Seven stories you need to follow during NASCAR weekend at Road America
This weekend the NASCAR Xfinity Series makes its ninth trip to Road America in Elkhart Lake and will be joined by the Trans Am Series and for the first time the Stadium Super Trucks series.
The Johnsonville 180 is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at the 4.048-mile, 14-turn course, with TV coverage on NBCSN. NASCAR and Super Trucks are on track for the first time Friday, and Trans Am starts Thursday.
Here are some of the top storylines for the weekend:
Who's next?
Road America has yet to have a driver hoist an Xfinity Series trophy more than once, and only two past winners are entered, Jeremy Clements (2017) and Brendan Gaughan (2014).
In the cases of Nelson Piquet Jr. (2012), A.J. Allmendinger (2013), Michael McDowell (2016) and Clements, the victory was the driver’s first at the NASCAR national level.
The surprises didn’t stop at Clements last year. Two other winless drivers followed, Michael Annett and Matt Tifft, and Australian sports-car ace Anthony Davison led a race-high 11 laps in only his third stock-car start. The year before, Brennan Poole and Ryan Reed recorded rare top-five finishes.
Awesome Bill is back
Six years removed from his most recent NASCAR start and 15 years from his most recent victory, 62-year-old Hall of Famer Bill Elliott will drive the GMS Racing No. 23 Camaro.
The first of Elliott’s 44 Cup Series wins came on a road course, Riverside International Raceway in 1983, and his only victory in what is now the Xfinity Series came at Watkins Glen in 1993. Son Chase, a fourth-place finisher in each of his Road America starts, is likely to serve as one of Bill’s spotters.
Championship flair
With four races to go before the start of the Xfinity playoffs, the top four drivers in the standings are separated by 19 points.
Leader Christopher Bell has won four races, three of them since mid-July; Justin Allgaier is the only other series regular to win this season (three times); Elliott Sadler, who recently announced this will be his last full-time season, is winless but has the highest average finish among the leaders (7.9); and Cole Custer has been the best qualifier (6.7 average start).
Local flavor
Josh Bilicki of Richfield has thousands of laps around Road America, so the race will provide his best chance for a top-10 finish. The 23-year-old's first full-time season in the Xfinity Series with the young and already overmatched JP Motorports has been hampered by mechanical issues that have knocked him out of eight races.
Ty Majeski, 24, of Seymour will make the seventh of his 12 scheduled starts in the Roush Fenway Racing No. 60 Mustang being shared by three drivers. Majeski, who has a top finish of seventh, raced in the Continental Tire Challenge sports-car event at RA earlier this month to train.
The Trans Am Series’ Ryan Companies Road America Classic (10:10 a.m.) will include numerous state drivers, including Lawrence Loshak of Shorewood, who won two races ago at the Pittsburgh International Race Complex; and Cliff Ebben of Appleton, who won at Road America in 2016 at age 64.
Who's that?
One of three road courses on the schedule, Road America tends to draw drivers who don’t typically race in NASCAR.
This weekend includes the series debut of Indy-car racer Conor Daly, the second start for sports-car and former Indy-car driver Katherine Legge and fourth for Australian sports-car/Indy-car racer James Davison. Daly has won in low-level open-wheel competition at the track; Legge led in the quirky DeltaWing sports car and came out amazingly unscathed in a wild Champ Car crash in the Kink; and Davison led 11 laps last year before being swallowed up in a crash and eliminated.
Early start
Four Xfinity Series drivers also are scheduled to compete in Trans Am’s TA2 division, meaning they’ll have more than two hours of available testing and practice time, a qualifying session and a full race on the track before they even qualify for the Johnsonville 180.
Majeski, Bell, Tifft and Brandon Jones (seventh in Xfinity points) all are entered in Ford Mustangs. TA2 is on track Thursday and Friday before its race at 8 a.m. Saturday. The division competes separately from Trans Am’s main event.
Something completely different
The Speed Energy Stadium Super Trucks bring a whole new sort of motorsports entertainment to the weekend. The off-road-style vehicles will use the front portion of the track, which will include temporary ramps that will send the trucks skyward. You’d have to figure the Turn 1 gravel trap will be busy.
Matt Brabham, a graduate of the Mazda Road to Indy open-wheel ladder and 2016 Indianapolis 500 starter, leads the standings; Arie Luyendyk Jr., the former open-wheel racer and “The Bachelor” villain, is third; and Robby Gordon, the former NASCAR/Indy-car racer who owns and promotes the series, is fourth in points. Races are scheduled for 1:35 p.m. Friday and 12:35 p.m. Saturday.
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