NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II: Regan Smith preview

Smith, Furniture Row Racing Eyeing 2011 DENVER, Colo. (Nov. 10, 2010) -- As the 2010 Sprint Cup season is winding down with the penultimate race scheduled for Sunday (Nov. 14) at Phoenix International Raceway, Regan Smith is looking at the final ...

Published: Nov 12, 2010, 6:38 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Smith, Furniture Row Racing Eyeing 2011

DENVER, Colo. (Nov. 10, 2010) -- As the 2010 Sprint Cup season is winding down with the penultimate race scheduled for Sunday (Nov. 14) at Phoenix International Raceway, Regan Smith is looking at the final two events as an extension to the 2011 season.

"If you have a bad race during the season you only have to wait four or five days before you get back into the car," said Smith. "That's not much time for reflecting and feeling down. But it becomes a different scenario at this time of the year, you want to end the season knowing that you're gaining and picking up speed. If you're on the other end of the performance spectrum you have nearly three long months to think about it. Ouch!"

The good news for Smith and the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team is that they've been closing out the year with their best racing of the season But with two races remaining, Smith wants to make sure the recent performance level continues and there's not a detour.

"We're so excited about the future of Furniture Row Racing that sometimes we lose a little patience," explained Smith. "We want the baby steps to become giant steps, but we know better that this is not the way the improvement meter works."

If you take away the Martinsville race (Oct. 24) where Smith got hit and shoved into the wall, the team's performance in the last 10 races is a vivid sign of improvement. In nine of the last 10 races, Smith has posted three top 13s and five top 20s, including two 12th-place finishes. Smith's average finish during this period is 19.11 compared to an average finish of 26.66 for the first 24 races of the season.

"That's an increase of seven positions -- a nice jump," said Smith. "Now if we can improve another seven positions we'll be looking at Chase material. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, we have a long way to go, but we're on the right track with our Furniture Row Chevrolet."

-source: furniture row racing

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Series Awards Ceremony news 2010-11-10

Next article Phoenix II: Tony Stewart preview

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

4 h

Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

7 h

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

7 h

William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix

Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 8 h

Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts