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin set to assume role as senior driver in NASCAR Cup Series<\/b><\/p>\n

NEWTON, Iowa \u2014 When Martin Truex Jr. leaves his full-time ride in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at the end of the season, his teammate, Denny Hamlin, will inherit the mantle of oldest driver in the NASCAR Cup Series.<\/p>\n

With Truex\u2019s exit, all the drivers whom Hamlin conquered for rookie-of-the-year honors in 2006 will be gone from NASCAR\u2019s top series. That list includes Truex, Clint Bowyer, J.J. Yeley, David Stremme and Reed Sorenson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was such a big rookie class back in 2006,\u201d said Hamlin, who will turn 44 on Nov. 18. \u201cEveryone\u2019s gone\u2026 everyone\u2019s gone. Martin was just a barometer for success and speed when we were coming into the Cup Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, it certainly doesn\u2019t feel like I\u2019m the oldest, but I guess, when you put it all in perspective and see these guys peel off, I certainly feel it, but my mind doesn\u2019t make me believe that I\u2019m the oldest.\u201d<\/p>\n

In announcing his departure from full-time Cup racing on Friday, Truex cited a strong desire to pursue personal interests and set his own schedule. Hamlin, who co-owns 23XI Racing with former NBA superstar Michael Jordan in addition to his driving duties for JGR, feels no such impulse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think of Martin, we couldn\u2019t be more opposite, but there\u2019s no one that I envy probably more than him,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cHe\u2019s just that type of person \u2014 I wish I could be like that, but I couldn\u2019t be more opposite.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s him, the way he carries himself, the way he does business. I put the work load on myself that I do. I think that Martin really enjoys his \u2018down\u2019 time. To me, I don\u2019t like down time. I like to stay busy, and I like to keep working. It just depends on what I\u2019m working on in that moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate to sit around being bored, but some people love that, and that\u2019s their way of getting passionate about going to the race track every weekend. Everyone\u2019s different, but certainly he\u2019s in a spot where he\u2019s weighed the pros and the cons, and he just got to the point where the pros of not (racing full-time) outweighed sticking around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tire issues in Friday\u2019s practice took Christopher Bell by surprise<\/b><\/p>\n

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell represented the Toyota contingent in a Goodyear tire test at Iowa Speedway on May 28.<\/p>\n

In temperatures that were approximately 14 degrees cooler than those that greeted drivers during Friday\u2019s practice, Bell had no issues with the tire combination chosen for Sunday\u2019s Iowa Corn 350 (7 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

Bell\u2019s No. 20 Toyota was fast off the truck to start the 50-minute session, posting the fastest lap early in the session. But after 19 circuits, Bell\u2019s right-front tire suddenly lost air, and his car slammed the outside wall.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Bell\u2019s teammate, Ty Gibbs, had suffered the same issue with the right front but managed to avoid hard contact with the SAFER barrier.<\/p>\n

Bell said he had no warning that the tire failure was imminent.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy only indication was whenever I saw Ty have a flat,\u201d said Bell, who will start from the rear of the field in a backup car. \u201cThat was it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have any indication in the car. We were just here \u2014 what, a month ago? \u2014 and did 50-lap runs all day long and had no issues at all. It caught me off-guard, and I know it caught my team off-guard as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tire issues weren\u2019t confined to the Gibbs cars. Austin Cindric also will start the race in a backup No. 2 Ford after hard contact with the outside wall. The Toyota of Tyler Reddick and Chevrolet of Ross Chastain also sustained flats without damaging their cars, though Chastain\u2019s Camaro needed the new dolly system to remove it from the track.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018We\u2019re going to put you on the dolly,\u2019 and I said, \u2018What\u2019s a dolly?\u2019\u201d Chastain said. \u201cThey got the thing out, snapped it together, and the car\u2019s not torn up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brad Keselowski cites importance of three \u201cT\u2019s” \u2014 and one of them isn\u2019t tires<\/b><\/p>\n

Though the new pavement in the bottom two lanes in the corners at Iowa Speedway has sparked enormous interest in the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at the 0.875-mile track, Brad Keselowski cited other factors that will determine whether NASCAR weekend will be a success.<\/p>\n

Taking a page from legendary Charlotte Motor Speedway promoter H.A. \u201cHumpy\u201d Wheeler, Keselowski pointed to the three \u201cT\u2019s\u201d as critical components of any race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot made about the repave,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s right and maybe that\u2019s not\u2026 I look at the tracks that I think have been successful in their debuts and the ones that haven\u2019t been successful in their debuts, and generally I feel like what separates the good tracks and the bad tracks is how well they take care of the fans, more so than whether there\u2019s a three-wide finish for the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to come down to the three T\u2019s \u2013 the Humpy Wheeler three T\u2019s of tickets, traffic and toilets\u2026 I think they\u2019ve got the ticket part figured out. I don\u2019t know about the traffic and the toilets, but I hope they\u2019ve got that figured out.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also noteworthy that, the three \u201cT\u2019s\u201d aside, Keselowski thinks the repaved track will put on an exciting show on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve read and heard some of the discourse here about the track, and I know they\u2019ve put a lot of work into tire dragons and all those other things to try to get two lanes to come in,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201cNo, it\u2019s not going to be the three or four lanes maybe some of us hope, but still probably going to be two good lanes of racing, so I think it\u2019ll be a great race either way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service  Denny Hamlin set to assume role as senior driver in NASCAR Cup Series NEWTON, Iowa \u2014 When Martin Truex Jr. leaves his full-time ride in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at the end of the season, his teammate, Denny Hamlin, will inherit the mantle of oldest driver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":46721,"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":[456,16],"class_list":["post-46740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-iowa-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/GettyImages-2157717656-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-c9S","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46740","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=46740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46741,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46740\/revisions\/46741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}