Posted on by Holly Cain



RELATED: Relive all of Busch’s victories


SONOMA, Calif. — Kyle Busch is the only two-time winner at Sonoma Raceway in the last 11 years and his victory in the Toyota – Save Mart 350 last year was the beginning of his triumphant quest for the Sprint Cup Series championship.

He won three more times in the next four weeks establishing himself a title favorite even as he continued to recover from severe leg injuries suffered the day before the season opening Daytona 500 causing him to miss the first 11 races.

If there was a starting point for his emotional and inspiring rally toward the trophy, it came here on the winding 1.99-mile road course in California’s wine country.

“I think it really propelled us a little bit in giving us a lot of confidence that we can go out there and we can do it and we can win races each and every week,” Busch said. “(You) have to let them come to you sometimes. You can force your hand and you can make mistakes and sometimes when you’re able to just kind of let it all out there and let it be what it is, you can win races that way too.

“It worked for us and that’s what got us to where we needed to be last year.”

Busch will start his No. 18 M&M’s Toyota eighth in tomorrow’s race. His Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards is on the pole and fellow teammate Denny Hamlin will start sixth.

Busch was ranked among the top 15 in both Saturday practices and remained optimistic about his chances Sunday if noting the list of contenders is longer each year.

Among them is the only driver who won in 2015 that hasn’t won yet this season: Dale Earnhardt Jr. He was fastest in final practice but qualified 13th.

Third-year Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Larson was fastest in opening practice and will start fifth here. A.J. Allmendinger — who won on the series’ other road course at Watkins Glen International in 2014 — will start from the front row.

“I actually felt like I started off a little rusty, but then by the end of the practice sessions I felt like I was getting all I could get out of the race car,” Busch said. “Whatever that was, an hour and a half is what it took in order to get really up and going. We’d had some decent speed, but we weren’t all that fast, as fast as we need to be right now so we’ve got some work to do.

“I enjoy road course racing, it’s just something different and it lends itself to a different fan base probably.”

Last year’s victory was season-changer for Busch, who conceded he wouldn’t have necessarily guessed that first win would come on a road course. He’s had success on them in the past — including a win at Sonoma in 2008 —  but the demanding nature of this type of racing coming so soon after his serious leg injuries made last year’s victory truly remarkable.

“It was certainly a welcoming surprise to us for sure,” Busch said. “It wasn’t that we circled it on the calendar thinking we’d have a shot to come back and be able to do that. We actually X’d this one out like we were just trying to survive and get out of here with a good day and a good points day.

“With the way the five races had gone before, coming here last year, the time I had just got back in the car, we weren’t running and finishing the way we needed to. We came here after a 43rd-place finish at Michigan — oh look, we did it again this year. It would certainly be nice to turn some things around. Definitely, it seems like the May, June months just don’t go my way and aren’t really on our side.”

That’s certainly Busch’s 2016 reality, anyway. He hasn’t finished better than 30th since his victory at Kansas — four races ago — and has three DNFs in that span.

It’s a far cry from the blissful three wins he tallied in a six-race spring span between Martinsville and Kansas. And he’s ranked a season-low ninth in the points standings — even though he’s the winningest driver in the series. The points will reset for the Chase, which will benefit Busch, but he’s eager to get things on track now.

He stands to become the first back-to-back Sonoma winner since Jeff Gordon won three consecutive races from 1998-2000 and the only other driver besides Gordon to win more than twice at the California road course.

“Good effort for us last year here and it was really exciting to get that monkey off our back to get the win and get our season turned around heading in the right direction for really good things at the end of the season,” Busch said.


Posted on by Staff Report



RELATED: Starting lineup

The start of Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway Motorsports Park was delayed due to the ongoing track-drying process.

Rain and lightning saturated the 1.25-mile track earlier Saturday, canceling Keystone Light Pole Qualifying and setting the starting lineup per the rule book (combined practice speeds). The Drivin for Linemen 200 Brought to you by Altec (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) was originally scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET tonight.

Driver introductions began at 9 p.m. ET, an hour later than initially scheduled, according to NASCAR. The 160-lap event, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series’ ninth event of the 2016 season, saw the green flag wave at approximately at 9:51 p.m. ET.

Fastest in both practices today, Ben Rhodes (No. 41 ThorSport Racing Toyota) started from the pole position.


