Regan Smith looks for spark at Darlington

Associated Press

DARLINGTON, S.C.

Regan Smith had hoped his first career victory would be the turning point for his career.

Yet here he is a year later, and not much has changed for the better.

Smith picked up the only win of his Sprint Cup career at Darlington Raceway last May. Although he said Friday the victory was a “momentum booster,” he’s in dire need of another one.

Smith goes into tonight’s race ranked 27th in points, with just one top-15 finish all season.

“We have been struggling this year for about the past four weeks now, five weeks,” Smith said. “We started the year off good, we thought we were going to be in good shape and just kind of hit a wall and have not progressed at all. We could use another good night like [last year] here this weekend.”

Smith’s best finish this season is 15th at Las Vegas in March, and he’s led only two laps, in the season-opening Daytona 500. He’s got six finishes of 24th or worse, and an engine failure last weekend at Talladega led to a 40th-place finish.

The worst part? The Furniture Row Racing team can’t pinpoint the problem and knows things are off because he’s struggling in qualifying, which was one of his strengths last year. Smith qualified inside the top-five eight times last season.

“It’s been a situation where we have just gotten behind ... hit this wall a little bit right now,” Smith said. “We’ve got to keep working on our stuff and making it better, coming up with new ideas.”

The team has a technical relationship with fellow Chevrolet team Richard Childress Racing, but RCR is still looking to hit its stride this season.

“A lot of times when we are struggling, we can lean on them and help make our stuff better,” Smith said. “Unfortunately, right now they are probably not quite as quick as they would like to be either at the moment. So, it’s tougher for us to lean on them like we normally would. Even our qualifying has been off this year.”