The team had the chance to test at Chicagoland recently in advance of this year’s playoffs, and the benefits from having that additional track time are ones that crew chief Jeremy Bullins hopes will propel the team forward from the opening round.
“It’s always nice to get a test. We don’t get a lot of track testing anymore with the organizational testing program,” said Bullins. “Having the opportunity to test at the first track was good in a lot of ways. It gave us the opportunity to work on our setup for there, but it also gave us the chance to try some things to make our cars better that you don’t get the opportunity to do on a race weekend, so hopefully all of that will parlay into some performance to kick this thing off.”
Bullins and the Woods both believe that the opening set of three races — at Chicagoland, New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Dover Int’l Speedway — plays to a lot of the team’s strengths.
“I feel like the first round with Chicago, Loudon and Dover – Chicago is a place I feel like we can go and easily be a top-five car, if not contend to win the race,” said Bullins. “Our intermediate program is strong and Loudon and Dover are two places where I feel we can run top-10 all day long. We’ve been able to do that and just need to put races together at those two places, but the first round you can kind of point your way through. The second round with Charlotte, Talladega and Kansas, I feel like we can win any of those. I feel like those are all very good race tracks for us. Texas (in the third round) … I felt like we were a contender for the win, so we’ll see.”
“I’d say a lot of people look at us as a long shot, but I think some of the tracks really suit us well. … It’s just a matter of putting races together and not having some of the things go wrong that have gone wrong in the past. If we do that, we’ll be in good shape.”
However, it was Eddie Wood that laid out a reminder of just how the playoff system is designed to work: win and move on.
“Every race is as important as the next one. There is none that are really more important to me,” said Wood. “They’re all important, especially the first three in the first round. If you’re fortunate to run well and finish up front in those races or even win one in advance, then you start worrying about the next three. You’ve got to take them one at a time.”
“Everywhere that’s left Ryan has run well at, and I feel good about all of them. But the mile-and-a-halves are certainly better for us right now. … The whole thing is designed for everybody to run hard all day long, and I think that’s what you’re gonna see.”
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs begin Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, with the running of the Tales of the Turtles 400 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).
About the Writer
Jacob Seelman is the Managing Editor of Race Chaser Online and creator of the Motorsports Madness radio show, airing at 7 p.m. Eastern every Monday on the Performance Motorsports Network.
Seelman grew up in the sport, watching his grandparents co-own the RaDiUs Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series team in the 1990s.
The 23-year-old is currently studying Broadcast Journalism at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., and is also serving as the full-time tour announcer for the Must See Racing Sprint Car Series.
Email Jacob at: speed77radio@gmail.com
Follow on Twitter: @Speed77Radio or @JacobSeelman77
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