Month: February 2019

Date: February 23, 2019
Race Name: Rinnai 250 (Race 2 of 33)
Venue: Atlanta Motor Speedway
Television: 2:00 p.m. EST on FOX Sports 1
Point Standings: 

Date: February 23, 2019
Race Name: Rinnai 250 (Race 2 of 33)
Venue: Atlanta Motor Speedway
Television: 2:00 p.m. EST on FOX Sports 1
Point Standings: 

 

CHASE BRISCOE NOTES OF INTEREST:

 

Crew Chief: Richard Boswell        Spotter:Time Fedewa

• Briscoe will make his third NASCAR appearance at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He has two previous starts at the Georgia track, one in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and one in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series. 
• Boswell has recorded one win and two top-five finishes in two starts at Atlanta in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Boswell earned his victory at Atlanta one year ago with Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick.
• The #ChaseThe98 campaign continues this weekend with Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner Tony Stewart’s friendly companions, Max and Mia, adorning the sides of the No. 98 Nutri Chomps Ford Mustang.
• Click here for Briscoe’s career stats.
• Click here for Briscoe’s stats at Atlanta.
• Click here for photos of Chase.

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Your crew chief, Richard Boswell, won here last year. How much confidence does that give you heading into this weekend?

“It definitely gives me a little extra confidence heading into Atlanta knowing that my crew chief, my team, and the car won there last year. We are actually taking the exact same car that Kevin Harvick won with last year and pretty much the exact same setup. With that being said, it is supposed to rain all weekend, which is a good and bad thing. If it does rain-out practice, we know we should be good, but the bad thing is that it may not work with my driving style. I feel like my dirt background translates well to Atlanta, so I am hoping for a great weekend.”

The 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the second race of the season with Daniel Suárez piloting the No. 41 ARRIS Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR). Atlanta marks the first time Suárez will pilot the black-and-orange ARRIS paint scheme this season.

While Suárez is new to SHR and the Ford camp, ARRIS is very familiar to the 27-year-old driver and his fans. ARRIS has been a longtime supporter of Suárez and continues its relationship with him this season at SHR. The Hampton, Georgia track is the home venue for Atlanta-based ARRIS.

ARRIS has been involved with NASCAR since 2014 and is responsible for the most comprehensive Wi-Fi deployment in NASCAR history at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. The company recently announced the first CBRS Private LTE network deployment at the newly renovated ISM Raceway near Phoenix. ARRIS also powers the communication between NASCAR drivers and their teams through its SURFboard SB6183® modem and E600® Converged Edge Router (CER) with integration and support from its global services team.

Suárez is looking for a better ending to this weekend’s event at Atlanta than he had at the season-opening Daytona 500. With just 10 scheduled laps remaining in Sunday’s Great American Race, Suárez was caught up in a multivehicle accident that ended his bid prematurely. The Mexico native has two Cup Series starts at Atlanta with a best finish of 15^th and a best starting position of fourth, both during last year’s event. In addition to his Cup Series starts at the mile-and-a-half track, he has two starts in the Xfinity Series with a best starting position of third and a best finish of seventh, both in 2016.

Suárez’s new team, SHR, was successful at Atlanta last year with teammate Kevin Harvick taking the checkered flag in dominant fashion by leading 181 of the 325-lap event. Harvick’s Atlanta win was just the start of an extremely successful season for the two-time championship-winning SHR team which accumulated 15 Cup Series wins.

NASCAR’s new rules package goes into effect for this weekend’s event at Atlanta. NASCAR has made rule changes for 2019 to bolster competition with enhanced aerodynamic and engine configurations. The different packages are tailored to the specific tracks on the Cup Series circuit, with a combination of a smaller tapered spacer to reduce engine horsepower to a target goal of 550 – from 750 – and aero ducts to foster tighter racing on a majority of speedways measuring longer than 1 mile.