Posted on by Staff Report



RELATED: Starting lineup

Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series Keystone Light Pole Qualifying at Gateway Motorsports Park has been canceled due to weather.


The series was scheduled to roll off the grid for the three-round, multi-vehicle qualifying session at 5:45 p.m. ET on FS2. Officials delayed the session, ultimately canceling when lightning continued to strike. The Drivin for Linemen 200 Brought to you by Altec (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) remains scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET tonight.


The line up has been set per the rule book (combined practice speeds). Ben Rhodes, who led the pair of Camping World Truck Series practices in his No. 41 Toyota, will start tonight’s 200-mile race form the pole position. Johnny Sauter will roll off the grid second, while William Byron, John Hunter Nemechek and German Quiroga round out the top-five starters, respectively.


Posted on by Chris Knight



RELATED: Results | Standings | Updated NCWTS Chase Grid

MADISON, Ill. — A gutsy decision to use the bottom lane for a restart with two laps to go paid off for Christopher Bell, who earned his second career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory in Saturday night’s third annual Drivin for Linemen 200 at Gateway Motorsports Park.

Bell, driver of the No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota Tundra, survived a chaotic and intense second half to edge Ben Rhodes to the checkered flag, giving KBM its 50th victory in the series, tying Roush Fenway Racing for the all-time series wins lead.

“This one’s for my guys,” said Bell in Victory Lane. “My guys, they deserve this one. We’ve been so fast all year long and I just kept making a lot of mistakes. I just can’t say thank you enough to all the guys at Toyota, TRD, JBL, everyone at KBM, all my pit crew guys they did an awesome job. Track position was everything. We got awesome motors underneath the hood of these things and all the guys at JGR, they never give up and keep digging.”

Rhodes, who contended for his first career win, had to settle for a career-best second.

“He (Bell) had a really loose truck and that’s what you needed at the end of the race,” Rhodes said. “It just got tighter and tighter as the runs went on. I was way too tight but I was making some good ground on the outside and he came up on us a little bit, which is fine. It’s racing for the win at the end. He did an awesome job all night. He raced everybody clean and with respect. I think we could use a little more of that in our series after this crazy Drivin’ For Linemen 200.”

For the second consecutive year, Mother Nature soaked the 1.25-mile track shortly before qualifying was to begin, forcing the field to be set by combined practice speeds, handing the top starting position to Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Rhodes.

Despite an hour and fifteen-minute delay for inclement weather, Rhodes would lose the lead on the start from veteran Johnny Sauter who held command until Tyler Reddick elected to stay out on a Lap 26 caution for an incident in Turn 3.

The bold strategy for Reddick paid off with the race lead until the event’s third caution on Lap 65 for the expiration of the caution clock. During routine pit stops, a quick stop from William Byron’s crew handed him the lead.

The NASCAR Next alumnus led for a whopping 48 laps, until outside pole sitter Sauter squeezed ahead on pit road following a Lap 113 caution for the second expiration of the caution clock.

The two would be under attack on the restart from Christopher Bell who surged into the lead on Lap on Lap 119 and despite losing the lead to Rhodes on Lap 149, the Toyota Racing development driver reclaimed the lead on Lap 153 and held on for his first NCWTS win on pavement.

The event was red-flagged three times for incidents. The first for a three-truck incident in Turn 3 on Lap 120 lasted six minutes, 38 seconds. The second came 11 laps from the finish for a seven-truck accident in Turn 4 for a total of 10 minutes, 50 seconds. The final red flag broke out behind the leaders for an incident between Spencer Gallagher and John Wes Townley that lasted 12 minutes, 49 seconds. The two drivers wrestled after climbing from their trucks and were summoned to the Truck Series hauler post-race.

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will take a one-week breather before returning to competition at Kentucky Speedway on Thurs., July 7 for the Buckle Up Your Truck 225.


Posted on by Reid Spencer



RELATED: Full race lineup | See all 40 cars

SONOMA, Calif. — Carl Edwards ran a lightning-fast lap in the first round of Saturday’s knockout qualifying at Sonoma Raceway — and it worried him.

“After that first lap — I have to be honest — I sat here and thought, ‘Man, I’m really going to screw this up on the second one,’ ’cause the first one was really good, but it held on for the pole, and so I’m really excited.”

