Saturday Road America Notebook

Chase Elliott edges Chase Briscoe for Road America pole 

PLYMOUTH, Wis. – Defending race winner Chase Elliott couldn’t have asked for a better start to July 4 weekend at Road America.

Making up more than three tenths of a second over the final three corners at the 4.048-mile road course, Elliott narrowly edged a disappointed Chase Briscoe for the pole position for Sunday’s Kwik Trip 250 (3 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Running late in the final round of Saturday’s time trials, Elliott navigated the mammoth circuit in 134.427 seconds (108.407 mph) to knock Briscoe (108. 376 mph) off the provisional pole by .038 seconds.

“It was a little more fun than I thought it would be, for sure,” Elliott said of his lap, which exceeded his own expectations. “Hopefully, the results are the same tomorrow as they were last year—that’s what’s important…

“We’ll go to work and see if we can get it driving like it needs to tomorrow. I think it’s going to be really hard to pass, based on what I saw there in practice. Just want to keep track position as long as we can—that’s always a tough think at road courses—and manage that balance of what to do at what time.”

In winning the 11th Busch Pole Award of his career and his second this season, Elliott denied a frustrated Briscoe his second NASCAR Cup Series pole.

“I did a terrible job,” Briscoe said of his lap. “I was more sideways than straight. I feel like I gave up six-tenths easily in different corners. My team definitely deserves the pole, but the driver doesn’t deserve the pole. I have to clean that up.

“We should be really good for tomorrow, though. We have a really fast Ford, and I have to put it together. I was overdriving so bad. I’ve just got to slow down. I have to learn from that. I have a really good car, and that will be big for tomorrow. We’ll see if we can put it all together and get the driver to stop messing up.”

Kyle Larson qualified third at 108.210 mph, followed by Tyler Reddick at 108.155 mph. Austin Cindric, Michael McDowell, Chris Buescher, Alex Bowman, Joey hand and Cole Custer will start fifth through 10th, respectively.

Trackhouse Racing drivers Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez, who won the first two road course races of the season at Circuit of the Americas and Sonoma Raceway, respectively, failed to make the final round. Chastain will start 12th on Sunday, with Suarez taking the green flag from the 17th spot.

Road course ace AJ Allmendinger qualified 21st in the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet.

 

NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying – 2nd Annual Kwik Trip 250 Presented by JOCKEY Made in America

Road America

Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin

Saturday, July 2, 2022

1. (9) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 108.407 mph.
2. (14) Chase Briscoe, Ford, 108.376 mph.
3. (5) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 108.210 mph.
4. (8) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet, 108.155 mph.
5. (2) Austin Cindric #, Ford, 108.123 mph.
6. (34) Michael McDowell, Ford, 108.112 mph.
7. (17) Chris Buescher, Ford, 107.857 mph.
8. (48) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 107.788 mph.
9. (15) Joey Hand, Ford, 107.748 mph.
10. (41) Cole Custer, Ford, 107.480 mph.
11. (6) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 0.000 mph.
12. (1) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
13. (18) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 0.000 mph.
14. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 0.000 mph.
15. (19) Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, 0.000 mph.
16. (20) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 0.000 mph.
17. (99) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
18. (22) Joey Logano, Ford, 0.000 mph.
19. (12) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 0.000 mph.
20. (3) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
21. (16) AJ Allmendinger(i), Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
22. (45) Kurt Busch, Toyota, 0.000 mph.
23. (21) Harrison Burton #, Ford, 0.000 mph.
24. (10) Aric Almirola, Ford, 0.000 mph.
25. (23) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 0.000 mph.
26. (77) Josh Bilicki(i), Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
27. (43) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
28. (4) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 0.000 mph.
29. (24) William Byron, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
30. (42) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
31. (51) Cody Ware, Ford, 0.000 mph.
32. (38) Todd Gilliland #, Ford, 0.000 mph.
33. (47) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
34. (31) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
35. (7) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 0.000 mph.
36. (27) Loris Hezemans(i), Ford, 0.000 mph.
37. (78) Kyle Tilley, Ford, 0.000 mph.

 

To Tyler Reddick, Road America is enjoyable but treacherous

Tyler Reddick can’t be considered a natural on road courses, but hard work has paid off for the driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.

In 11 road course starts in the NASCAR Cup Series, Reddick has posted five top-10 finishes. Two of those were top fives, including a runner-up result last year at the Charlotte Roval and a fifth-place run at Circuit of the Americas in March.

“I’ve grown very fond of road course racing which was something I didn’t do a lot growing up,” Reddick said. “The time that I’ve put into getting better at it, I found rather quickly that it has become one of my favorite types of race tracks that we have on the schedule.”

The fun factor aside, Road America is a track that can compound mistakes made in a single corner.

“If you miss one you mess up the whole lap,” Reddick said. “The mentality of trying to make it up is how you get into trouble. If you miss Turn 1 and try to make it up in Turn 3, you make it even worse and then you might even crash in Turn 5 or Canada Corner if you use that oval mentality of trying to make it up in the next corner.

“A place like Road America is a narrow, unforgiving race track, so it doesn’t work there.” 

 

Kyle Larson’s versatility on full display at Road America

What does reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson do in his spare time? He drives race cars.

Larson has the type of versatile talent reminiscent of three-time Cup champion Tony Stewart, who could adapt to just about any sort of racing vehicle.

During his off days from NASCAR racing, Larson frequently will jump into a 410 winged sprint car, midget racer, Silver Crown car or a dirt late model—and he’ll win consistently in all those disciplines.

So it should come as no surprise that Larson won the pole for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Road America—and by a decisive margin.

Racing an Xfinity car for the first time since 2018, Larson toured the 4.048-mile road course in 134.318 seconds (108.495 seconds), beating second-place qualifier Ty Gibbs by .713 seconds over the 14-turn circuit.

Once Larson got his bearings in the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet—Hendrick’s first foray into the Xfinity Series since a one-off with Stewart in 2009—he cruised to the top starting spot.

“Yeah, it was honestly surprising when I had read that it had been since, I think, 2018,” Larson said. “It doesn’t feel that long ago.

“I don’t know – the driving stuff is whatever. It’s just like the visuals of the tach and the gauges. It’s a different style of dash than what I was even used to when I was racing Xfinity for Ganassi. Just the little things like that are hard to adjust to at first. But once you’re out there, it all kind of becomes natural and it’s just another stock car at that point.”