Last year, according to Darren Manning, Foyt Racing learned more about their car with each passing race – and their goal this year is to turn that knowledge into results.
Three races in, he’s hopeful that’s exactly what’s happening.
Last week in Motegi, he was one of a number of drivers who dropped down the field thanks to a late splash and dash pit stop but still managed to finish 8th. His best-ever finish at the Kansas Speedway is 7th, and an improvement on that is in his sight this weekend.
“Kansas Speedway is one of the superspeedway tracks that I call big pack racing,” he said. “Qualifying doesn’t matter as much here because you can drop to the back and come to the front because of the help you get in the draft.”
He believes it’s a circuit that rewards teams with a good understanding of their car: “It’s important to have a comfortable car in the race. I feel pretty good about our car because we came away from this race last year with a good race set-up. And after last weekend in Japan, we learned some things that will help us here.
“I think you’ll see improvement from us with every race we run this year.”