Edwards toured the 1.99-mile road course in 1 minute, 14.392 seconds (96.301 mph) in the first round and was the only driver to crack 96 mph either in Friday’s practice or Saturday’s time trials.

But he need not have worried about the second round. In Sunday’s Toyota – Save Mart 350 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Edwards’ No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota will lead the field to the green flag.

On the lap that counted, as tires fell off and the track got marginally warmer, Edwards secured his third Coors Light Pole Award of the season, his first at Sonoma and the 19th of his career with a run at 95.777 mph (1:14.799).

AJ Allmendinger was a close second at 95.676 mph (1:14.878). The road course ace put his No. 47 JTG/Daugherty Chevrolet on the front row at Sonoma for the third straight year, having started second in 2014 and from the pole last season.

“It was a struggle yesterday,” Allmendinger said of Friday’s practice. “We just never could really find the direction of the car. All my guys did a great job to get to work, to get this car closer to the front.

“When I saw Carl’s first lap, I said, ‘I don’t care what kind of lap I run — if he runs that again I’m not going to get close.’ Then, after I saw it was less than a tenth (of a second), you sort of nit-pick, but it’s definitely a big gain from where we were yesterday.”

Martin Truex Jr. (95.672 mph) qualified third, followed by Kurt Busch (95.654 mph) and Kyle Larson (95.362 mph). Seventh-place qualifier Joey Logano (95.276 mph) had the fastest Ford.

“That’s better than where we were last year,” said Logano, the Sprint Cup Series’ most recent winner (Michigan). “We were (19th) last year, so we’ve improved. I thought I had a shot after the first round but lost some grip the second round and tried harder at the same time, and all of that just didn’t work out. 

“It’s unfortunate that we lost a little bit from the first round to the second round (three positions), but we’re still in good shape. I still think we have a top-five car, and we proved that today in qualifying.”

None of the four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets advanced to the second round. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led Friday’s second practice, will start 13th, with Jimmie Johnson 15th, Chase Elliott 16th and Kasey Kahne 19th.

Danica Patrick qualified 11th, her best starting spot since last year’s Chase race at Texas. Cody Ware failed to make the 40-car field.


Posted on by George Winkler



SONOMA, Calif. — The downside to being one of the young faces of NASCAR is that Chase Elliott, 20, had to drink water instead of wine in Victory Lane following his win at Sonoma Raceway in Saturday’s K&N Pro Series West Chevy’s Fresh Mex 200.

It didn’t seem to matter as Elliott glugged from the crystal goblet and saluted the fans after his first road-course win since 2013 in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

After all, the main goal for Elliott on this day was getting repetitions around the 1.99-mile track in preparation for Sunday’s Toyota Save Mart 350 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Winning was just an added bonus.

“Just getting reps, getting laps, I hope that helps,” Elliott said. “Obviously, the cars are very different. You aren’t going to run 60 laps on one set of tires tomorrow. Different, definitely different, but hopefully getting the laps will help.”

After running in the top five for much of the second half of Saturday’s race, Elliott found himself in position to pass Noah Gragson with three laps to go. The two cars made contact in Turn 7, but after a couple anxious moments Elliott took over the lead and drove away for the win.

“I didn’t expect to get a run on him up there,” Elliott said. “Looked like he got a little bit more of the curve than he wanted to in (Turn) 4 and it washed him up a little wider than he wanted to go, I think, and it kind of opened the door for us to have a run.”

Before that Elliott spent much of the second half of the race in third or fourth place, waiting for the perfect time to make his move. That wasn’t by accident.

“I didn’t want those guys to push me any harder than I was going,” Elliott said. “I just felt like it was such a long ways to go, they were all racing kind of hard and kind of rooting each other up out of the way, and I didn’t really want any part of that.”

As a result, Elliott led only nine of the 64 laps in a race that featured nine cautions, including one at the green flag that involved Todd Gilliland. Gragson led the most laps at 34, but he didn’t lead the most important one at the finish. Elliott’s winning margin was 2.336 seconds.

Can Elliott turn water into wine Sunday and walk away with his first Sprint Cup win? That remains to be seen. He will start 16th on Row 8 next to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson.


Posted on by Nascar



Photo Credit: Nigel Kinrade Photography 

Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing begins an association with a new sponsor this weekend at Sonoma Raceway, and how the arrangement came into being is one of the more unusual stories in NASCAR.

