Final Nationwide practice from Atlanta Motor Speedway
Truck Series drivers prepare for inaugural international event
Watch: 9:30 a.m. ET, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series practice
Turner Scott rookie aims to mount title charge down homestretch
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario — Jeb Burton ranks third in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standings with 13 races down and nine to go, making him an intriguing championship candidate in his first full season on the circuit.
Burton’s two pole positions and his first career win in June at Texas Motor Speedway have made him one of the most decorated drivers in this season’s impressive rookie class. But stellar finishes have been difficult to come by since his breakthrough victory. In the six races that have followed, Burton has just two top-10 finishes — a ninth and a 10th.
“We’ve definitely missed it a couple of times, but the main thing is we’re running all the laps and learning as much as we can,” Burton said Saturday after practice at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, site of Sunday’s Chevrolet Silverado 250 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1). “In the beginning of the season, I’ve been to the first five race tracks (before), and it obviously showed. We ran top-five, top-10 every race and won two poles. That’s helping us. This is a learning year. We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing.”
Despite the slight drop-off, the 21-year-old driver and his No. 4 Turner Scott Motorsports team are just 53 points behind series leader Matt Crafton with plenty of time left to mount a charge. Having familiar tracks ahead on the schedule certainly helps.
“Hopefully, we can get back in the championship hunt,” Burton said. “We’re right there, but definitely we’ve been off a little bit. We notice that, and we’ve got some good tracks we’re going back to. I’m pretty excited about it.”
Foreign land: Rookie Chase Elliott proved he knows his way around Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, leading both Saturday practice sessions around the 2.459-mile road course. But challenge him to drive back home from southeastern Ontario without benefit of an atlas or GPS and he’d be lost.
“It’s been nice. I really have no idea where we are, to be honest with you,” Elliott said of his first trip to the Great White North. “If you looked on a map, I could not tell you where we were. I don’t know a whole lot about Canada, but they’ve got a pretty cool road course up here.”
Elliott will turn 18 in November, meaning his restriction on competing on ovals measuring more than a mile in NASCAR competition will end next season. That much is certain, even if his 2014 plans aren’t.
“As far as next year goes, obviously a lot of things are kind of still up in the air,” Elliott said. “Unfortunately, we’re not going to have (primary sponsor) Aaron’s with us next year, so we are kind of in pursuit of trying to find some different opportunities. And we’ll have to just see when it comes February.
Close quarters: All four Truck series drivers pulling double duty this weekend posted similar speeds in qualifying for Sunday morning’s NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race.
Chad Hackenbracht led the way, qualifying 13th in the 36-car field. He’ll start close by Truck series rivals Burton (14th), Ty Dillon (15th) and James Buescher (17th), all of whom rank in the top five in truck series points and are in the Canadian Tire event to gain valuable track time.
The 51-lap Clarington 200 race is scheduled for an 11 a.m. ET start.
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Aided by Busch’s influence, rookie aims to apply lessons learned in Canada
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario — Darrell Wallace Jr., like many other NASCAR drivers, is often the subject of photos. But Wallace is unique in that he’s a composer of photos as well.
It’s not uncommon to see Wallace at the track in a media photo vest, camera in hand, milling about pit road or in the garage on days he’s not racing. At a venue as picturesque as Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, site of Sunday’s first international NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, Wallace says he’s tempted to trade places and search for the perfect vantage point through his lens.
“When I’m in the corners here, I was watching the cars of course, but then I’d catch myself looking at the photographers,” Wallace said. “I need to grab mine and jump out there with them. It’s fun to be able to do that and just step away from racing, even though you’re at a race track. It’s just, you’re in your own element.”
Whether it’s looking through a viewfinder or out the windshield of his No. 54 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota, Wallace has found a certain level of comfort and growth in his first season of truck series racing. He aims to put it to good use Sunday in the series’ inaugural Chevrolet Silverado 250 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1) at the 2.459-mile road course in southeastern Ontario.
Wallace’s season has been one of missed chances at victories and results not necessarily reflecting in-race performance. The missteps are why the 19-year-old rookie currently ranks 11th in the series standings despite leading the most laps in two of 13 races this season.
