{"id":4035,"date":"2018-04-12T14:27:07","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T18:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=4035"},"modified":"2018-04-12T14:27:07","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T18:27:07","slug":"nascar-stewart-haas-racing-team-beat-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2018\/04\/12\/nascar-stewart-haas-racing-team-beat-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR &#8211; Stewart-Haas Racing showing why they\u2019re the team to beat in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sheer domination.\u00a0Those are the only words that can be used to describe what <strong>Stewart-Haas Racing<\/strong> (SHR) team has done to the competition in the Monster Energy <strong>NASCAR<\/strong> Cup Series this year.<\/p>\n<h2>Stewart-Haas Racing showing why they\u2019re the team to beat in 2018<\/h2>\n<p>Coming into the season, there was talk around the media about how <strong>Toyot<\/strong>a was supposed to be the most superior manufacturer in the sport. It wasn\u2019t supposed to be close. Toyota had it all figured out.<\/p>\n<p>The gap was so distant, that a writer from the Charlotte Observer predicted Toyota would win a third championship with ease. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/sports\/nascar-auto-racing\/thatsracin\/article193033214.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/sports\/nascar-auto-racing\/thatsracin\/article193033214.html<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, through seven races this season, Stewart-Haas Racing, a Ford team, has been the topic of conversation. After a 31<sup>st <\/sup>place finish at Daytona, <strong>Kevin Harvick<\/strong> secured three trips to victory lane in a row. The results showed the team had some of the best all-around cars on the cookie cutter tracks.<\/p>\n<p>Although, <strong>Clint Bowyer<\/strong> helped one-up that a week after Harvick\u2019s run ended, breaking a 190-race winless streak of his own at Martinsville. SHR, putting a driver with that much of a lack of success recently in victory lane is more than impressive.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Stewart-Haas Racing has been one of, if not the best team on the circuit this season <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MENCS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#MENCS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NASCAR?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NASCAR<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mtPEuTxD4Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/mtPEuTxD4Q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Connor Ferguson (@cfchangs9) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cfchangs9\/status\/984489094066704384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 12, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Not only has SHR\u2019s Fords beaten Toyota, but at this point they have been far more dominant. Over the first seven races of the year, SHR has tallied four wins already, while Toyota has only scored two.<\/p>\n<p>SHR and the other Fords are taking it to the Toyotas when it comes to top-10 finishes as well. While Toyota has gathered 20 top-10\u2019s so far, the Fords have combined to earn 33. Even if you take away the 12 top-10\u2019s that SHR contributed, the Fords still have the most.<\/p>\n<p>All of the success comes just one year after SHR switched to Fords at the beginning of the 2017 season. With Harvick locked into the playoffs and Bowyer earning his trip to victory lane, SHR already looks to have at least half of its team in the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>The series will return to the track at <strong>Bristol Motor Speedway<\/strong> this Sunday for the Food City 500. The green flag will fly at 2:00 p.m. ET on FOX.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MAIN PHOTO:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a id=\"x4h3j0VkSh99dMQPpgtsBw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.in\/detail\/927322018\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'x4h3j0VkSh99dMQPpgtsBw',sig:'BpgIxXwXKkYT9DHHQU9h10yzYKgrUL7nEvGN9uaB8rE=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'927322018',caption: true ,tld:'in',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sheer domination.\u00a0Those are the only words that can be used to describe what Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) team has done to the competition in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series this year. Stewart-Haas Racing showing why they\u2019re the team to beat in 2018 Coming into the season, there was talk around the media about how Toyota [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":4053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"366","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[348,158,14,351,150],"class_list":["post-4035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-clint-bowyer","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-nascar","tag-stewart-haas-racing","tag-tony-stewart"],"modified_by":"Sudha Sundar","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}