 

Malwarebytes, a California-based company that provides advanced malware prevention and remediation, will serve as an associate sponsor on Michael McDowell‘s No. 95 Chevrolet for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The company will be the team’s primary sponsor next month at New Hampshire Motor Speedway as well as other select events this season.

 

Before this year’s Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in April, crew chief Dave Winston wasn’t familiar with Malwarebytes. But after a virus infected his company computer, encrypting crucial files and leaving him and his team feeling helpless, he learned not only about computer security, but about an entire underground network of cyber thieves, ransomware and the digital currency known as bitcoin.

 

The story sounds more similar to a script for a spy thriller than a real-world occurrence, full of intrigue and secrecy, including a theft and a ransom note, the result of a virus attack that left no trail and few clues.

 

But this was no Hollywood movie. The attack and the ransom note were real.

 

The hostage in this instance was crucial information belonging to the CSLFR team — chassis information, wind tunnel and simulation data stored on Winston’s computer. With the team making preparations for the Texas race, the inability to access those files brought work to a standstill.

 

Winston told NASCAR.com that he was in his office working on his computer when he noticed random files beginning to show up in various folders.

 

“I started seeing them more and more and said ‘What is this?,’ ” he said. “I clicked on one of them and I don’t remember if it came up with an actual picture of something, but what it looked like was a screen shot … of a logo or an email or something like it. I kept working and didn’t think anything of it. But as I went on through the day I saw more and more of that happening. Didn’t know why. I deleted a couple of them and just kept on going.”

 

While on his way to Richard Childress Racing (CSLFR has a technical alliance with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series organization) later that day, Winston said his team’s engineer called and said files from the crew chief’s computer were downloading into Dropbox, a file-sharing site used by the team.

 

At the RCR shop, Winston said he checked his laptop, while staying off the RCR network, “just to see if I could see what was going on.

 

“I tried to open a couple of files and all of a sudden every file I tried to open was encrypted and I couldn’t open anything. Needless to say, it sent fear running through my body really quick. You understand how much information we use. Nothing of course was backed up because nobody ever backs up their computers until it’s too late, and I was guilty of that. Now we’ve learned from that.”

 

With the Texas race looming, “I couldn’t open up any of the spreadsheets that I had created, any of the wind tunnel data that I had on my computer or anything. I didn’t have access to any of it,” Winston said. “I finished up what I had to do at Childress’ and came back to the shop. About five or six of us decided that Tuesday night was a good time to learn about ransomware.”

 

SNEAK ATTACK

According to Nathan Scott, Malwarebytes’ technical manager for ransomware, the particular virus “always has to do a certain set of things to be classified as ransomware.

 

“If it gets on your machine and it doesn’t destroy your backups so you can’t come back from the attack, if it doesn’t encrypt your files and doesn’t leave you a ransom note, then it’s not ransomware,” he said.

 

This particular virus met all the qualifications, including a note stating that a key to decrypt the files could be obtained for $500 in bitcoin currency.

 

Members of the management team began making calls in an effort to find someone who could clean the computer and recover the files.

 

“Of course, no one was able to help us,” Winston said.

 

Internet searches provided less-than-appealing suggestions, that the best course of action was to pay the ransom and hope the key to unlock the files was delivered.

 

“You don’t want to believe them,” Winston said. “Why would they give you your files back if all they are looking for is your money? But we needed to try something … so we made the decision to go ahead and pay the ransom, which opened up a whole other event.

 

“We had to learn about bitcoins, figure out how to buy them so we could pay it.”

 

BITCOIN BREAKDOWN

A long day grew longer as executives settled in around the conference room at the team’s headquarters trying to understand ransomware, bitcoin currency and “trying to get Dave off the ledge because his data had been hacked and was being held for ransom,” team Vice President Jeremy Lange said.

 

“All Dave wanted to do was pay the ransom. He didn’t care if it was credit card, bitcoin, cash, he would have probably sold a child to get his information back.”

 

Fortunately, again through searches on the internet, the team discovered that a bitcoin ATM was located barely two miles from the team’s shop in Concord, North Carolina.

 

“We looked like the Keystone Cops walking into a little convenience store to buy these bitcoins,” said Winston.


“We drove there and scouted it out,” Lange added. “The guy thought we were nuts. We were asking questions, kind of skeptical because none of us had ever heard of a bitcoin ATM before.”

