{"id":587389,"date":"2026-04-07T05:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/587389\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T05:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:34:16","slug":"nascar-insiders-react-to-corey-day-flipping-switch-impressive-run-at-rockingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/587389\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR insiders react to Corey Day flipping switch, impressive run at Rockingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first few weeks of Corey Day\u2018s 2026 NASCAR<\/a> O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series season were headlined by his multiple run-ins with fellow competitors. But since a P27 in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway, Day has quietly picked up results. <\/p>\n

Day has now compiled seven consecutive top 10s after finishing 10th in Saturday\u2019s race at Rockingham Speedway. He started on the pole and swept both stages at Rockingham, a pit road miscue in Stage 3 being the only thing to slow him down. His turnaround has been impressive to Freddie Kraft, who spoke glowingly of Day on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanna give a shoutout to Corey Day,\u201d Kraft said on Door Bumper Clear<\/a>. \u201c\u2026 I don\u2019t know where he ended up finishing because I know they had to come back and put some lugs on it, which, in the moment, really good thinking by the crew chief to realize we can\u2019t get a penalty next week, we\u2019re missing lugs, I know we\u2019re missing lugs, but we have the No. 1 pit stall at Bristol. So, we have to come fix this now while we have the opportunity so we don\u2019t forfeit that. Obviously, buried him in traffic, I don\u2019t know where he ended up finishing. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I thought he was the best car clearly early in the race, won both stages. I just feel like the last maybe month or so \u2014 since COTA when he got into the back of Connor [Zilisch] \u2014 he\u2019s been nothing but good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corey Day is on a heater after messy start to 2026 season<\/p>\n

Just a few weeks ago, there were people questioning if Day was ready for the seat was in. That the hype around him was too much and he wasn\u2019t worthy of being in the No. 17 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. <\/p>\n

All of a sudden, not only does the 20-year-old look like he belongs, but he just might have something to say about the race for the championship. Day sits fifth in the points standings, 150 points behind Justin Allgaier for the top spot, but just 24 shy of Jesse Love for second. Day has raced clean over the last month, and that has stood out most to Tommy Baldwin. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou see a completely different race car driver, right? He\u2019s just all of a sudden \u2014 it\u2019s like a switch. Again, he\u2019s not running into anybody, right? He\u2019s not hurting his car, he\u2019s keeping the performance in his car and the car is fast, and he\u2019s learning every week. He just keeps getting better,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cIt really looks like [Jeff] Gordon had that eye for him, and it\u2019s gonna start paying off here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first few weeks of Corey Day\u2018s 2026 NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series season were headlined by his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-587389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587389","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=587389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}