The two disciplines are as different as basketball and football.
That’s how Israeli driver Alon Day described the wide chasm between road courses and ovals in NASCAR racing.
Road courses are the milieu at which Day excels. With a season-ending flourish that included a semifinal victory at Hockenheim Ring in Germany and a sweep of the final two races at Circuit Zolder in Belgium, Day claimed his second straight NASCAR Whelen Euro Series championship on Sunday.
The 26-year-old former NASCAR Next driver needed all three of those victories—all accomplished from pole positions—to edge Frederic Gabillon of France for the title by 28 points. A disqualification from the Grand Prix of Italy in May, the result of a front suspension infraction, cast a shadow of the title prospects of the Italian No. 54 CAAL Racing team, which fields Toyotas for Day.
“It definitely wasn’t easy,” Day told the NASCAR Wire Service on Wednesday during a phone call from Israel. “I got some disqualification during the year, and things like that made everything unsure if I would be able to win the championship or not. Thankfully, it’s behind me now.”
Though Day is now a two-time champion, he plans to continue to compete in the Whelen Euro Series because of its road-course orientation.
“The NASCAR Whelen Euro Series is mainly road courses, and I think it’s the home of the road course championship,” Day said. “So it is a very special championship, a unique championship compared with all the other NASCAR championships, whether it’s the three national ones or the K&N.
“This one is special because it’s so different, mainly road courses. So I would love to always keep driving here. But the goal is always to do something bigger and go to the next level, higher step.”
Day already has tested the waters in each of NASCAR’s top national series—Camping World Truck, Xfinity and Monster Energy Cup. His American stock car debut came in an Xfinity rain race at Mid-Ohio in 2016 that ended with a 13th-place finish. Day also drove an Xfinity car at Road America and raced trucks at New Hampshire and Homestead that same year.
In 2017, he made his Cup debut on the Sonoma Raceway road course, starting and finishing 32nd in the No. 23 BK Racing Toyota. Last month, Day got his first taste of oval racing at NASCAR’s highest level in the Playoff race at Richmond, where he finished 38th, 17 laps down.
The Richmond Cup race was a rude awakening.
“Ovals and road courses for me are like basketball and football,” Day said. “I had to learn everything from zero. At the Cup level, it’s not easy, but it was good experience. What happened in Richmond was, I guess, four times bigger than Mid-Ohio. And even though I did Sonoma in Cup in 2017, again, it’s not even close to what happened in Richmond.
“The hardest thing for me was the race itself, when you’re no longer alone on the track any more. There are 40 other cars around you, and you have to deal with things you never thought you were going to deal with on a road course.”
One of the obstacles was the Southern accents he heard on the radio. In the Whelen Euro Series, Day drives for an Italian team with mechanics who don’t speak English. The experience at Richmond was perhaps more difficult.
“I’m from Israel. I’m speaking Hebrew as my native language,” Day said. “So to have a bunch of people talking English on the radio is not always the easiest thing. Plus the accent. My mechanics (in Europe) don’t speak English, and I don’t speak Italian. My crew chief speaks English, and my team manager speaks English, so there’s somebody to translate. But I think that makes it much easier.
“When I came to the States, it was pretty hard for me—I’m not joking—because I had to understand the Southern accents. Some of them had really tough accents to understand. When you hear that on the radio, it’s even harder. So I had to tell my spotter a million times to talk to me like I’m a baby, because I knew that in Sonoma I suffered because of that, and I didn’t want that to happen on an oval (at Richmond).”
When it came to running his first Cup race on an oval, Day had an excellent sounding board. Former Cup series champion Bobby Labonte is the only American running full time in the Elite 1 Division of the Whelen Euro Series, and he has been more than willing to give others the benefit of his experience.
“I think that was a super cool thing to see, to have Bobby Labonte in the championship, considering he’s a Cup champion, but he’s so nice,” Day said. “I mean, the guy is just helping everybody, helping young drivers, and he’s very open to talking.
“You always think about Cup champions that are unreachable, but Bobby is such a nice guy, and I think it was a really good thing for the Euro Series, for that championship to have him. He definitely helped me in a couple of cases, and we also had a conversation about my Cup debut on an oval at Richmond. He’s very involved, and that’s a good thing for the championship.”
After winning his second title, Day returned to Israel to unwind. In the past, he has been reluctant to move from his native country to pursue his racing career.
“I refused to live in Europe or move to the States in the last couple years, because I love it here in Israel,” Day said. “As an athlete and a sportsman, you prefer to stay in the place where you feel the best. You can train, you can work the best and get the best out of yourself. I think Israel is the most natural place for me to be.”
But that may change in the near future.
“I don’t know yet. I might move to the States for next year so I can concentrate more on that,” Day said. “I’m trying to find better rides for 2019 and hopefully to find a good full-season ride. But I don’t know yet.
“I was so, so concentrated on winning this championship, because I knew that was going to be a big deal for me. I was done with that just two days ago, and now still I’m in a relaxing mode. I came back to Israel, and I haven’t thought about 2019 yet.
“The ultimate goal for 2019 is to find rides for road courses, either Cup level, Xfinity or Truck. In between, I’d like to get as much experience as I can on the ovals.”
Figuratively speaking, the football star will have to learn to excel in basketball—and Day is more than willing to try.
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