“I think it will take a little bit of time for everyone to adapt to the new rules package,” Suárez said. “At the end of the day, though, it’s going to be like any other race. Whoever hits on something first and figures out how to go faster is going to be winning races sooner. I don’t want to waste too much time thinking about if the package is good or bad. What’s important is figuring out how to adapt to it and to go fast and win races.”

While the 2019 rules package is new for the Cup Series, it’s somewhat familiar to Suárez, who raced a similar package in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The Mustang driver went on to win three races and ultimately the Xfinity Series championship in 2016.

DANIEL SUÁREZ, Driver of the No. 41 ARRIS Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

How long before the elite teams figure out this package and break away from the pack? When do you think the elite teams get a little bit better than everybody else? 

“I would say two to three months. The good teams will continue to be the good teams and the elite teams will continue to be the elite teams. I’m very lucky in that I feel like Stewart-Haas Racing is one of the best race teams out there. I’m very confident based on what I was able to do in the All-Star Race and what Stewart-Haas Racing was able to accomplish by winning the race that we’re going do great things together this year.”

You’re still looking for your first playoff appearance. If you had your preference, would you like a win early in the season so you know you’re locked in? Or, if you’re running up front, you’ll have the points to get in and it’s all good?

“Honestly, you can tell me, ‘Hey, do you prefer to get a win and be locked in the playoffs, or be competitive and run up front all of the time?’ I would say to be competitive and run up front all of the time. The win will come when you do that. I know that. I don’t want to get a lucky win and be in the playoffs and then not be able to perform well at the end of the season.”

When Michael Jordan played in any NBA game, everyone in the arena knew he could dominate at any time. Which is why Jordan is considered one of – if not the – best ever.

Kevin Harvick has only two Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wins at Atlanta Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Folds of Honor 500, but has dominated there since 2008 with 11 top-10 finishes in 14 races. He’s led a series-high 1,152 laps and is coming off an impressive victory last year when he started third and led 181 laps along the way.

Harvick has led 100 laps in every Atlanta Cup Series race since 2014 and has also won four of his last six NASCAR Xfinity Series races at the 1.54-mile oval. He will not race in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race but will be the lead driver analyst for the television broadcast on FS1.

Atlanta has always been a special place for Harvick as he scored his first career Cup Series victory there in 2001. Following Dale Earnhardt’s death on the final lap of that year’s Daytona 500, Harvick was named the driver of the No. 29 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing and made his series debut the following weekend at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway, where he finished 14^th. On March 11, less than one month since his debut in NASCAR’s top series and in just his third start, Harvick won his first Cup Series race at Atlanta.

While Harvick will look to continue his Atlanta domination this weekend, the rules will be a bit different than in previous years.

NASCAR officials in October announced two baseline rules packages for the 2019 season, making a move to bolster competition with enhanced aerodynamic and engine configurations. The different packages are tailored to the specific tracks on the Cup Series circuit, with a combination of a smaller tapered spacer to reduce engine horsepower to a target goal of 550 – from 750 – and aero ducts to foster tighter racing on a majority of speedways measuring longer than 1 mile. Both features are in place for 17 of the 36 races, the lone exception being last week’s Daytona 500, which ran with traditional restrictor-plate rules. Five races, including Atlanta, will be run with the smaller spacer, but without ducts.

Harvick heads into Atlanta 14^th in points after a disappointing 26^th-place finish in the Daytona 500. But he did score 10 points by winning the Gander RV Duel No. 1 last Thursday and scored six bonus points in Stages 1 and 2 Sunday’s Daytona 500.

Daytona was three races in nine days to get the season started. But now, the real season begins as there are 35 points-paying events left as Harvick goes for his second championship.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

The new rules package starts at Atlanta this weekend. What can you do to prepare for this?