 

The team’s IT personnel had already downloaded an application for a bitcoin wallet, necessary for obtaining the online currency. Once they had the required amount, the bitcoin was then provided to the ransomware and the key to decrypt the files was delivered the following morning.

 

“We programmed the key in and then the files were available within hours,” Lange said. “We tried to do it here (at our shop), then went to RCR and used their IT team; they helped us out and later that day the files were unlocked.”

 

Winston said while working with the RCR group to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future, one company name that kept coming up was Malwarebytes.

 

“Now we’re working together with them to try and make it known to people that this can happen to anybody,” he said. “You’re not immune to it; everybody is susceptible to it. It’s like insurance, you never think about it until you need it.”

 

It isn’t known how Winston’s computer became infected. But the damage done is a story that is all too common.

 

It starts when the ransomware virus gets on a computer.

 

“In the end, it leaves a ransom note that gives you a website to go to where you have to pay them in bitcoins, most of the time between $500 and $1,000 for an average user,” Scott said.

 

PERFECT PAIRING

The sponsorship package is “a mid- to six-figure deal,” according to Lange and is for the remainder of the 2016 season.

 

Unlike traditional sponsorships, it is the first sponsor agreement for the team using a CPM (Cost Per Impression) model as a sales tool.

 

“We’re selling assets but we’re (also) selling impressions,” he said. “We’re selling a guaranteed amount of impressions and then we are going to use the assets — paint schemes, social media, driver appearances, press, etc., to basically drive the value of impressions to reach a certain amount, and that’s what the program is based on.”

 

Lange said the incident led the team to share its story with Malwarebytes and “let them know … how impactful it was.

 

“And it truly illustrated that it can happen to anybody,” he said. “… It’s really to build awareness among the NASCAR community and elsewhere by talking to people … let them know about the story. (That) was really what drove us to reach out to Malwarebytes because it’s a real, live case study of sorts. Dave and CSLFR were at the mercy of the ransomware.”

 

For Malwarebytes, Scott said this was a “traditional story.”

 

“But what makes it extra special is that it’s with a sport that people love and are influenced by, put their hearts into and enjoy it,” he said. “It’s different from me trying to call people or stand on a stage and tell them about it where they think I’m exaggerating or they aren’t interested. If they actually see that somebody with NASCAR is getting hit by these things, then it’s going to feel a lot closer to home to them. … we need all the knowledge out there that we can get.”

Posted on by Holly Cain



SONOMA, Calif. — Dressed casually in a polo shirt and shorts Ernie Irvan proudly accepted his plaque of induction into the Sonoma Raceway Wall of Fame Friday afternoon between Sprint Cup Series practices. He stood alongside fellow inductee Tony Stewart, still dressed in his driver’s uniform, and the two two-time Sonoma winners received a boisterous applause and cheers of good will.

It was a celebration of two of NASCAR’s most successful drivers and most famous personalities.

During a brief interview in front of the hundreds of fans crowded around the stage in Victory Lane, Stewart reminded everyone that he may be retiring from NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition but not from competition.

“This is just a farewell to (Sprint) Cup,” Stewart said, earning huge applause and cheers after promising his “next” act “will be just as exciting as the first.”

Irvan, a California native, was equally as gracious in accepting the Wall of Fame honors. His dramatic 1992 victory here was recently chosen a fan favorite moment. He had to serve a penalty at the beginning of the race for jumping the start and still managed to come back and win.

The 15-time Cup winner said he hasn’t attended a Sprint Cup race in two years, although he watches every race on television. He will be trackside Sunday here however.

“I try to come to local stuff like Charlotte and anytime I get inducted somewhere I’ll be there,” Irvan said, smiling.

Discussing his career, which was cut short following a frightening accident and subsequent concussions, Irvan, 57, was philosophic and thankful. He suffered a severe head injury after crashing at Michigan in 1994, but after a long recovery, he returned to triumphantly and emotionally collect the final win of his career there in 1997.

He retired in 1999 and said he doesn’t harbor regrets.

“I always think about what might have been, but it doesn’t really matter because it was what it was,” Irvan said. “I even thought some in the last couple weeks, you know, I wonder what life would have been if I hadn’t gotten hurt that first time. “Coulda had something else tragic happen or I might have been a two or three-time Cup champion. Who knows? The only one that can answer anything about that is God.”