“That’s what’s so frustrating is that I know we’re an inch away and something always happens,” said Wallace, whose last two races have netted 21st- and 28th-place finishes. “Michigan, we had a very, very fast truck and we ended up getting caught in a wreck on Lap 27. We were down in Bristol running eighth, had a top-five truck and caught on fire.
“I feel like now that I’ve settled down and finally figured out how to race these trucks after our Kentucky wreck, I feel like we got in a good rhythm with Eldora, Iowa and Pocono with all top-10s, so I was expecting a very good finish at Michigan and Bristol, but then it’s bad streaks that come up again. That’s what’s frustrating. When you start getting in a rhythm, something knocks you out.”
Despite the frustration, the lessons that Wallace has learned in his maiden voyage have been priceless. He has also built a rapport with his KBM crew chief, Jerry Baxter — a gradual process that, like his maturation as a NASCAR driver, has taken time.
Even then, Baxter has noticed that his driver has proven to be a quick study.
“He’s a lot more confident in what he’s saying now,” Baxter said in between Saturday practices at the former Mosport track. “At the beginning, he had no experience on a track bigger than a mile at all. He was pretty lost at the beginning with the draft, especially with the trucks as big a draft as it is. Now he’s getting better at it, and all of a sudden, the trucks are turning better in the draft. I think I’m getting a little better at understanding, but it’s probably him knowing how to position his truck. He’s doing a better job, but as far as our communication, it’s tenfold better than it was to start with, for sure.
“He gets it quick, like even coming here. He’s not a road racer, and he’s fast. He just adapts quick. I’m a little surprised that he adapts as well as he does, and that’s a good thing.”
Beyond his pairing with the veteran Baxter, the young Wallace has also benefitted from mentoring from team owner Kyle Busch, winner of 120 races over NASCAR’s three national series. Busch’s part-time participation in the truck series has given Wallace the seldom-seen opportunity to compete against the team owner who has taken him under his wing. It’s also allowed him more one-on-one time with Busch during a given race weekend.
“Learning from him, talking to him, just figuring out what he’s all about helps you going in,” Wallace said. “You don’t even have to talk about racing — just figure out his attitude on how he takes things, and that helps out.”
According to Baxter, Busch’s analytical nature is one worth adopting. Wallace has responded, spending Mondays in the shop helping to tear down the previous weekend’s race truck, then turning his attention to race setups on Tuesdays. The crew chief has done his part with informal show-and-tell on the truck with Wallace, helping the rookie better visualize and understand the concepts behind his adjustments.
So far the process, and Busch’s influence, have helped.
“Kyle’s a student of the sport,” Baxter said. “I’ve known him for a long time but I’d never worked with him, and he’s a student. He wants to know everything, why things are that way, and Darrell’s kind of been led down that path now.”
The task at hand this weekend for Wallace is adapting to the treacherous layout of the Canadian Tire track and what he calls its “sketchy turns.” The elevation changes, the blind corners and all the shifting have kept Wallace busy in the truck over two days of practice thus far. Now it’s up to him to apply what he’s learned in hopes of erasing the sour taste of the last two races.
Drawing a parallel to his handiwork with a camera, it’s a goal he pictures happening.
“We come here to try to get back our hot streak,” Wallace said. “I think we’re pretty fast and able to compete. We’ve got a top-five truck, I believe. Those road course guys are pretty tough, but we ought to be able to hang with them.”
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Smith, Buescher could step in to drive No. 48
HAMPTON, Ga. — There’s been no jetting back and forth; no Friday morning arrivals this time around as Jimmie Johnson and wife Chandra await the birth of the couple’s second child.
But Johnson, the five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, is still keeping his cell phone close by as he and his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team prepare for a run at a sixth Cup Series title.
“It’s getting close,” Johnson, 37, said Friday after qualifying 10th for Sunday’s AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “I’m really just going off my wife’s pulse on it all and she’s pretty calm and relaxed about it.”
