Short Track Lovin' ✅

Chapter 17: Can-Am Duel / Xfinity Race

February 2016

Standing in the hauler before the first Can-Am Duel, he had found himself in a familiar spot he was getting used to being before these events – looking into the mirror, making sure that everything looked right.

Greg Morin had once again gone through his normal practice of helping the youngster prepare, reminding him to take the Tylenol for the pain and wrapping his side. Chase then followed that up by getting his firesuit on and now making sure that everything looked okay.

"You know you don't have to run tonight..." he hears and glances towards the door, seeing his crew chief standing there. "It's not required as you have the pole."

"I need to run it," he simply offers. "I need to learn for Sunday, and you can't learn these things in practice."

The worry everyone had expressed throughout the weekend seemed to continue even now leading into the Duel events. He was hoping everybody would treat things as normal, but that wasn't the case as they were all worried about the ribs and soreness that lingered from the plane crash. As a result, he was getting used to hearing requests of whether he was okay, and offering to not make him do certain things.

He recalled the pain that he felt during making his pole qualifying lap. He remembered the tinge of pain forced upon with the pair of laps. That was a set of pain that had only increased by running the practice sessions and putting more laps in. It seemed the light lingering pain found a way to increase a little, but not enough to bother him or change the plans. He could handle what he was being dealt with in the car as it still gave him the ability to concentrate and the adrenaline took care of any peaks.

With having qualified on the pole, he could've easily set out the Can-Am Duels. It may be for the better to not risk wrecking their precious car. However, he wasn't about to do that. This was his first trip to Daytona as a Sprint Cup Series rookie.

The drafting in the series was much different than how it seemed to go in the XFINITY Series from what he had heard. If he was going to have any hope of a good finish on Sunday, he needed to learn quickly how to put the car in the right spots for success. He knew he could simulate some of that in practice, but in practice you didn't have drivers diving for lanes, or forming up runs.

There was only one way that you could simulate that – by actually getting out there in one of these Duel races. For that reason, he knew he had to throw caution to the win for the sake of learning.

He makes his way out to pit road, set to go forth with the event that night. He goes through the usual interviews, having grown used to the hoopla that surrounded him thus far during Speedweeks. He knew it was going to intensify as they got closer to the big race.

"Are you ready for this Clyde?" He hears and immediately smiles as he recognizes the voice. It seemed Dale Earnhardt Jr. had gotten into the habit of calling him Clyde lately.

"Ready as I'll ever be, I guess," he offers as he looks back at his teammate. The smallest things seemed weird as he got ready for the season. The fact the No. 24 car was his and not his idol Jeff Gordon's was the tip of the iceberg, but also seeing guys like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson as teammates.

"I'm going to give you a small piece of advice and knowledge before we get going that I figure you should know." Chase shook his head, having grown used to these moments with Dale. He was willing to soak up anything that he could from the experienced teammates, especially someone who had won the Daytona 500 previously. "Everybody talks about working as teammates on the restrictor plates and using your friends to further you up through the field. That's the expressed secret to racing here, but that's not the truth. I may have helped you when it came to the XFINITY package because it works there, but I'm not going to help you tonight." Chase then looks at Dale surprised.