{"id":6806,"date":"2019-04-09T12:02:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T16:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=6806"},"modified":"2019-04-09T12:02:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T16:02:10","slug":"move-to-roth-motorsports-paying-off-for-daryn-pittman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2019\/04\/09\/move-to-roth-motorsports-paying-off-for-daryn-pittman\/","title":{"rendered":"Move to Roth Motorsports paying off for Daryn Pittman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daryn Pittman <\/strong>ended the 2018 World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series season with nine wins in the No. 9 Kasey Kahne Racing (KKR) car.<\/p>\n

It was the most he had gathered since 2014 \u2013 the year after he won the series championship.<\/p>\n

Though, his team wasn\u2019t going in the same direction that his driving was.<\/p>\n

KKR was unable to find a sustainable sponsor to keep the No. 9 car in action, and with Kasey Kahne <\/strong>wanting to get into racing on dirt more, Pittman was left without a ride.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for him, Roth Motorsports had an opening in the famed No. 83 car.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the move was by force, but it was all on good terms,\u201d Pittman said. \u201c[KKR] just wasn\u2019t able to find the funding to put the No. 9 car out full time this season. Luckily Roth had a seat open, we got talking, and we were able to put something together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move paid off, almost immediately.<\/p>\n

Pittman opened the season by winning each of the first two features at Volusia Speedway before the third event was rained out.<\/p>\n

He effectively swept the weekend.<\/p>\n

The Owasso, Oklahoma native followed it up with three second-place finishes in the next six races \u2013 which also included five top 10\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [felt] good,\u201d Pittman said. \u201cIt\u2019s not how you start but how you finish the year, but obviously it\u2019s better to try and maintain and stay up front than catch up after a bad start. [I\u2019m] definitely happy with how things got kicked off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although, with every transition comes some rough patches.<\/p>\n

Pittman finished 13th<\/sup> at Perris Auto Speedway, ending his tour in the Golden State with his first finish outside of the top 10.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We] had a couple of rough races in between there that we\u2019ve got to clean up and try to minimize the best we can going forward, but [I\u2019m] definitely happy with where we\u2019re at with our car owner and our engine program and everything,\u201d Pittman said.<\/p>\n

Despite the troubles, he still led the points standings at the end of the California swing and currently sits third, just 14 points behind leader, Brad Sweet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just part of a new season, according to Pittman, who is working with a completely new supporting cast.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery season \u2013 even when you\u2019re with the same team \u2013 has its own challenges,\u201d Pittman said. \u201cBasically [I am working with] a whole new team, a whole new crew of guys. I\u2019ve never worked with any of the guys before, so that\u2019s rather challenging itself \u2013 just trying to figure out people\u2019s personalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crew is made up of three full time employees, two that returned to Roth Motorsports for the 2019 year and another that was hired to fill a spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge in this sport, Pittman said. \u201cIt is every season. I think in my six years at KKR, I\u2019m not sure that we didn\u2019t change at least one person in the off-season. It\u2019s pretty normal to have to deal with new personalities every season, if not one maybe two. It\u2019s a challenge to put a team together to where everyone stays.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the challenges is trying to figure people out, and figure out what motivates them Pittman said, even going as far to call it half of the battle.<\/p>\n

He thinks he\u2019s got the right team, and the results show.<\/p>\n

A different challenge comes when switching the equipment that a driver is in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of different race cars and a lot of different equipment that Roth uses vs. KKR, so it\u2019s just trying to understand all of those pieces and make the best decision every night,\u201d Pittman said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got off to a solid start, we\u2019re just trying to build our notebook up so we can have as few bad nights as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the start Pittman has put together, there\u2019s no doubt things are working.<\/p>\n

The veteran has accumulated five top 5 finishes (all being either first or second place finishes) and nine top 10\u2019s in the first 11 races of the year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s put him right up at the top of the standings, but Pittman isn\u2019t worried about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, we don\u2019t focus on the points,\u201d Pittman said. \u201cThat only pays out once \u2013 at the end of the year. We strictly tackle each race one at a time and look for the challenges that that race has. You focus on one race at a time, try to win every race, and just allow the points to shake up as they do at the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pittman shares that opinion with a number of World of Outlaws Drivers.<\/p>\n

With the number of races exceeding the 70\u2019s, no matter what the purse is to win the championship at the end of the year, the individual nights of action trump the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love to see them increase it, but no matter how much it pays, we\u2019re racers,\u201d Pittman said. \u201cWe want to win. No matter if it paid nothing or $1 million to win, I don\u2019t think it would ever take away from winning races. That\u2019s where the money\u2019s at. I\u2019d take a 15-race-win season with a second-place championship [finish] over a 5-race-win season with a championship, any day.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say the points race is thrown out the window, though.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s more of a reminder to Pittman to put everything he\u2019s got into every race of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou obviously know where you\u2019re at throughout the season, it just doesn\u2019t change how we attack each individual race,\u201d Pittman said. \u201cIf we\u2019re leading by several hundred points, it still doesn\u2019t make us race any safer \u2013 that\u2019s what will get you in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pittman and the Outlaws will continue their 2019 season as the series heads to Devils Bowl Speedway in Mesquite, Texas for the Texas Outlaw Nationals this weekend.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series Standings<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pos.<\/strong><\/td>\nDriver<\/strong><\/td>\nTotal<\/strong><\/td>\nDiff<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nBrad Sweet<\/td>\n1546<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nDonny Schatz<\/td>\n1542<\/td>\n-4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nDaryn Pittman<\/td>\n1532<\/td>\n-14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nCarson Macedo<\/td>\n1464<\/td>\n-82<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nDavid Gravel<\/td>\n1460<\/td>\n-86<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nLogan Schuchart<\/td>\n1444<\/td>\n-102<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nIan Madsen<\/td>\n1414<\/td>\n-132<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nShane Stewart<\/td>\n1414<\/td>\n-132<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nS. Haudenschild<\/td>\n1408<\/td>\n-138<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nBrent Marks<\/td>\n1254<\/td>\n-292<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daryn Pittman ended the 2018 World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series season with nine wins in the No. 9 Kasey Kahne Racing (KKR) car. It was the most he had gathered since 2014 \u2013 the year after he won the series championship. Though, his team wasn\u2019t going in the same direction that his driving was. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":6284,"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":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[17,1016,1115,486,1114],"class_list":["post-6806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dirt","category-more-racing","tag-daryn-pittman","tag-kasey-kahne-racing","tag-roth-motorsports","tag-world-of-outlaws","tag-world-of-outlaws-sprint-cars"],"modified_by":"Connor Ferguson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806","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=6806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}