As Paul Menard begins to wind down his full-time Cup Series career, he and the Menards/Monster team have one main goal in mind – to deliver the Wood Brothers their 100th Cup victory.
That campaign kicks off this weekend as Menard and the No. 21 Menards/Monster Mustang take on Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which statistically is Menard’s best track.
In 14 career starts on the 1.5-mile Vegas oval, with a best finish of third in 2014 and four other top-10 finishes including two in his past three races there, both of which were aboard the Wood’s No. 21 Ford.
Menard and his Greg Erwin-led team are heading to Vegas having put together two strong performances in the past two weeks – a ninth-place finish in the Southern 500 at Darlington followed by a 10th-place run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where Menard set the pace in final practice and started the Brickyard 400 from the outside pole.
Eddie Wood said he has a good feeling about his race team as the Cup series heads into the final 10 races of 2019.
“The past couple of weeks we’ve seen things start to come together,” Wood said. “The car’s had a lot of speed, and the team is getting some momentum going.”
Wood said there will be some unknowns this weekend as a lot has changed in the Cup series since the first Vegas race of 2019 back in early March.
“Everybody knows a lot more about what the cars want with the new handling package,” he said. “And it’s going to be a lot hotter this weekend than it was in March, so that will throw another element into it.
“It’ll be harder on the drivers, but Paul handles the heat really well.”
Qualifying for the South Point 400 is set for Saturday at 1:05 p.m. (4:05 Eastern Time), and the race is scheduled to get the green flag on Sunday just after 4 p.m. (7 p.m. Eastern Time) with TV coverage on NBCSN.
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