{"id":5488,"date":"2018-07-26T04:11:42","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T08:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=5488"},"modified":"2018-07-26T04:11:42","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T08:11:42","slug":"michael-annett-trying-to-right-the-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2018\/07\/26\/michael-annett-trying-to-right-the-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Annett trying to right the ship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No wins. One top-five finish. Seven top-ten\u2019s. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Those are the stats from <\/span><b>Michael Annett\u2019s <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">first 51 races with JR Motorsports &#8211; one of the top <strong>Xfinity Series<\/strong> teams in <strong>NASCAR<\/strong>, stretching back to the start of the 2017 year.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1>Michael Annett trying to right the ship<\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On June 29, Annett and JRM announced an extension that would keep him in the car for the entirety of the 2019 season. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The news broke over social media, with one tweet standing out from the others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jeff Gluck Tweet announcing Annett\u2019s extension <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Michael Annett and Pilot Flying J will stay at JR Motorsports in a multi-year deal announced today.<\/p>\n<p>In 47 races so far at JRM, Annett has no wins, one top-five finish, seven top-10 finishes and 26 lead-lap finishes.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jeff_gluck\/status\/1012721358373990400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 29, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Jeff Gluck<\/strong>, a NASCAR journalist who has developed a following of over 100,000 fans on twitter, sent out a tweet updating the public of the extension. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The replies ranged with different comments, but a common theme was found. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u201cWhat a waste of a car,\u201d<\/em> one read. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">What a waste of a car.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; T.J. Wolfe (@wolfman724) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wolfman724\/status\/1012724507595898881?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 29, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lack of success is there, and Annett will be the first to acknowledge it. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u201cI would put that across the board,\u201d<\/em> Annett said.<em> \u201cThe results aren\u2019t where we want [them to be].\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Upcoming Home Race<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This week, the NASCAR Xfinity Series comes into <strong>Iowa Speedway<\/strong> for the second time in the 2018 season. <\/span>In 11 Xfinity starts at the track, Annett has piled together a top-five and three top-10&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u201c[Iowa] is just one more track on the schedule that we need to improve on,\u201d<\/em> Annett said. <em>\u201cFortunately in our sport, we get a chance to start that progress week in and week out. You\u2019re only as good as your last race.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Being only as good as your last race would be helpful to Annett this weekend. In the last outing, the Pilot Flying J No. 5 climbed all the way up to P6 on the leaderboard at one point, despite finishing in 16th. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though, the race gave Annett at least a little bit of momentum, as he trimmed the gap that separates him from a playoff spot from 40 points to 30.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, his team is trying to get back to where Annett was seasons ago with Richard Petty Motorsports. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of his years in the No. 43 Xfinity car saw him earn 17 top 10\u2019s during a 33-race season. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s 17 more than he has had this year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Annett said: \u201cWe\u2019ve just got to start knocking off top-10\u2019s. <\/em><em>I\u2019m very frustrated with 12th and <\/em>14th,<em> when we know we have the equipment capable of getting ourselves in the top 10. We look forward to each weekend to right the ship.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Time To Turn Things Around<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Through 18 races this season, that hasn&#8217;t happened. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Annett pointed out a number of places where he and his team could improve. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u201cWe\u2019ve got to start getting more segment points,\u201d<\/em> Annett said. <em>\u201cWe just need to keep using the resources we have at our finger-tips, [and] utilize our teammates and the speed that they\u2019ve shown.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Annett is the only JRM driver that is currently not in a playoff position, not to mention he&#8217;s the only one outside of the top 10. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His teammates <strong>Elliot Sadler<\/strong>, <strong>Justin Allgaier<\/strong>, and<strong> Tyler Reddick<\/strong> sit 3rd, 5th, and 6th, respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>\u201cI need to qualify better, I need to work on my restarts and get all we can in those first two laps after a restart,\u201d<\/em> Annett said. <em>\u201cYou start doing that and you put yourself in position to get the top tens.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What a time it would be for Annett to start turning the ship than at his home track. <\/span>The 32-year old is from Des Moines, IA &#8211; around 45 minutes away from Iowa Speedway.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<em>The whole weekend <\/em>in general<em> is just a little different when you go to your home race tracks,&#8221;<\/em> Annett said. <em>&#8220;There\u2019s more friends and family that want to spend time with you.<\/em> You\u2019re trying to focus on the job at hand, but you also don\u2019t want to hurt anyone else\u2019s feelings. Coming in here, we definitely want to have a good showing and get our season on the right track. There\u2019s no better place to do it.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The series will run the <strong>U.S. Cellular 250<\/strong> on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. CT. It will be broadcast live on <strong>NBCSN<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MAIN PHOTO:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a id=\"VS_M3ROvQIN9nRDnbyAQ4w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.in\/detail\/966073580\" 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:'VS_M3ROvQIN9nRDnbyAQ4w',sig:'lMkm4iEzicZzUp_z4wkLk15epaPcxJY4LW68IXflfxU=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'966073580',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>No wins. One top-five finish. Seven top-ten\u2019s. Those are the stats from Michael Annett\u2019s first 51 races with JR Motorsports &#8211; one of the top Xfinity Series teams in NASCAR, stretching back to the start of the 2017 year. Michael Annett trying to right the ship On June 29, Annett and JRM announced an extension [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":5496,"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":"673","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[987,127,335,395,14,816,262],"class_list":["post-5488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-elliot-sadler","tag-jr-motorsports","tag-justin-allgaier","tag-michael-annett","tag-nascar","tag-tyler-reddick","tag-xfinity-series"],"modified_by":"Sudha Sundar","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488","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=5488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}