CONCORD, N.C. – Match it or beat it. That’s Cliff Daniels’ approach to Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Why? In the No. 5 team’s last visit to the Georgia venue earlier this year, Kyle Larson and the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE dominated the race, leading a total of 269 laps across the three-stage event but lost the lead in the final 10 laps and crossed the finish line in second. Since then, Daniels, crew chief of the No. 5 team, learned a lot about his driver, how to improve his calls from the top of the pit box from that race and is excited to take his notes from the March event and improve on his team’s performance.
“When we had a big lead, it was hard to know how much to adjust the car,” Daniels said. “In hindsight, we were probably an adjustment behind at the end. So, if we had a better adjustment during the race, I think it would have put us in better shape for the end of the race. I think he (Kyle Larson) learned how to pace himself on the last run just a little bit to not wear out the tires as fast. So, when you put together a car that’s got a better handling adjustment to it plus his patience earlier in the run, I think it would lend itself to a different result.”
Since that race, the duo has gone on to win at two 1.5-mile tracks, with Larson being the only driver with more than one win on that track length. He has also secured a second-place finish, four top-fives, four top-10s, and has led 836 laps at 1.5-mile tracks, or 55% of the laps completed.
Daniels attributes the team’s success to the duo growing and starting to understand each other on race day.
“The journey we have gone through, there has been a bit of maturing on how to call the race and him managing the race,” Daniels said. “There was just a level of maturity we had to get to know how to make the right adjustment at the right time and make the right move on-track at the right time to be there at the end. That is something that I have spent a lot of time focused on and I know he has as well.”
Be sure to tune in this Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN to see if Daniels and Larson can pick up where they left off at Atlanta and secure the organization its 11th Cup Series victory this season.