2014 Driver Spotlight on Paul Menard: Week 8
By Richard Tix
The first Driver Spotlight of the regular season was on underdog Casey Mears. NASCAR Behind the Wall will take advantage of this early season hot streak to spotlight another underdog, Paul Menard.
The 2014 season started off with Paul Menard being the lone driver still in the RCR stable. RCR brought in Ryan Newman to replace a soon to retire Jeff Burton. RCR also brought in young gun Austin Dillon and the #3. So, as many off seasons go for Menard, not a lot of talk was on him.
The first two races of the season are not ones Menard wants to think about (32nd and 23rd) but since then he has been on a good run. Menard has finishes of 3rd, 9th, 10th, and 9th in his last 5 races. That is 4 top 10's (one top 5) in his last 5 and good enough to get him to 10th in the points standings, which is the highest of any RCR member.
This week NASCAR heads to Darlington Raceway. Most race fans get excited about heading here as it tends to bring exciting, wheel man, racing. Once again, in the eyes of Menard, Darlington will prove a big test.
In 2013 Menard also started the season out pretty well, but eventually fell into his typical season and ended the year 17th in the points. Darlington has not been kind to Menard as he has an average finish of 23.7 in his 7 career starts. Not once has he finished in the top 10 at Darlington.
So far Menard has passed the early season test, but if he wants to avoid another season where he finishes around the 16th-20th spot in points he needs a good finish this weekend. If he can manage a quality win and maybe even a top 10 at Darlington we maybe talking about Paul Menards first season finishing in the top 15. If not, we might be able to just expect the same Paul down the stretch.
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