Category: RC Truck Series

With a pass on Brad Keselowski with 23 laps to go, Kyle Busch would take the lead and hold Keselowski off to win the EnjoyIllinois.com 225 at Chicagoland Speedway on Friday night. It marks Busch’s fourth win of the season and seventh top 10 in eight starts this year.

“That was tough,” Busch said of racing against Keselowski and Keselowski’s young teammate Ryan Blaney. “Brad and Ryan had some really good trucks today. Can’t say enough about this Dollar General Toyota tundra. We didn’t have the speed on the short run, but on the long run, we had as strong truck. Great win for this team. They really deserved it. Rudy and these guys worked hard in practice, tried some things that worked, other things that didn’t work.”

Jeb Burton led early though for most of the race, it was Busch, Keselowski and Blaney trading the lead back and forth. Their battle for the lead at the front allowed NASCAR to set a new record for the most passes for the lead made under green flag conditions at 50.

Keselowski finished second for his third top 10 finish of the year. As the truck owner looks for his truck win, he has now finished second on five different occasions. Keselowski had been closing on Busch in the final laps, though wasn’t able to find a way by.

“It was great,” Keselowski said of the racing with Busch and Blaney. “I hope it was a thrill to watch. That was the most fun you can have finishing second. The guys did an awesome job – just came up a little short there. Finally came in there at the end and just needed a couple more laps there.”

Keselowski’s teammate Ryan Blaney finished third after running in the top five for most of the race.

“It was a lot of fun,” Blaney commented. “I hope everyone watching had a good time watching it. it was fun from where I was sitting. It was cool to work with Brad there. I thought we’d be able to keep the 51 behind us. I could push Brad out front but just never was able to pass Kyle there. Pretty cool having both BKR trucks in the top three not bad, just needed a little bit more.”

Points leader Matt Crafton continued his string of solid finishes with a fourth. It marks his 16^th top 10 finish in the 16 races run so far this year.

“Just can’t thank these guys enough,” he said. “They worked so hard on things tonight. We were junk at the beginning. We’d go for about two or three laps and then it would go to like an anchor. We came in and made a ton of adjustments – tire pressure, wedge. It says a lot about this team and how strong they are.”

Crafton now leads Buescher by 41 points with six races remaining in the schedule.

“It was a blast,” Crafton said of the racing. “That is why the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is the best racing. If the fans can’t see that, then they’re crazy.”

Ty Dillon rounded out the top five.

“It was a long night for us,” he commented afterwards. “Our truck was definitely fast. The bottom was harsh on those restarts and we’d never get on the top for a restart so we lost some spots there. Once we got single file there, it was hard to pass. Wish we could’ve got on the top side for one of those restarts.”

John Wes Townley finished sixth followed by Austin Dillon. Austin was filling in for Brennan Newberry as Newberry was sidelined due to food poisoning. James Buescher finished eighth followed by Jeb Burton and Johnny Sauter.

Front runner Timothy Peters made hard contact with the wall with about 50 laps ago after trying to cut across Ryan Sieg’s bumper.

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will be back in action later this month on September 28^th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In the qualifying session at Chicagoland Speedway on Friday afternoon, Jeb Burton would score the pole for the EnjoyIllinois.com 225. He would lap the track with a lap of 30.831 seconds behind the wheel of his No. 4 Arrowhead Chevrolet Silverado. It marks his fifth pole and 12th top 10 start this year.

“Heading to Chicago, my team and I couldn’t be more prepared to do it again,” Burton said. “We had a good truck in Kentucky and we’re taking it to Chicago hoping for similar results. I’ve been studying film a lot and even though we’ve never raced at this track, I feel like we’ll be a real contender come Friday night. There’s no time to slow down now.”

Ty Dillon qualified his truck second, about 94 hundreths off of Burton’s time. It marks his 12th top 10 start of the season.

“We’ve had some really fast trucks recently,” Dillon commented. “We just haven’t gotten the finishes that we deserved. Last weekend was a true testament to how hard this Bass Pro Shops team works each week. They could have given up after our alternator died, but they kept their heads up and kept digging. This is what a championship caliber team is made out of. We’re not out of this thing yet. We’ll keep working towards wins and those wins will get us closer to the championship.”

