ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Last week Lawson Aschenbach didn’t know he’d be racing in Saturday afternoon’s Road America 180 Fired Up by Johnsonville (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), but that changed with a phone call on Monday.
Aschenbach said with the help of Spire Sports + Entertainment and fellow road racing friend Justin Marks they helped strike a deal with Johnny Davis’s JD Motorsports with Gary Keller for the third and final road-course race of the season.
Despite an array of road racing experience, the 31-year-old Aschenbach has never sat in an XFINITY Series race car before Friday’s practice. He made the best with his transition by putting his No. 0 SEM Chevrolet Camaro 23rd and 14th overall in the two practice sessions at the 4.048-mile track. The team announced the SEM partnership with the 67-year-old company Friday morning.
“It was great to experience an XFINITY car for the first time Friday,” said Aschenbach who currently competes full-time in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge. “This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I can’t thank JD Motorsports with Gary Keller for the opportunity.
“We made a lot of good gains on the car and I’ve still got a lot to learn. I’m looking forward to qualifying and racing.”
While showcasing his talent with one of the series’ most underfunded teams, Aschenbach is still keeping his expectations realistic in his only planned XFINITY Series start of the season.
“I want to finish. We want to finish well, but the goal is to see the checkered flag,” he said.
To his surprise, the ability to find speed and finesse in an XFINITY Series car hails from a star-studded career in Sports Car competition.
“To be honest, the car was surprising similar to the Stevenson Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro Z/28.R.,” added Aschenbach. “However, I’d say the single thing that’s most different would be the brakes. You have to brake quite early in these cars and you also don’t have ABS (Anti-lock braking system). So that took a bit of time to get used to.”
Aschenbach, a native of Darnestown, Maryland is a Chevrolet-backed driver in Sports Car.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