“Race. You know, race is really what you have to do to adjust to the package because you don’t really know how it’s going to race until you run a race. And Daytona is irrelevant to what we’re going to do in Atlanta. And, you know, as we go to Atlanta and start compiling that notebook in the very first practice and put the cars on the racetrack, obviously our history in Atlanta is pretty strong. And we know what we’re looking for in the racecar and how it should handle and so there’s the downforce-versus-drag conversation. How much downforce can you take out of the car and make the thing survive? How much handling will come into play? The restarts are going to be crazy. Are you going be able to get close enough to actually bump draft? Can you actually stay hooked together? There are just so many questions to answer that we don’t have any answers to other than theory. And, at this particular point, we just need to race to really start crossing things off the list and have a direction to know what we’re working on past, you know, the theory that we’ve put into everything to put on the track at the beginning of the year.”

The cream always rises to the top but how long do you think it’ll be before elite teams figure out this package and break away from the pack, literally and figuratively?

“It could happen in the very first race. I think as you look at the drastic change that we’ve had in horsepower and downforce and rules and all the different things that are coming into play here, we could very well go to the first two months of the season and one organization might have just an absolute, distinct advantage and win all the races. I mean, it’s literally possible and I think obviously last year we were kind of in that crowd and it’s just too big of a ship to turn around in a week. It’s just impossible from a manufacturing standpoint and cutting bodies off and knowing whether your theory’s right or wrong. It’s only answered when we get to the racetrack and every team’s going to have a little bit of a different approach to what they think is right and wrong. And, you know, I think the window’s wide open to take a period and have an organization absolutely dominate or be behind in the first two months of the season.”

You’re broadcasting on FOX and Sirius again this year. Talk about that.

“Well, I feel like it’s definitely – TV and radio are totally different, and I say that just because, fortunately being able to do both, I think to me they’re a totally different set of fans and how they pay attention to what you’re doing. The radio stuff I feel has given me a really great connection with the grassroots, hardcore fan. TV has been just talking to everybody in more general terms, I guess you could say, on a much more sporadic type of schedule. But it’s been really good practices for me to go through just because of the fact that the perspective is so much different than the competitor perspective and what you want to see and what you want to talk about. You want it to be more exciting and you want to have more stuff happen. And from a competitor standpoint, I just want to go out there and run them into the ground and hope that you beat them by two laps. So that’s not very exciting to watch but, from a competitor standpoint, that’s when you feel like you do your job. From a TV standpoint, it’s hard to keep talking about the guy who’s two laps ahead of everybody else and make a good story out of it, but there are always stories. Sometimes on TV you don’t have to really say anything because the screen tells the story. On the radio, you have to really put it in perspective for the fans, and on Sirius I feel like we’ve probably been one of the best things that I’ve ever done as far as that connection to the fans, because it’s so interactive. And if you’re tuning in to the NASCAR Channel, it’s a specific tune-in. It’s not, ‘I accidentally turned on the NASCAR channel.’ You’re listening for a reason and especially if you’ve tuned in to our show.”

Last year was a learning year for Aric Almirola, his first with Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR). He met an entire new team, new drivers and newer, faster setups that put him in position to win races and finish fifth in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship standings.

As soon as the 34-year-old Tampa native had it all figured it out – the game was about to change.

In October of last year, NASCAR announced new rules packages for the 2019 season. The packages are tailored to the specific tracks on the Cup Series circuit, with a combination of a smaller tapered spacer to reduce engine horsepower to a target goal of 550 – from 750 – and aero ducts to foster tighter racing on a majority of speedways longer than 1 mile. Both features are in place for 17 of the 36 races, debuting this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway’s 1.5-mile oval.

Almirola came into 2018 with the expectation to adapt, and he knocked down 17 top-10 finishes, four top-fives, led 181 laps on the year, and earned his first win with SHR Oct. 14 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway to clinch a playoff spot. He advanced to the semifinal round before finishing a career-best fifth in the points. Almirola’s 181 laps led in 2018 were more than his previous six full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series seasons combined. This year, the No. 10 Smithfield Ford driver enters the 2019 season with the same mindset.