Burton’s Turner-Scott Motorsports teammate Miguel Paludo qualified third as he looks to better his eighth place finish from two years ago.

“I can’t wait to get to Chicagoland,” Paludo said. “I’m very proud to be representing BRANDT do Brasil. A lot of people think of Brazil as beaches and big cities, but agriculture and companies like BRANDT play a huge role in many parts of the country, including in the south where I grew up. Chicagoland is BRANDT’s home track and they always have a huge number of guests supporting our team at the racetrack. I don’t think there would be anything more special than to go to victory lane in front of BRANDT while representing my home country. I’ve run well in Chicago in the past and we’re bringing a chassis that we’ve been very successful with so far, so I think this is going to be a great weekend.”

Justin Lofton and Brendan Gaughan rounded out the top five. Joey Coulter qualified sixth, followed by his truck owner Kyle Busch in seventh and points leader Matt Crafton in eighth. Crafton has a 37 points lead over James Buescher as he looks for his 16th top 10 finish in 16 races this season.

“We’ve been up-and-down there — decent, but not great,” Crafton said. “But for sure, it’s time to take our game to another level this weekend.”

Buescher will start ninth as he looks for his second straight win following last week’s win at Iowa Speedway.

“I couldn’t be more excited about going back to Chicagoland Speedway, especially coming off a huge win for our Turner Scott Motorsports team last weekend at Iowa Speedway,” Buescher said. “I think it goes without saying that this style of track falls right into our wheelhouse, and I feel like our Rheem team will be able to come out of here with another solid finish and hopefully our third victory of the season.”

Austin Dillon qualified 10th.

The EnjoyIllinois.com 225 will take the green flag tonight at Chicagoland Speedway at 8pm EST. Live coverage can seen on Fox Sports 1.

The final lap of the Chevrolet Silverado 250 was filled with drama as Chase Elliott would wreck Ty Dillon in turn 10 to take the victory.

Going into turn nine, Elliott got himself alongside Dillon a bit as they went into 10, contact was made and resulted in Dillon on the tires.

“I hated to do that but I had to do that,” Elliott commented after the race. “Not very often do you have a truck as good as the truck we had today and have your strategy as good as ours did today. We had a couple curveballs thrown at us there but were able to escape all that and put ourselves in a good position on the restart at the end.”

It marks Elliott’s first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win in his sixth start as he becomes the series’ youngest winner at the age of 17.

“I had the opportunity there going into 10,” Elliott added. “I thought the 3 (Dillon) was sputtering. I felt he was really close or out of gas or something and got to his right-rear quarter panel and tried to move him out of the way and put him in the fence. That’s not how I race. I think anybody that has raced me before knows that’s now how I do things.”

Dillon got credited with a 17^th place finish and would have words for Elliott after the race, stating that if Elliott was at Iowa, he wouldn’t finish the race.

“Everything comes full circle,” Elliott commented. “I hope it doesn’t but I’ve learned that I’ve lost really close races, I’ve won really close races and eventually things like that come full circle.”

At the same time on the final lap, Max Papis and Mike Skeen would bump into each other back and forth for the third and fourth positions, resulting in heavy damage to both trucks and Papis finishing sixth while Skeen finished 13^th. The pair of road course veterans would share a heated discussion on pit road following the competition of the race.

Then behind them, Brad Keselowski Racing teammate Ross Chastain made contact with Ryan Blaney in turn eight, resulting in Blaney going around. Chastain got credited with seventh while Blaney got 16^th.

Escaping all three incidents first would be Chad Hackenbracht, scoring a second place finish in just his third Camping World Truck Series start.

“We just sorted of raced our own race and Rudy got the truck handling really good; we didn’t make a lot of changes,” the young driver commented after the race. “I couldn’t ask for much better of a race. I’ll be smiling for the next couple of days here. I’m pretty pumped.”

Miguel Paludo ran inside the top five most of the day and came home with a solid third place finish.

“Unfortunately, strategy didn’t pay off for us,” Paludo commented. “The caution didn’t come out at the right time and on the last top, I dropped from first to 14^th with like 17 laps to go, clearly didn’t go like we wanted as a team. Good points day for the team and just it was exciting to be here. It was a really good race.”

