By Roy J. Akers- www.skyviewsports.net
Racing at Daytona brings in the the titans of the sport, but the surprise drivers like Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric and defending champion Chris Buescher. Hopefully NASCAR has a great race planned for Saturday night and not the fuel saving race where drivers go 30-40 mph below the usual 200 mph speeds. That type of racing is boring and will not build a fan base.
This weeks availabilities bring out the opinions of some of the Cup drivers.
Ricky’s take on winning at Daytona
Given that you only have one option to get into the playoffs and that’s winning.. For the first few stages at least, do you guys just try to go all out and race, or do you still have to do the fuel saving as everyone else will probably do?
“Yeah, no for us, it obviously doesn’t matter if you win the first or second stage. So we’ll be just making sure we can do whatever we can do to make sure we have our car at the end of the race and be capable of running basically that last stint after you pit for fuel. You’re going to run the whole race managing your fuel and trying to make that last pit stop as fast as possible so that you can get your track position then and see how it plays out.”
William Byron looks to jumpstart after midseason slump
How is this year’s summer slump you guys have kind of went through similar or different to last year, and do you feel confident you can turn it on like you did last year?
“We’re just up and down this summer. I think we still had some races that were pretty good. Iowa comes to mind. There were a couple of others. Just tracks, I think, aren’t super strong for us. I don’t know if we just don’t put emphasis on it enough in the offseason or what, but we’ve been trying to get better at those tracks. Really, we focus on the tracks that are in the Playoffs and the start of the year. We try hard every week, but really, I think the tracks that suit us as we go through the Playoffs. That’s what our focus is, and I feel like we’re turning up the performance again and feel good about that.”
Chris Buescher is swinging for the fences at Daytona
KEVIN HARVICK COULDN’T BELIEVE YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT HOW YOU PRIORITIZE WINNING OVER POINTS RACING. HE CALLED IT BS. HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND TO THAT? “I can assure him it’s not BS. It is not something that we’ve put any focus on throughout my career, especially not until it’s absolutely necessary. At this point, there are thoughts of what our point situation is and discussed it a little bit today and last week. The last couple of weeks haven’t gone our way, so we don’t start the race thinking about points and how do we just put points up and play conservative. I promise, that’s not what’s going on here, but we’ve had some rough go’s for a couple of races and we haven’t been in a spot to compete for a win at the end. “
Roy J. Akers is a multi-media reporter and covers several sports for www.skyviewsports.net