Day learning to roll with the punches

Corey Day knew how to crash by himself in 2025. Unfortunately, at the start of 2026, he started taking others with him.

It overshadowed the start of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season that the young driver from Hendrick Motorsports was putting together. Day has been on a roll with eight top-10 finishes in 10 races (including going eight straight from EchoPark Speedway through Bristol Motor Speedway), and sitting fourth in points.

But he’s had to learn to handle the criticism and mistakes that came along the way.

“They were huge learning experiences,” Day said. “Those are situations that I had never been put into in any of my racing career, or life in general. So, all super good learning experiences. Obviously, not the way I was hoping to start my year, but… the mistakes were because I was running up front and I had not run up front and been fast like that. I said in a couple of interviews last year – I was just fast enough to crash myself. I wasn’t fast enough to crash anybody else.

“So, it was more of situations that I had never been in, and mistakes I was making that unfortunately were costing other people’s races as much as mine. I didn’t go about things great off the track with it either; a lot of learning experiences for me.”

It also wasn’t the way that Day wanted to get his first life advice from team owner Rick Hendrick. But it went a long way.

Day has since seemingly corrected things and remains one of the most consistent and fastest drivers in the series. The rookie, by definition, but who is not running for the season-ending award, is still experiencing many firsts in his NASCAR career as the transition from dirt to pavement continues.

The No. 17 team picked up its first pole at Rockingham Speedway, followed by a sweep of the stage wins. In all, Day is close to hitting the 200 laps led mark already this season.

“No, I didn’t think so, if I’m being honest,” said Day of having such a solid start to the year. “I was kind of hoping this is what it would look like after the summer. But I didn’t expect this to be what the first part of the year looked like. So, I’m just super thankful for all my guys.”

How much better could it get then with so much more racing to go?

“I don’t think my expectations have changed,” Day said. “We have an expectation to make the chase at the end of the year, and we’re definitely trending in the right direction to do that. For me, I want to win a race, so that’s still my goal. I think once that happens, I’m hoping there are many more that follow with that.

“I think this team is very capable of winning five races this year, if not more. If I am, I’m not sure. I still have to get to that point. But my team is without a doubt capable of it, and yeah, we’ll just keep working at it.”

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