Regan Smith, following a seventh place finish in the History 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday, expressed disappointment with his JR Motorsports organization despite being the NASCAR Nationwide Series points leader entering the summer months.
Smith, who won earlier this season in the DRIVE4COPD 300 at Daytona International Speedway, was irritated with his team’s failure to adjust the car’s tight-in condition, which loomed over him all race.
“Our race today (at Charlotte) was relatively uneventful,” Smith explained during the post-race press conference. “We were tight-in all day long, I don’t think I’ve had a car (that was) tight-in in about five or six years. So, as good as it felt off my tongue to say tight into the corner, I got kind of aggravated with having to say tight-in.”
Failure to adjust the tight-in problem wasn’t the only circumstance that aggravated Smith; he also was annoyed with the team’s continuous inability to make the car faster.
“Every time we tried to work on it, it just kept getting the back out of the racetrack on exit and it would slow us down,” Smith added. “So, whatever it was, we’ll have to go back to the shop and look at it and decide what we can do different coming back here in the fall when the speeds are up a little bit more to fix that.”
Smith, though, did give credit to his team on a solid run; however, he longed to have a better car on short runs as he lost the majority of his positions on fresh tires.
“But, nonetheless, a solid day, if we could’ve started runs 20 laps in on tires and run from that point on I felt like we were as good as anybody out there,” Smith further commented. “We just gave up too much in the first 20-laps and that was pretty much the story of our day.”
Chase Elliott, victor at Darlington Raceway and Texas Motor Speedway, felt his team (JR Motorsports) made little gains during the weekend, leading Smith to further remarks about his team’s performance.
“Not really,” Smith said after being asked whether he thought his team gained upon their Charlotte program. “I thought we unloaded pretty good, I just felt like we fought the same stuff all weekend long, (especially) with corner entry.”
“We struggled with all three cars,” he continued. “It just seemed like we were a bit off with all three cars and that’s rare, our cars have been unbelievable this season (though).”
Smith ended his media center appearance with positive mentions, explaining the team needed to think about the good rather than the bad from this weekend.
“I think we need to take the positive from this weekend, which is we know we have to work a little bit harder, we have to change some things up,” Smith said. “We are expanding our database, and I guarantee we won’t come back to (Charlotte) and have the same problem twice.”