The due date for the Johnsons’ second child falls on the weekend of the opening race of this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, slated for Sept. 13-15 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill.
“We’ve had weekly doctor check-ups and everything is going great and it looks like we don’t have anything to worry about right away, although I’d love for something to happen this weekend or next weekend,” he said. “But everything is great. Mom is healthy and baby is healthy and we’re just kind of waiting for when number two decides to come out.”
Prior to the birth of the couple’s first child, Johnson spent as much time as possible with his wife at home, often delaying his departure to the track until Friday mornings when the schedule allowed. Daughter Genevieve (Evie) was born July 7, 2010 — a Wednesday.
Such scheduling hasn’t been necessary this time, although Johnson said the team is prepared in case he has to make an unexpected departure.
A back-up plan he described as “kind of convoluted” would see either NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Regan Smith or Camping World Truck Series driver James Buescher fill in for the team should the need arise. Both the Nationwide and Truck series will be competing at Chicagoland the same weekend as the Cup event.
Smith tested the No. 48 car at Richmond recently in case he is asked to step in.
As the points leader and with a spot in the Chase already secured, Johnson said it’s been “easy” to map potential plans of action. But Chicago, the opening Chase race, is when “it gets kind of tricky,” he said.
Fortunately, he said, he has an understanding wife.
“There is no one more focused and committed on the No. 48 winning a championship than Chani, and she is like, ‘You need to be in that race car and do your job,’” he said. “So, that’s letting me sleep well. And I clearly want to be there for the birth of our second daughter.”
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Strong Bristol run helped Dale Jr.’s positioning in the Chase heading into Atlanta
Related: Lineup for AdvoCare 500 | Sprint Cup standings
HAMPTON, Ga. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t clinched a spot in this year’s NASCAR Chase For The Sprint Cup, but the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ most popular driver is on much more solid ground today.
He found his footing at Bristol, curtailing the freefalls of Watkins Glen and Michigan where 30th- and 36th-place finishes threatened to pull the Hendrick Motorsports driver completely out of the Chase picture.
Heading into Sunday night’s AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), Earnhardt Jr., 38, says he feels much better about his team’s chances entering this year’s postseason.
“I was real nervous going into Bristol,” he said Friday at AMS. “A bullring like that with only 20 points from 11th (place) was a bit difficult on our nerves.
“We didn’t really get to race as aggressively as we’d like to, but we still had a good night, a good car and drove a smart race.”
His 10th-place finish on the high-banked half-mile track in Tennessee expanded the gap from 20 to 33 points between himself and 11th place, a position held by defending series champion Brad Keselowski. A bit of breathing room as he seeks to make his sixth Chase appearance.
His goal is to exit Atlanta no worse than his current situation, better if possible.
“I don’t really have a set number (of points in mind),” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Thirty-three is good. … I don’t want to lose any spots. I don’t want to fall to eighth. I don’t want to fall to ninth. I don’t want to be 10th. I want to be seventh or better. We don’t want to go into the Chase sputtering and just making it by the skin of our teeth at all.”
A 19-time winner in Cup, Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t won a Cup race since June of 2012 at Michigan International Speedway. He will start eighth in Sunday’s race, second-best among the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers.
The team, headed up by crew chief Steve Letarte, avoided a potential setback at Bristol, pitting for fuel with only 50 laps remaining in the 500-lap race. The call to guarantee gas wouldn’t be an issue came with a price — Earnhardt Jr. went from fifth to 15th with the stop. He made up five spots in the final 50 laps.
It was the correct call, he said, even though the team discovered afterward that “we were a gallon of gas to the good.”
“That eats away at you, because you know you had a chance to run a little bit better,” he said. “But me and Steve understand … realistically we gave away two points, three points. We would have started on the inside right behind Jeff (Gordon) and on the inside was not the way to go. He got trained on the outside by a bunch of guys andfinished seventh. So we’d have been somewhere around where he was and finished maybe eighth or ninth.
“At the time it was bothering me and I was real nervous inside the car; if we had run out we’d have been fools and made a lot of people upset, including ourselves.
“It would have been really difficult. It was something we had to do. Under the circumstances, it was adecision we had to make.”
