BRISTOL, Tenn. — Corey Day’s foray into the stock-car world dropped the sprint-car sensation into Thunder Valley on Thursday.
After making his ARCA Menards Series debut on July 27 at Salem Speedway, the 18-year-old stormed into Bristol Motor Speedway for a doubleheader, competing in the ARCA race before making his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut all in one night.
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A seventh-place finish in the 205-lap ARCA race and 18th in the truck race may not leap off the page, but completing a combined 405 laps at the 0.533-mile bullring of Bristol ultimately provided Day with a full day of learning.
“I’m satisfied. To finish all 400 laps in a day for I guess my second real pavement race is something to be proud of I think for sure,” Day said after the truck race. “So yeah, just happy to get all 400 and learn a lot. We worked on our truck there throughout the race, got way better as the race went on. And as a driver, that’s all you really ask for.”
With support from Hendrick Motorsports and HendrickCars.com, Day had all the right people around him throughout the in-depth training day. There to greet Day after he climbed from the No. 82 Pinnacle Racing Group Chevrolet were Hendrick Motorsports president and general manager Jeff Andrews and crew chief Greg Ives, who was a critical part of Jimmie Johnson’s reign over the NASCAR Cup Series with the famed No. 48 team before crew chiefing Dale Earnhardt Jr. from 2015-2017 and Alex Bowman from 2018-2022.
Ives, working as Day’s ARCA crew chief Thursday, was happy to see Day simply get on track and be able to learn how to attack inside a stock car around one of the sport’s most thrilling tracks.
“It’s just conditioning,” Ives told NASCAR.com. “It’s reps, it’s restarts. There’s no restarts in the world like these guys do in the ARCA series. That’s where you’re shifting gears. You’re trying to manage the outside, manage the inside, all that stuff. So I feel like he did good job.”
That experience prepared him for a full night of Truck Series racing. The No. 81 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet never lost a lap in the 200-lap affair and its driver gained confidence throughout the event,
“As the race went on, I got more and more comfortable with my truck and what it was doing center of the corner, entering the corner and exiting the corner,” Day said. “And once you figure that out, you know the comfortable factor is up there. So, yeah, felt good there at the end, and in that run in the middle of the race. Just tough guys even back there in mid-pack.”
The No. 81 truck also came home clean after what typically becomes a full-contact contest around the high banks of Bristol.
“Our nose stayed pretty clean so I got to thank my spotter Tyler (Monn) for that,” Day said. “Just thanks to the whole Bill McAnally Racing team for giving me a truck to come do this. This is a dream come true to be able to come run a truck race at Bristol. You always see these on YouTube or highlights of them because usually the truck race is one of the better races of the week here. So to be able to come do that is a dream come true for sure.”
Day will have three additional starts in with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing to build his stock-car resume, Sept. 27 at Kansas Speedway, Oct. 26 at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Nov. 1 at Martinsville Speedway.