TULSA, O.K.- Sometimes it’s your day at the Tulsa Expo Center, but sometimes it’s. That choice is often made not by the driver, but rather the racetrack and the building itself.
For Corey Day, Wednesday night (Jan. 16) ultimately wasn’t his day. Between an ill-handling racecar and treacherous track conditions, the 18-year old Hendrick Motorsports prospect was forced to settle for third in the Wednesday nightcap.
Day won his heat race early in the night and drove up to second in his qualifier, but still found himself outside of row four for the main event.
A quick yellow bought Day a row before a racy track surface helped him climb the leaderboard to third heading into the feature’s halfway point. But unfortunately for Day, that was as far as he could muster. The Californian didn’t have the pace to keep up with frontrunners Emerson Axsom and Daison Pursley.
“The curb got so big there and so hard to run that just being as tight as I was, I really couldn’t make just a smooth corner” Day told Frontstretch afterwards. “I was doing something to fix the racecar instead of doing something to catch the guy in front of me.
“I’m not going to blame the racecar entirely of course, because it’s driver too. It’s a 50-50 deal. Racecar matters a lot, I think just driver missed it a little bit with his decisions tonight and pill draw wasn’t stellar either.”
Multiple times late in the race, Day had the front tires off the ground on the exit of turn 2, fighting with front end of his Factory Kahne No. 41. The scene was a wild one to watch. Day credited the sight to the struggles of the racecar mixed with the track conditions.
“Byproduct of the struggles,” Day added. “The curb just got really, really lippy there. We dug into the dirt that had been worked right before the race so it just got really lippy and really grippy all at once. So with a tight racecar like I had, those wheel stands were not by design but I had to keep running that hard to stay with those guys in case they made a mistake. Unfortunately I was making mistakes just like they were.”
The podium finish on Wednesday will put Day at the front of a B-main on Saturday, where he’ll need to stay in order to have a shot at a Golden Driller. Should he make the A, he’ll have a tall task ahead of him, but Day remains confident that he can get the job done.
“Yeah I do, of course,” Day said in regards to his confidence. “I (just think) the track has to allow it, my racecar has to allow it and things have to go your way. You know, things don’t always go your way in this building. No matter how much you pray on it or hope it does, it doesn’t. We’ll just pray on it, and hope it goes our way for Saturday.”
Day will certainly be one to watch come Saturday night, and likely one that will put on a show to get to the front.
Chase began working with Frontstretch in the spring of 2023 as a news writer, while also helping fill in for other columns as needed. Chase is now the main writer and reporter for Frontstretch.com's CARS Tour coverage, a role which began late in 2023. Aside from racing, some of Chase's other hobbies include time in the outdoors hunting and fishing, and keeping up with all things Philadelphia sports related.