![\"\"](\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/files\/2019\/04\/menard.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Paul Menard and the No. 21 Menards\/Sylvania team hope to build on their speed from 2018 at Bristol Motor Speedway as they prepare for this weekend\u2019s Food City 500 at the high-banked Tennessee track.<\/p>\n
Crew chief Greg Erwin said he plans to begin Friday\u2019s practice with a set-up on the No. 21 Mustang similar to the one the team employed last year when Menard qualified seventh for the spring race and fourth for the summer event. Menard was running third last spring when the race was halted due to weather and resumed the next day under different weather conditions that adversely affected the handling of the No. 21.<\/p>\n
Last fall, Menard was again running competitively and had a mechanical issue that dropped him out of contention for a great finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to put what we had last year under the car and see how it drives,\u201d Erwin said, adding that there will be new challenges this year including dealing with a new aero package, a new tire compound from Goodyear and the variables that come with applying the PJ1 traction compound to the track and how the weather affects the treated area. \u201cThere are a lot of things to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erwin said the traction compound will be the hardest to predict, especially when the weather is factored in.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to deal with what level of PJ1 is applied, where it\u2019s applied and whether the weather will allow the PJ1 to come in,\u201d he said, adding that the traction compound isn\u2019t very effective if conditions are cold.<\/p>\n
Erwin said his race strategy at Bristol will be typical of races there in that if he\u2019s running in the lead group, he\u2019ll do what the leaders do, and if he gets off sequence, he\u2019ll utilize a different strategy to catch back up.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow you call the race changes depending on where you\u2019re running,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Erwin also has to figure into his set-up and his race strategy the likelihood that at some point in the race, drivers will find themselves running against the outside wall, in a groove most aren\u2019t likely to practice in beforehand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll be another unknown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Qualifying for the Food City 500 is set for 6:10 p.m. on Friday, and the race is scheduled to start just after 2 p.m. on Sunday with TV coverage on Fox Sports 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Menard and the No. 21 Menards\/Sylvania team hope to build on their speed from 2018 at Bristol Motor Speedway as they prepare for this weekend\u2019s Food City 500 at the high-banked Tennessee track. Crew chief Greg Erwin said he plans to begin Friday\u2019s practice with a set-up on the No. 21 Mustang similar to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,788],"tags":[107,503],"coauthors":[675],"class_list":{"0":"post-20221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cup-series","8":"category-news","9":"tag-bristol-motor-speedway","10":"tag-paul-menard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20221"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}