Atlanta, where he has one career win (the March 2004 race) in 25 Cup starts, has been one of Earnhardt Jr.’s better tracks. His average finish of 12.5 is second only to Bristol. He finished seventh in last year’s race here.
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Hornish Jr. and Austin Dillon are in midst of a points battle atop the Nationwide standings
HAMPTON, Ga. – NASCAR Nationwide Series points leader Sam Hornish Jr. went from seeing his points lead sliced in half to nearly doubled instead.
All in the course of the final seven laps of Saturday night’s Great Clips/Grits Chips 300 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Granted, at just 10 points the Penske Racing driver’s advantage on Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing) remains still a slim one. A four-point gain doesn’t sound tremendous.
It was, however, a seven-point swing that took place on a hot, steamy night South of Atlanta when Dillon (fifth at the time) and Hornish Jr. (seventh) fell in line for the final restart.
Dillon, stuck in the outside lane; Hornish two rows back, but on the preferred inside.
“It was a good set of (pit) calls and really having a good lane choice there at the end, being in the right place,” said Hornish after his fourth-place run and 11th top-five finish of the season. “So many times you get stuck out here by being in the wrong lane, but tonight it really worked out for us and we were exactly where we wanted to be.”
Dillon earned one bonus point for leading a lap earlier in the 195-lap race. Circumstances at the end weren’t as helpful, leaving him eighth at the checkered flag.
“We restarted fourth, the 22 (of Joey Logano) spun his tires and I can’t pass him before the start/finish line,” Dillon said afterward. “I hit him, the six (of Trevor Bayne) is holding back, gets a run on the outside and you’re in the middle getting spun around there.
“Whoever started on the outside could not go not matter who it was, Kyle Busch, (Logano), me. You’re just a sitting duck. (Bayne) about wrecked me at the start/finish line so I should have done that to the 22, I guess. That’s part of it; you’re racing hard, we just move on and keep going.”
It’s not quite a two-horse show as the series prepares to head off to Richmond International Raceway for next weekend’s 25th stop of the season. Elliott Sadler struggled mightily with his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and came home 18th. He took a big points hit, but sits only 26 back of the leader with nine races remaining.
Likewise, Regan Smith (JR Motorsports) failed to gain, a ninth-place run expanding his deficit from 24 to 29 points.
Hornish Jr., running in the top 10 all evening, said his Ford was “pretty good” during long, green-flag runs, but “we’d get kind of stuck behind some people and the car would free up a little bit. I could make passes, but it was just going to take me a long time to get there.
“We made some good adjustments to be able to make the car better and I had a direction that I wanted to go and Greg (Erwin, crew chief) had a direction he wanted to go and we put them both together and we were able to get a good restart and get our way up to third, so I’m real happy with the performance that we put out tonight."
Consistency has been the team’s calling card this season. And Hornish said the performance of a new car used at AMS is a sign that the team is continuing to improve.
“So, in my eyes, that’s a good thing that we’re continually trying to evolve and even make ourselves better than where we’re at,” he said. “But I feel like there’s not a race track that we go to on this last group that I don’t feel like if we go out there and perform to what our ability is that we’re not going to be able to either gain some points or hopefully at least minimize the day.
“I feel like our bad days need to be a 12th-place finish, so the fact we can take days like today where we weren’t as good as we probably needed to be and were probably about a fifth-place car, and were able to get a third out of it, that’s great.”
Dillon isn’t ready to toss in the towel, although he admitted he hated the team was unable to capitalize with a superior car.
“You hate to lose them,” he said of the points exchange, “but I’m fine. We’re fine. We’ve got fast race cars. … This is just one of the hardest places to restart; luck was on their side tonight and hopefully it’s on our side the next time.”
