{"id":936902,"date":"2026-10-17T22:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T22:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/936902\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T22:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T22:14:13","slug":"corey-day-has-matured-into-one-of-nascars-best-prospects-in-rookie-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/936902\/","title":{"rendered":"Corey Day has matured into one of NASCAR’s best prospects in rookie year"},"content":{"rendered":"

While top-10 finishes came in bunches early in the 2026 NASCAR\u00a0<\/a>O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season for rookie Corey Day, race craft did not.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Day was involved in several crashes at the start of the season at both Daytona and Atlanta. He was seen as a talented prospect, but one who had plenty of work to do to rein himself in and put that talent to its best use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He’s doing so now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day, who scored his fourth win of the season at Charlotte on Oct. 11 and has two consecutive victories, is third in the standings with four races left and only seven points back of leader Sheldon Creed. Winning the championship as a rookie isn’t at all out of the realm of possibility for Day, who would be the first rookie to win the NOAPS championship since Ty Gibbs in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You’d love to win a championship,” Day said Saturday at Phoenix. “That’d be amazing. But at the same time, if that doesn’t happen for me, like you said, my goals this year were a lot lower than what we’ve accomplished…if it doesn’t work out, I’d still be very happy with how the year’s gone.”<\/p>\n

The tide has turned for Corey Day<\/p>\n

Over the second half of the season, Day has proved why Kyle Larson, Jeff Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports are so high on him: Not only is he fast, but he’s learned how to race in big moments. The latter skill won him the last two races at Las Vegas and Charlotte and propelled him solidly into title contention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think at the start of the year, I was kind of in like a mental battle with myself,” Day said. “Obviously I drive a certain way in a sprint car and that’s what’s made me successful over there. So I was kind of in a battle with myself of, do I slow down and kind of, just work on being driving more like a stock car guy or do I go through the pain of crashing and making mistakes and learning on how to adapt that kind of driving style I have over there into stock cars?<\/p>\n

“I knew that I would make mistakes and struggle and crash stuff. And fortunately I have a great group behind me that when I’ve had, when I had those conversations, everyone was in full support of me. I think overall I’ve just finally had the seat time and been in all the situations and scenarios to where I’ve adapted that kind of sprint car driving style.”<\/p>\n

To say that Day, a prodigious dirt racer like his mentor in Larson, has adopted to asphalt racing is an understatement. In addition to his four wins, he’s led 387 laps this year and has 19 top 10s through 29 races, the second-most in the series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether or not Day leaves Homestead on Nov. 7 as the series champion, his long-term future with Hendrick Motorsports is secured and his talent is no longer a question. Nor, anymore, is his ability to successfully balance speed and race craft and turn both into wins and consistent results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While top-10 finishes came in bunches early in the 2026 NASCAR\u00a0O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season for rookie Corey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-936902","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\/936902","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=936902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}