Darrell Wallace Jr. finished fourth, joining his Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate Hackenbracht in the top five. The third KBM truck of Joey Coulter finished 26^th after having to make a trip to the garage mid-race due to making heavy contact with the turn eight tire barrier. Ron Hornaday Jr. rounded out the top five.

As stated previous, Papis finished sixth followed by Chastain, Timothy Peters, pole sitter James Buescher and points leader Matt Crafton. Crafton now leads Buescher by 47 points.

Johnny Sauter, who was third in points coming into the weekend, suffered handling and mechanical problems throughout the day with his Toyota Tundra.

James Buescher stayed true to his word. He said as he continued to lay down laps, he would continue to get faster. That played true in qualifying as the defending truck series champion laid down a lap of 81.074 seconds to score the pole for the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.

“The biggest thing is the more laps,” the driver of the No. 31 Motomaster Eliminator Chevrolet Silverado said. “Every lap I make, everytime I went out, I got faster every time. So I feel like the more laps I can get, the better prepared I will be.”

It will be important for Buescher to have a good run as after some bad luck to start the year, Buescher has turned his season around and sits second in points, 49 points behind Matt Crafton.

“People say we’re back in the title hunt, but I don’t think we ever fell out,” he said. “We’re just closer to the top now and plenty of racing left to go; we’re just past halfway.”

Rookie Ryan Blaney qualified his No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford in the second spot, 0.17 seconds off of Buescher.

“This team has been on a tear of late,” Blaney said coming into the weekend. “I’m confident our Cooper Standard team will have a shot at winning Sunday afternoon which will put us right back in the championship hunt.”

Mike Skeen qualified third with his No. 6 Hawk Performance Chevrolet as he looks to make his Camping World Truck Series debut.

In his past four Pirelli World Challenge GT Series starts at CTMP, he has four poles and four wins. Skeen currently sits sixth in the World Challenge GT Series standings after winning at Lime Rock earlier this year.

“Anytime you have that much success with a track you’re comfortable with it,” Skeen commented. “But this is a whole other world. I’ve had very little time in stock cars and not certainly any round here.”

Chase Elliott, who led both practices earlier in the day, rounded out the top five in fifth.

Miguel Paludo qualified sixth, followed by Ty Dillon, Max Papis, Chad Hackenbracht and Darrell Wallace Jr.

Points leader Matt Crafton qualified in the 13th position.

The Chevrolet Silverado 250 is set to start tomorrow at 2pm EST.

In the final practice for the Chevrolet Silverado 250, it’d be 17-year-old Chase Elliott would top the charts with a lap of 81.045 seconds.

This past off-season, NASCAR changed the age limit for the truck series, allowing 17-year-olds to run on ovals lesser than a mile and road courses. Drivers must be 18 years of age or older to run ovals a mile or longer. Elliott, a development driver for Hendrick Motorsports, took advantage of the new rule right away with his truck series debut earlier this season. Elliott has four top fives and five top 10s in his five career starts so far this year.

“Canadian Motorsports Park is a different track and a place I’ve never been to before,” Elliott said coming into the weekend. “A lot of guys are in the same boat there, so I think the guy who can adapt the quickest is going to have an advantage.”

Mike Skeen led the pair of sessions yesterday and today, was second in the morning session. This final session he was second once again, 0.440 seconds off of Elliott’s quick time. Skeen,a driver in the Pirelli Wold Challenge GT Series, is making his Camping World Truck Series debut debut. In his past four Pirelli World Challenge GT Series starts at CTMP, he has four poles and four wins. Skeen currently sits sixth in the World Challenge GT Series standings after winning at Lime Rock earlier this year.

German Quiroga was third quickest once again as he has been throughout the weekend, 0.453 seconds off of Elliott in his No. 77 Otterbox Toyota Tundra.

Miguel Paludo was fourth quickest, followed by his teammate James Buescher. Buescher noted yesterday that with each session on the track, he continues to learn what he needs to do better and get quicker.

