The checkered flag has flown on the 36th annual NASCAR Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway at the Charlotte Convention Center. Here’s a look at some high notes captured throughout the Tour:
- Martin Truex Jr. hasn’t rested on his laurels after winning his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship last November. Truex said it’ll be difficult to repeat but he remains bullish on the No. 78 team’s chances of another celebration at the end of the season.
I feel like we’ve got a great team and we still have things we can improve on as we move forward,” Truex said. “Hopefully, we can continue our success.”
Truex drew laughs at his response to a question about his most fun post-championship activity:
“Media Tour.” - Bubba Wallace hosted Charlotte Hornets guard Malik Monk at Richard Petty Motorsports on Tuesday. The two rookies in their respective leagues hopped in a simulator for some hot laps at Daytona International Speedway – which Wallace expected to win handily.
“(Monk) jumped on the simulator at Daytona and he spent about five or six laps, which he thought he’d run 50 by that time, and he set a time,” Wallace said Wednesday.
“In my mind I’m thinking, ‘Alright, I’m gonna blow his time out of the water.’ It took me two laps to beat his time and even then I was barely a tenth (of a second) faster than him. Then we went to Martinsville and I had him by two seconds, but that’s part of it.” - Austin Dillon will go for his second consecutive Coca-Cola 600 victory this May at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Should fans pick him to make the Playoffs once again?
“I would pick me,” Dillon said. “I like me.” - Dillon’s wife, Whitney, designed her husband’s ornate wedding ring. “I think my wife just likes bling,” Dillon said. “She wanted everyone to know I was married. You can see it from a mile away.”
- Elliott Sadler hasn’t given up on his beloved North Carolina Tar Heels men’s basketball team. Sadler, who drives for JR Motorsports in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, didn’t lose sleep over the Tar Heels’ 80-69 loss to unranked Virginia Tech on Monday.
“We’ve got everybody right where we want them now,” Sadler said. “It’s still early in the season. The guys are still learning. We’re just better at home. We’re not good on the road right now.” - Twenty-year-old rookie William Byron has driven on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s iconic 1.5-mile oval in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the NASCAR XFINITY Series. He raced on the frontstretch quarter-mile in the Bojangles’ Summer Shootout. It’s only natural, then, that the Charlotte, North Carolina, native anxiously awaits his first race on the 17-turn, 2.28-mile Roval on Sept. 30.
“The Roval is exciting,” Byron said. “I don’t really know what to expect. If you can keep your car in one piece at the end and have a shot at the (leader), I think it’s going to be really exciting.” - Bubba Wallace – Byron’s toughest competition for Rookie of the Year honors – has raced at Charlotte in the same configurations. His expectations for running a Cup Series car on the 1.5-mile oval and the 2.28-mile Roval?
“We’ll find out,” Wallace said. “I’m excited for my first Coca-Cola 600. For the Roval, it’ll be interesting to see. … I think that with what NASCAR and Marcus (Smith, President and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.) have done with it, it should provide great racing. It’s different.”
Wallace’s approach to the Roval will be simple.
“Don’t fence that thing,” Wallace said. “It’s gonna be tight.” - Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch had different takes on NASCAR’s new five-man pit crew rule.
“I don’t think it’s going to be that big of a change,” Keselowski said. “Pit stops are going to be a bit slower, about a second or so.”
Busch said that teams will need a versatile crew member who can do two jobs effectively.
“It’s like a tight end in the NFL,” he said. “There are five tight ends who you’d say are elite. Whoever has those guys on their team are going to have an advantage.”
CMS PR (HHP/Jim Fluharty photo)