These days Irvan — named one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers — is helping his son Jared, 18, make his career in racing and spending time with his daughter Jordan and wife Kim. Drivers were quick to shake his hand and greet him in Sonoma.

“I always think, how can I be discouraged,” Irvan said. “I got to do something that 99 percent of people never do. And I actually got to win at it. I got to go to a state dinner at the White House. All these things were given to me because of what I did. I would have done it for free and yet they paid me too.

“It’s a matter of being able to do what you love to do and being done with it whether it was shorter or it got stretched out. I would have loved to have done it more, I didn’t.

“But I am very happy.”


Posted on by Holly Cain



SONOMA, Calif. — Kyle Larson was all smiles and thumbs-ups at Sonoma Raceway prior to Friday’s opening practice on the challenging 2.52-mile Northern California road course.

The scenic course is a little more than an hour drive from Larson’s hometown of Elk Grove, California, and the 23-year old driver has proven himself a talented road course racer in his young career with a win in the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona and a victory here in Sonoma in the 2014 NASCAR K&N West Series race.

All that aside, however, Larson is quite simply, just ready to win in the Sprint Cup ranks.

He has two top-five finishes in the last five races, including a runner-up at Dover and a third place finish in the Sprint Cup Series’ most recent race at Michigan.

“I don’t know about pressure, but it would be nice to be the next new person to win a (Sprint) Cup Series race,” said Larson, driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet.

“It’s been a long time since a new person has won. There are a crop of us young guys in our early 20s that would like to get a win. Chase (Elliott) is probably realistically got the best chance. He has been so close week after week now. Austin (Dillon) started the year out really strong. But I like road courses a lot. So, we will try and get it this week.”

Larson has proven himself at Sonoma, setting the Sprint Cup Series track record during early round qualifying last year. He’s had a pair of top-four starts but never a top-10 finish. His best Sprint Cup Series finish on a road course is fourth place at Watkins Glen during his 2014 rookie season.

He was fastest in opening practice at Sonoma on Friday.

“I’m getting more experience, but still I probably ran a little over 10 road course races in my life,” Larson said with a smile. “But I like them because you can feel the car kind of move around a lot more. You can feel the suspension, so it feels more similar to kind of a dirt track. I don’t know if it’s the dirt track, but just sprint cars and stuff the suspension moves around a lot and you can feel the balance of the car. On this stuff you can too. 

“Where on the ovals our cars are so stiff and rigid you can’t really feel a whole lot with them. I think that is why I can feel the a little bit better and these tracks get really slick and you have to hit your marks every lap which is something I feel like I’m okay at.”

Larson is also finding his groove with new crew chief Chad Johnston. The veteran came to Larson’s team this year from the Stewart-Haas organization and Larson thinks a large reason he is running better is because the two are getting into sync now.

After four finishes of 30th or worse in the first 11 races, Larson hasn’t finished worse than 13th in the last four races. He’s ranked 21st in the standings, 38 points behind 16th place rookie Ryan Blaney in the final Chase spot.

“I haven’t had any experience with a new crew chief coming in before Chad,” Larson explained. “I haven’t been in the sport very long, so I think when somebody new like that comes in from an established or championship winning race team like that or any race team really. It’s hard for them to come in and make all the changes that they want right away. 

“It’s kind of a process. It took some time, a couple of months and now we are building race cars the way Chad wants them built, the bodies all that stuff. It has made our level or speed in the race cars get quicker. I think that has been the main thing is Chad’s influence has been key the last couple of months and we have been building the cars how he wants them. 

“I think Chad and Phil (Surgen) my engineer they have probably learned me now and the way I communicate and how big of an adjustment I need or how small. I just think it takes a little bit of time to get working together right and now we seem to be clicking.”

Nine times Larson has finished in the top-three and he had eight top-five finishes in his rookie season.  He’s led laps in three of the last four races.

“We all want to win so bad,” Larson said.”We are all working hard to keep our cars fast and keep up with an ever-changing garage area. So, I guess the pressure is there to get the win while we are running well.

“You look at Chip Ganassi in the past, they are probably that team you describe where we get so close and then we lose it and have to spend a year or half a season regrouping and getting back to where we need to be.

“We have made huge gains so far this season. We just have to stay on top of it and hope we get a win.”