{"id":19168,"date":"2015-06-25T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=19168"},"modified":"2015-06-25T03:30:14","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T07:30:14","slug":"david-ragan-no-55-aarons-dream-machine-sonoma-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/david-ragan-no-55-aarons-dream-machine-sonoma-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"David Ragan No. 55 Aaron&#8217;s Dream Machine Sonoma Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/hjjbnbmn.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-19169\" src=\"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/hjjbnbmn.png\" alt=\"hjjbnbmn\" width=\"249\" height=\"153\" \/><\/a>CORNELIUS, N.C. \u2014 More than 2,750 miles separate Michael Waltrip Racing\u2019s race shop and Sonoma Raceway. It will take the NASCAR Sprint Cup team\u2019s two race haulers at least 40 hours to drive non-stop from North Carolina to reach the gates of the California road course.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But, when they arrive, it will feel like home.<\/p>\n<p>MWR\u2019s greatest Sprint Cup success has come at the 2.52-mile, 12-turn track. Since 2012, MWR drivers have competed in seven Sonoma races visiting victory lane twice and notching four top-five finishes. A MWR car has led 145 of 332 laps (44 percent) at Sonoma since 2012.<br \/>\nThere remains one major complaint about the track that sits in the heart of California wine country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s only one race a year there. We want more,\u201d laughed driver David Ragan who hopes to add to MWR\u2019s success in Sunday\u2019s Toyota\/Save Mart 350 \u2013 the first of the season\u2019s two road races.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEver since I joined MWR in May I\u2019ve heard talk about Sonoma. As a competitor, I\u2019ve watched their cars there the last several years and I\u2019ve seen how good they are. That gives you a lot of confidence going into the weekend. You can\u2019t wait to get to the track. We are making gains each weekend we work together and I think we can take another step forward this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ragan knows the easiest way to gain a spot in NASCAR\u2019s Chase for the Sprint Cup is winning a race. The next two races are prime opportunities for the No. 55 Aaron\u2019s Dream Machine Toyota.<\/p>\n<p>This weekend\u2019s road course race coupled with the July 5 restrictor plate race in Daytona \u2014 Ragan owns two career victories in restrictor plate races \u2014 could be tracks where Ragan can punch a ticket into the 16-driver, 10-race playoff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMWR has won at Sonoma and I have won at Daytona. Hopefully we can combine those histories and get us a victory at either place. I think this weekend will be one of the best races of the 2015 season. You will probably see a lot of different strategies play out with the goal to get track position for the end of the race and race for the win.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDaytona will be Daytona. It will be wild and anything can and usually does happen. This is a fun part of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CORNELIUS, N.C. \u2014 More than 2,750 miles separate Michael Waltrip Racing\u2019s race shop and Sonoma Raceway. It will take the NASCAR Sprint Cup team\u2019s two race haulers at least 40 hours to drive non-stop from North Carolina to reach the gates of the California road course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,21],"tags":[15749],"class_list":["post-19168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-sprint-cup","tag-cornelius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19170,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19168\/revisions\/19170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}