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Chase Elliott fastest in final practice, will roll off in final qualifying group
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Fastest in final practice, Austin Dillon rolls off last in Coors Light Pole Qualifying
| Track Qualifying Record: | Greg Biffle, 10/25/03, 28.83 seconds/192.3 mph | ||
| # | Car | Driver | Team |
| 1 | 74 | * Mike Harmon | Mike Harmon Racing Chevrolet |
| 2 | 89 | * Morgan Shepherd | King’s Tire / Racing with Jesus Chevrolet |
| 3 | 70 | Tony Raines | ALS Association Toyota |
| 4 | 10 | * Chase Miller | TriStar Motorsports Toyota |
| 5 | 37 | * Matt Dibenedetto | NationalCashLenders.com Dodge |
| 6 | 50 | * Danny Efland | DefiantWhisky.com Chevrolet |
| 7 | 52 | * Joey Gase | DonateLife.net Chevrolet |
| 8 | 79 | Kyle Fowler | Techniweld Ford |
| 9 | 00 | * Blake Koch | M&W Transportation / SupportMilitary.org Toyota |
| 10 | 24 | Ken Butler | Remax of Georgia Toyota |
| 11 | 51 | Jeremy Clements | Value Lighting / AllSouthElectric.com Chevrolet |
| 12 | 23 | Robert Richardson Jr. | North Texas Pipe / Stalk It Chevrolet |
| 13 | 40 | Reed Sorenson | Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet |
| 14 | 87 | Joe Nemechek | pelletgrillsusa.com Toyota |
| 15 | 14 | Jeff Green | Hefty / Reynolds Wrap Toyota |
| 16 | 42 | * Josh Wise | Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet |
| 17 | 4 | Landon Cassill | Horizon Commercial Roofing Chevrolet |
| 18 | 44 | Cole Whitt | Takagi Tankless Water Heaters Toyota |
| 19 | 01 | Mike Wallace | G&K Services Chevrolet |
| 20 | 55 | * Jamie Dick | VIVA Auto Group Chevrolet |
| 21 | 31 | Justin Allgaier | Wolfpack Energy Services Chevrolet |
| 22 | 32 | Kyle Larson # | Cessna Chevrolet |
| 23 | 2 | Brian Scott | Armour / Ingles Chevrolet |
| 24 | 11 | Elliott Sadler | OneMain Financial Toyota |
| 25 | 19 | Mike Bliss | ReliableAir.com Toyota |
| 26 | 12 | Sam Hornish Jr. | Alliance Truck Parts Ford |
| 27 | 16 | * Chris Buescher | Roush Fenway Racing Driven Ford |
| 28 | 43 | Michael Annett | Flying J Travel Plaza Ford |
| 29 | 33 | Kevin Harvick(i) | Bad Boy Buggies Chevrolet |
| 30 | 5 | Kasey Kahne(i) | Great Clips Chevrolet |
| 31 | 99 | Alex Bowman # | ToyotaCare Toyota |
| 32 | 60 | Travis Pastrana | Roush Fenway Racing Ford |
| 33 | 30 | Nelson Piquet Jr. # | WORX Chevrolet |
| 34 | 54 | Kyle Busch(i) | Monster Energy Toyota |
| 35 | 77 | Parker Kligerman | Toyota Toyota |
| 36 | 7 | Regan Smith | TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet |
| 37 | 6 | Trevor Bayne | Cargill / Sam’s Club Ford |
| 38 | 22 | Joey Logano(i) | Discount Tire Ford |
| 39 | 20 | Brian Vickers | Dollar General Toyota |
| 40 | 3 | Austin Dillon | AdvoCare Spark Chevrolet |
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Keystone Light Pole Award winner James Buescher gets first pit pick
Defending Camping World Truck Series champion James Buescher claimed his second Keystone Light Pole Award of the season on Saturday night.
The pole win gives him first selection of stalls on pit road, and his No. 31 Turner Scott Motorsports team chose the No. 1 stall, first off of pit road toward Turn 1. Ryan Blaney qualified second and chose the 34rth and final pit stall.
The third-fastest lap was put down by road course veteran Mike Skeen. His No. 6 team picked the 17th stall with an opening in front of him.
Series points leader Matt Crafton, who qualified 13th, chose the second stall, directly behind Buescher.
Watch the races on and off of pit road on Sunday night at 1:30 p.m. ET on ESPN during the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
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