CUP: Regan Smith Getting Ready For 2010

Sprint Cup

CUP: Regan Smith Getting Ready For 2010

Regan Smith knows what he’s doing next season, and, in a way, that will dictate a little bit of what he’ll do the rest of the 2009 season...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted August 27, 2009 Charlotte, NC

Regan Smith knows what he’s doing next season, and, in a way, that will dictate a little bit of what he’ll do the rest of the 2009 season. (Photo:LAT Photographic)

Furniture Row Racing driver Regan Smith knows what he’s doing next season, and, in a way, that will dictate a little bit of what he’ll do the rest of the 2009 season.

With the Furniture Row Racing team returning to a full-time schedule in 2010 after scaling back to a part-time schedule in 2009, the team has added next week’s race at Atlanta and Auto Club Speedway in California in October to help Smith prepare for next year.

“More or less, we added them because they are not very strong race tracks for me,” Smith said in a phone interview. “I have not had very much luck there in a Cup car at all. … We’re going there strictly to get notes for next year and to learn stuff for next year and help me out as a driver because they were two of my weakest tracks last year.”

Smith, the 2008 Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc., has qualified for all 12 races he has entered this year, with a best finish of 12th at Daytona in July. The 25-year-old driver has seven races left on his schedule this year, and in addition to trying to get the best finish possible, the team now is focusing on its future.

“We’ve got a lot of stuff we’ve been working on right now that we’re going to be trying,” Smith said. “We’re going to learn what we can for next year. We’re a little behind the 8-ball from the standpoint that we weren’t full time this season, so we’re going to have make sure we get caught up.”

The team was at the track in Rockingham, N.C., earlier this week testing and also does some testing at Pikes Peak in Colorado, which is near its Denver base. The team will also need to build road-course cars for next year.

“We’ve got a lot of ramping up that we want to do on our intermediate program,” Smith said. “We feel pretty good about our short-track and speedway program right now. But we’ve also got a new chassis that we’re working on right now, too.”

The organization needs to be well prepared for the start of the 2010 season because it will need to qualify for the races on speed for at least the first five events.

“It has been brutal,” Smith said about having to qualify on speed. “If we can get five straight weeks out of the way right now and be on next year’s points, I’d be the happiest guy in the garage area. In Bristol, we struggled in practice. The race car was extremely tight, and we were struggling to fix it. You spend the three hours after practice before qualifying on pins and needles, worried half to death.

“It’s going to be the same for the first five races next year. We’re going to have to focus really hard on getting in those first five races and performing as good as we can early on.”

Smith said he would be disappointed if the team doesn’t finish in the top 25 in points next season. That will require improvement – he ranks 32nd in average points per race among drivers who have competed in at least eight races this year.

“I’d really like to see us end up with at least a top-10 or two before the end of this year,” Smith said. “That is really important for myself and the team. … We need to be concentrating on finishing inside the top 20 and learning stuff this year. We [need to] focus on being consistent and getting as much as we can out of the car.”

Smith is looking forward to a full-time run after a season on a part-time schedule, which he says had only one benefit.

“I’ve got a suntan for the first time in my life,” he said. “I’ve got German-Dutch blood, and I had shorts on one day last year at the lake, and someone saw that and they thought it was lighthouse out there. I actually have a little bit of a tan this year.

“I’m going to miss that. I don’t blind people with my shirt off [now]. But outside of that, there’s nothing else I’m going to miss. There’s nothing more miserable than sitting at the house and watching the race on TV and watching people you’ve been around your whole life at the track doing what you love and not being able to do that.”