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\t\t<\/p>\nAVONDALE, Ariz. \u2014 The top-six finishers in Saturday\u2019s NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series at Phoenix Raceway looked typical but the race told a broader story beyond what the results show.<\/p>\n
Independent teams took the fight to heavyweight entries and ran up front throughout the night. Jeremy Clements wheeled his family-owned No. 51 team to the top-five at one point in the night, passing multiple Joe Gibbs Racing cars and Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 No. 88 car in the process.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Clements came away with an 11th-place finish after a tough final restart but independent teams were still well-represented in the top-10.<\/p>\n
Jeb Burton brought his No. 27 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet to a seventh-place finish on the night after running inside the top-10 for a good chunk of the night. At the checkered flag, he paced teammate Rajah Caruth in the No. 32 car that has finished top-10 in every race so far \u2014 and Viking Motorsports\u2019 No. 96 car that missed the first race of the season but has quickly bounced back with Anthony Alfredo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just coming from short track racing. It takes away the downforce so it gives these guys a fighting chance is what you\u2019re seeing,\u201d Burton said.<\/p>\n
All of the teams took a different path to get to the top-10 on Saturday but they share in their experience Burton summed up.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have no idea our little team. We have 30 people for three teams\u2026 All these big teams have 600 people,\u201d Burton said. \u201cEveryone has to do their part to make it go round. They\u2019re working 70-hour weeks, including the team owner. These guys are away from their families a lot because they\u2019re dedicated, hard-nosed racers and it\u2019s great to see their hard work pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n
JAR is getting additional support from Chevrolet and Richard Childress Racing, including information and notes that is proving valuable this season. <\/p>\n
Ultimately, it\u2019s a culmination of a partnership that has been through a lot but formed at the right time.<\/p>\n
\u201cJordan and I have been really good for each other. When I came to the race team, the team was not really running great and my career was not in a great spot either and we went to work and won in our first year, in a car and a team that was not winning caliber. We did that together, growing that to now we come to tracks like these where we\u2019re running top-10,\u201d Burton said.<\/p>\n
Like Burton with JAR, Alfredo is seeing Viking Motorsports grow and get the year started well.<\/p>\n
Drivers like Alfredo get to see both sides of the coin. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we got the ball rolling in the right direction after a rough start to the year. We had an awesome car last week as well, probably should\u2019ve had a top-10 if we hadn\u2019t had a mechanical issue. To come here and have a top-10 finish is something we can build off of,\u201d Alfredo said.<\/p>\n
Alfredo will get to run for Hendrick Motorsports in a fill-in effort for Alex Bowman in Sunday\u2019s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix. Like Alfredo, Caruth sees both perspectives \u2014 big teams and small teams \u2014 and puts the onus on his shoulders to succeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just about holding myself accountable and making sure I\u2019m doing my homework from week to week,\u201d Caruth said.<\/p>\n
Caruth will return to JR Motorsports when the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series races Saturday, March 14, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. <\/p>\n
Notes on Jeremy Clements<\/p>\n
Best career driver rating:<\/p>\n
129.3 \u2013 Road America 2017 <\/p>\n
97.1 \u2013 Bristol, August 2019<\/p>\n
95.3 \u2013 Bristol, August 2016<\/p>\n
93.3 \u2013 Pocono, June 2020 (II)<\/p>\n
89.2 \u2013 Phoenix, March 2026<\/p>\n
83.4 \u2013 Talladega, 2016 <\/p>\n
75.3 \u2013 New Hampshire 2022<\/p>\n
76.3 \u2013 Daytona, August 2022<\/p>\n
10th for most laps in top-15 (170 of 200), 10th-best driver rating (89.2), fourth-most quality passes (49) Saturday at Phoenix.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.<\/p>\n
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.<\/p>\n
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick’s final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen’s stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years \u2013 as well as up-and-coming drivers’ stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.<\/p>\n
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2014 The top-six finishers in Saturday\u2019s NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series at Phoenix Raceway looked typical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-522010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}