Chicagoland Speedway NASCAR Nationwide Series Saturday Notebook:
Trevor Bayne Matches Best Finish Of Season:
Trevor Bayne didn’t have a second-place car at Chicagoland Speedway Saturday night, but utilizing strategy, Bayne and his Roush Fenway Racing matched their best-finish of the season in the EnjoyIllinois.com 300. He also finished second at Dover International Speedway in May.
And it was the same strategy that vaulted Bayne to the race lead for 14 laps, and while the No. 6 Advocare team had hopes for a late-race caution to aid them towards stealing the win in the 18th race of the season, Bayne had to relinquish the lead on Lap 177 to eventual winner Chase Elliott.
“I’m pretty pleased with it (our night),” said Bayne. “It’s not a win, we were fighting towards the end, ran out of time seems like. Our car was good enough to win at the end, just strategy didn’t pay off completely, but it did somewhat for us to get back towards the front with new tires when no one else had them. First half of the night, we kinda struggled. We run top-10, loose off, tight center, but Chad (crew chief) made one really good adjustment on it and it brought our car to life on the top. The top really worked for our car.
“Our team needs it (finish). Everyone at Roush Fenway Racing throughout the whole shop, not just our No. 6 team, but those guys work their guts out and they haven’t got the fruit of that yet and tonight just kinda does that for them and I’m happy for them.”
With his runner-up performance Saturday night, Bayne also finds himself in the running for the $100,000 bonus from series title sponsor Nationwide in round three of the Dash4Cash incentive next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“It’s pretty cool,” Bayne added. “I think Indy is a place we can go and take advantage of that. We were really fast there last year and I screwed up on a late race restart and got us crashed, but our car was so good, so I think we have a chance there.”
Leaving Chicagoland Speedway, Bayne sits sixth in the championships standings, 50 points behind championship leader Chase Elliott.
Brian Scott Wins First Dash4Cash Prize::
Brian Scott didn’t have to go to the nearby Hollywood Casino to hit the jackpot this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway, he just had to beat three of his fellow NASCAR Nationwide Series competitors. Despite an ill-handling car in the final stages of the EnjoyIllinois.com 300, Scott had just enough to pick up his first career Dash4Cash check of $100,000.
“I’m really proud of everyone on this Shore Lodge Chevrolet,” said Scott. “Pit stops were good. We made good adjustments, we just needed a longer race. We needed a couple more opportunities to come to pit road and get this car where it was really capable of running upfront and challenging for the win. I thought we would have finished better, I felt like we were better than a sixth-place car.
“Some strategy looks like got the No. 6 up there to finish in front of us, but we’ll take sixth, we’ll take $100,000. You know after Indianapolis, I’m going to McCall to the Shore Lodge and I’m
looking forward to buying everyone a drink there. I think I’m taking home the most money, that’s also a positive.”
With his achievement on Saturday night, Scott also finds himself one of the four candidates that enters next Saturday’s Lilly 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with another shot at $100,000.
“Indianapolis means a lot to everyone in Motorsports, I think. It means a lot to me. It was so exciting to be leading there with like five laps to go (last year) come home second. I have a lot of confidence when we go there. The No. 2 seems to have some magic at Indy and I’m looking forward to getting back there and seeing if we can’t get the monkey off our back, get to Victory Lane and keep collecting some of these checks.”
Leaving Chicagoland Speedway, Scott sits fifth in the championship standings, 47 points behind Chase Elliott, but with the recent Richard Childress Racing surge in Nationwide competition, Scott doesn’t consider his No. 2 Shore Lodge team out of the championship hunt at all.
“I sure hope we can continue to get better at the rate that we are,” added Scott. “We went from probably being 10th to 14th place cars on mile and a halfs at the very beginning of the year to top-five and challenging for wins, but you can never just rest. You gotta keep working, everyone else is working, because we are beating ‘em now. So we gotta keep pushing our engine shop, we gotta keep pushing our chassis and body shop to keep getting better and we gotta keep being smarter with our setups and adjustments and how we do these races.”
Fresh Faces Enter Third Round Of Dash4Cash:
$200,000 has been made available to seven different drivers through the first two rounds of the NASCAR Nationwide Series’ popular Dash4Cash.
Regan Smith, driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro kicked off this year’s edition with the top-performing Nationwide Series competitor at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend, while Smith, Brian Scott, Chris Buescher and Elliott Sadler all found themselves in the hunt Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway.
Next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, three more fresh faces find themselves hungry for some bonus money. With his top-finish of sixth, Brian Scott automatically transfers to round three, but he’ll now find himself battling Chicago winner Chase Elliott, Trevor Bayne and Richard Childress Racing teammate Ty Dillon for the big check in the 19th race of the season.
Regan Smith, who had the worst performance night of the group by placing 16th, won’t be able to capitalize on a potential $1,000,000 bonus by winning all four rounds. Smith, though does have an opportunity to be a part of the fourth and final round at Iowa Speedway on August 2, by being one of the top-three highest finishing Nationwide drivers at IMS on July 26.
Sam Hornish Jr’s Night Ends Early:
Sam Hornish Jr. had hopes of making the most of driving the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry again Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway. Unfortunately, his night ended just as quickly as it started.
Forcing to give up his sixth-place qualifying run for an unapproved adjustment post-race, Hornish Jr. was quickly on the move in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry, but smoke began billowing from the rear of his car on lap seven, which sent the Defiance, Ohio native to the garage and an early exit to just his fifth start of the 2014 season.
“I thought we were going to have a really good day,” Hornish said. “The Monster Energy car was really awesome in practice and I felt like this was going to be a race that we had a great opportunity to not only lead laps but go out there to win the race.
“It’s unfortunate that it ended so soon. It’s definitely not what these guys or myself deserve but we’ll keep our heads up and move on to the next one. Unfortunately, I have to wait a couple of weeks for that.”
The mechanical failure was also a glancing blow to Joe Gibbs Racing as they try to remain in the hunt for the NASCAR Nationwide Series owner’s championship. Entering this weekend’s race, they held a 22-point margin. However, leaving Chicagoland, Team Penske has narrowed the gap down to just five points with Ryan Blaney’s eighth place performance.
“We’re working really hard to try to win the owner’s points championship with this car and it’s not what any of us at Joe Gibbs Racing needed. But we got speed. We’ll just work on getting to the end next time.”
Hornish’s next opportunity to drive the No. 54 will come at Iowa Speedway on Saturday night, August 2, while the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series compete at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.
First Career Win:
Before the start of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race, the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards held a 100-lap shootout for the Ansell ActivArmr 150, won by first-time winner Mason Mitchell.
Mitchell, driving for his family-owned team Mason Mitchell Motorsports made a late-race pass on Justin Boston with five laps remaining and never looked back. Mitchell, 19, had finished second in four of his previous six races, but in his 35th career ARCA start, he finally took his No. 98 Ford Fusion to victory lane.
We couldn’t stick on the bottom all day,” Mitchell said. “Halfway through the race, I realized we carried more speed up top. We started picking up speed, and I didn’t look back.”
Mitchell, who started ninth was coming off a second-place finish at Winchester Speedway on July 6, unzipped his uniform in Victory Lane to proclaim a Superman tee-shirt. Quite fitting for his late-race surge.
Behind Mitchell, Boston finished second, followed by Ken Schrader Racing’s Matt Tifft, Will Kimmel and Joe Gibbs Racing development driver Cody Coughlin. With his triumph, Mitchell reclaimed the points lead over fellow Ford driver Grant Enfinger.
The series returns to action at Lucas Oil Raceway Park on Friday night July 25.
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