“I think adapting to change is what makes the drivers at this level so great,” Almirola said. “You don’t make it to the Cup level without being a great racecar driver. It’s very hard. There are thousands of racecar drivers all across the country who race every weekend and want to be Cup drivers. There are only 40 Cup drivers. They have to be able to adapt to a tight racecar, a loose racecar, a different racecar. But I think, from my standpoint with the racecar, it has a steering wheel, a gas pedal, a brake pedal, and a clutch pedal and a shifter that goes through four gears and has reverse. I have to learn how to drive the racecar on any given weekend to get the most out of the car with whatever problem it has.”

With Atlanta being the first track of the 2019 season to run this new package, it will be far from the first time Almirola and his fellow drivers have experienced tight racing action on a 1.5-mile speedway oval. Almirola raced in the 2018 All-Star Open to clinch a spot in the Monster Energy All-Star Race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, and a similar rules package was used. The Smithfield driver led 11 laps in the opening stage and raced in and around the top-five for the remainder of that race. While he didn’t win, he got a taste of what is to come this weekend at Atlanta.

Unlike the All-Star Race last year, teams will have the opportunity to take the notes they learned from Atlanta to gain an advantage for Las Vegas the following week.  The question is, how long will it take for elite teams to break away and dominate the field like in years past?

“I think that’s the one thing that people misunderstand about our sport,” Almirola said. “It’s NASCAR’s job to govern the sport and try and make sure that everyone plays under the same fair rules. It’s the team’s job to find every area it can possibly work in to win. That’s what everybody does. If you are playing a board game at home, you want to win. You understand the rules of the game, and then you figure out how to play the game to get an advantage to win the game. If you play Monopoly, there is a risk versus reward and you have to understand the rules – you have to figure out how to gain an advantage in the game to win.”

Almirola’s racecar at Atlanta this weekend will feature the traditional black-and-white Smithfield paint scheme. Founded in 1936, Smithfield is a leading provider of high-quality pork products, with a vast product portfolio including smoked meats, hams, bacon, sausage, ribs, and a wide variety of fresh pork cuts.Smithfield is based approximately five hours northeast of SHR headquarters in Smithfield, Virginia.

Aric Almirola: Driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Are you excited to run the Mustang in this first 1.5-mile race of the year? 

“Man, it’s so cool to drive the Mustang in the Monster Energy Cup Series now. You think about muscle car when you think about that racecar. You think about horsepower and you think about a badass racecar – when you think about Ford, you think about the Mustang. The Fusion is what you drive to the grocery store and throw your groceries in the trunk. When you think about pulling up to a red light and racing the car that’s sitting next to you from the light, you think about the Mustang. You know, you don’t think about the hybrid Fusion with 275 horsepower that gets 60 miles to the gallon. You think about the Mustang. To have that on the racetrack and racing it in competition at the Cup level, it’s cool and I think it’s going to resonate with the consumer and all the Ford fans.”

Nobody really knows what to expect Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway with the debut of the new Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rules package designed to bunch the field closer on the ultra-fast, 1.5-mile speedways like the Atlanta oval.

Clint Bowyer doesn’t know what to expect, but expects something different.

“Well, everybody’s got their opinion on what we’re going see, but only time will paint that picture,” said the driver of Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 14 Haas Automation Ford Mustang. “I think it could be drastically different than what we have ever seen. My opinion is, it’s going to be different. I don’t know how much different, I don’t know what kind of different, I just know it’s going to be different than what we know as the norm on a mile-and-a-half. Um, will they be drafting? I think. How much drafting? I don’t know.”

NASCAR officials in October announced two baseline rules packages for the 2019 season, making a move to bolster competition with enhanced aerodynamic and engine configurations. The different packages are tailored to the specific tracks on the Cup Series circuit, with a combination of a smaller tapered spacer to reduce engine horsepower to a target goal of 550 – from 750 – and aero ducts to foster tighter racing on a majority of speedways measuring longer than 1 mile. Both features are in place for 17 of the 36 races, the lone exception being last week’s Daytona 500, which ran with traditional restrictor-plate rules. Five other races will be run with the smaller spacer, but without ducts.

