Regan Smith’s NASCAR Driver Diary

It’s been awhile since my last entry, but it’s been a busy summer. I’ll try to catch you up on a few things.

One of the really cool things I got to do recently was throw out the first pitch at a Colorado Rockies game in Denver. Honestly, it was more nerve-wracking than running a race. I was shaking like I’d just got off a qualifying lap at Atlanta. When I was going up to the mound, I was so nervous. I was just out of my element, that was the main thing.

Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote. Namely, we won the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway last month.

From the start of this year, I said I felt like we were going to be capable of winning this year; I said that pretty clearly, actually. I didn’t expect it to happen that early, though, and I certainly didn’t expect it at a place like Darlington.

We don’t like how this season has been going so far. A lot of things have happened that we can’t change, but now we’re focused on the things we can control.

Talladega was a little disappointing, but at least we didn’t wreck – which is a plus. We’re trying to get some momentum back and so we can start making up some of these points we’ve given away early in the season.

Since I last wrote, things have definitely not gone how I wanted them to – and the main reason is we’ve had bad luck.

We were fast in Phoenix. We were fast in Las Vegas. At Phoenix, we got wrapped up in somebody else’s problem – as did about 15 other cars – and then at Vegas, we had an engine issue. It’s rare that ever happens with our Earnhardt Childress Racing motors. And at Bristol, we started off good – we had a good starting spot – but it didn’t really materialize in the race like we thought it would.

As the end of Sunday’s race was getting closer, I wasn’t thinking about the fact it was the Daytona 500.

I was thinking, “OK, when it gets down to it, what do we have to do to make sure we’re up toward the front, and what do we have to do make sure we get the right push and the right draft at the end of the race to break out in front of these guys?”