Bowyer said the key to success Sunday in Georgia, as well as the rest of the season, could be adaptability.

“I think it’s extremely important to have some adjustability built into that racecar,” Bowyer said. “We do have that in our Mustangs. But that’s no different than anybody else. Everybody’s putting the work in to try to figure it out.”

Bowyer and his crew chief Mike Bugarewicz-led team tested the new rule package on the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway track last month. So he’ll have some idea of what to expect once practice begins Friday in Atlanta. In addition to the new rule package, drivers will also have to overcome the challenge of the 22-year-old racing surface that often provides some of the best racing of the season. New pavement usually creates much better grip and faster speeds that often result in a one-groove racetrack on which passing is difficult. That typically results in single-file racing, something Bowyer says neither drivers nor fans enjoy for 500 miles. He says the Atlanta track is just the opposite. Its slick surface is difficult to navigate but offers several grooves and plenty of passing opportunities.

“Ever since I have been in the sport, it seems like Atlanta is the most worn-out track but always produced some of the best racing,” Bowyer said. “It’s crazy how worn out the track is, but that is what makes for good racing and it lets us put on such a great show for a long time.”

Bowyer and SHR’s No. 14 team are sure to improve upon their 20th-place finish at last weekend’s Daytona 500. A daring move in the final laps saw Bowyer’s bid for the lead and trophy end in an accident.

“That’s last week and we are on to Atlanta now,” he said. “It’s a very long season but we’re confident. We had a good Speedweeks in Daytona and I think that will continue this weekend in Atlanta and on the West Coast swing in the coming weeks.”

Bowyer goes to battle at Atlanta carrying the black-and-red paint scheme of Haas Automation, Inc. Haas Automation is America’s leading builder of CNC machine tools. Founded by Gene Haas in 1983, Haas Automation manufactures a complete line of vertical and horizontal machining centers, turning centers and rotary tables and indexers. All Haas products are built in the company’s 1.1 million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Oxnard, California, and distributed through a worldwide network of Haas Factory Outlets.

Bowyer hopes he can replicate last year’s success at Atlanta when he scored a third-place finish – his first top-five finish at the track. He’s always run well at Atlanta, leading 52 laps in the March 2008 race before finishing sixth. The most heartbreaking moment at the track came in September 2013, when he led 48 of the first 192 laps before engine failure. In total, Bowyer has led 115 laps at Atlanta but only has last year’s third-place finish and four other sixth-place finishes to show for the effort.

All things considered, Bowyer said history won’t mean much this weekend.

“I think you can throw out all the stats,” he said. “It’s going to be a whole new ballgame at Atlanta this weekend.”

CLINT BOWYER, Driver of the No. 14 Haas Automation Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What will an organization have to do to gain the advantage with the new rules package?

“The team, the organization, the manufacturer that can beat the next one and figure it out the fastest is going to prevail. It seems like once you get ahead, you ride that wave all the way through the season. Everybody else is playing catchup because you don’t just figure it out and stop there – you know, we’re weeks, months, in advance. So, if you can beat them to the punch right off the bat, nine times out of 10 you’re able to keep that advantage all the way through the season.”

What is the mindset of drivers and team after leaving Daytona?

“Once we get the Daytona 500 out of the way, it’s Atlanta and it’s down-to-business time. I know it’s weird to say that. Yes, the Daytona 500 is the first race of the year and certainly the biggest race of the year, but it’s so unique from any other racetrack. We get to Atlanta and it’s that mile-and-a-half, fast track, but even it is very unique because it’s so worn out and we don’t have anything like that anywhere we go, anymore. We just have to get through that, have a good balance on your racecar because it’s so slick you can’t afford to be tight, loose or anything else. We’ll just go and hopefully have another good run there.”