“I know a lot of areas that I can improve – probably about half the corners,” he said yesterday. “So it’s just going to be gaining experience lap after lap and following some guys is always helpful. Going back and watching the video is helpful too, and working on breaking down the corners with my teammates and stuff is going to be helpful. I feel there is a lot more to gain, but I feel pretty good about we’ve learned and our chances this weekend.”

Road course ace Max Papis was sixth quickest, followed by Ty Dillon, Joey Coulter, Jeb Burton and Ross Chastain.

Points leader Matt Crafton was 11th quickest, matching his position on the charts from the morning session.

Coming into the weekend, Crafton said the key for the weekend was surviving.

“That’s all its about,” he said. “Definitely you want to be fast, but at the same time, you want to keep all four tires on the black stuff. If you stay on the road and you’re there at the end, you’ll contend for the win or a top five without a doubt.”

Qualifying for the Chevrolet Silverado 250 will be at 5pm EST today with the race scheduled for Sunday at 2pm EST.

For the first time this weekend, someone other than Mike Skeen topped the speed charts at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park as Chase Elliott was quickest this morning. Elliott laid down a lap of 81.063 seconds behind the wheel of his No. 94 Aaron’s Dream Machine/Hendrickcars.com Chevrolet Silverado.

Elliott has a pair of road course ARCA starts under his belt this year with an average finish of 3.5 between them.

“Having two road course starts in the ARCA Racing Series earlier this year definitely won’t hurt,” Elliott said. “Having a chance to do some road racing this year is always going to be an advantage. However, Canadian Motorsports Park is a different track and a place I’ve never been to before. A lot of guys are in the same boat there, so I think the guy who can adapt the quickest is going to have an advantage.”

Skeen was second quickest behind the wheel of his No. 6 Hawk Performance Chevrolet Silverado, 0.351 seconds behind Elliott. Skeen,a driver in the Pirelli Wold Challenge GT Series, is making his Camping World Truck Series debut debut. In his past four Pirelli World Challenge GT Series starts at CTMP, he has four poles and four wins. Skeen currently sits sixth in the World Challenge GT Series standings after winning at Lime Rock earlier this year.

“Anytime you have that much success with a track you’re comfortable with it,” Skeen commented. “But this is a whole other world. I’ve had very little time in stock cars and not certainly any round here.”

Skeen says so far, it’s been learning about how far he can push the truck before it gets out of shape, and then learning his competition.

“I’ve only been watching these guys on TV so I don’t know have a good feel of who I am going up against,” he commented. “I think that’s a big thing when you’re in a new series – trying to get the personalities of the drivers you’re going to go up against. Certainly trying to learn that and probably won’t learn that till race time. That’s the biggest unknown for me, but certainly very confident.”

Ryan Blaney was third fastest behind the wheel of the No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford, with NASCAR Canadian Tire Series regular Alex Guenette finished fourth. Miguel Paludo was fifth quickest.

“I can’t wait to get on the road course and see what we’ve got,” Blaney said. “I know we’ll be fast. This team has been on a tear of late. I’m confident our Cooper Standard team will have a shot at winning Sunday afternoon which will put us right back in the championship hunt.”

Ty Dillon was sixth, followed by Max Papis, Darrell Wallace Jr., Chad Hackenbracht and German Quiroga.

Points leader Matt Crafton was 11th quickest.

The Camping World Truck Series will have another practice this afternoon followed by qualifying later today.

Mike Skeen would continue his quick ways, leading the second practice with a lap of 81.449 seconds. The lap is 1.346 seconds quicker than his quick time from the session before lunch. This weekend marks the CWTS debut for the World Challenge Series driver.

“I’m excited to make my NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut with Sharp-Gallaher Racing,” Skeen said coming into the weekend. “SGR puts strong trucks on the track and I feel that with my road-course experience, we’ll be able to put the No. 6 Hawk Performance Chevrolet in contention for the win.”

The driver of the No. 6 Hawk Performance Chevrolet Silverado has experience at CTMP in the Pirelli World Challenge GT Series as he has claimed the pole position and won the last four consecutive races for the series at CTMP.

German Quiroga was once again second quickest, laying down a lap of 81.787 seconds, 0.338 seconds slower than Skeen.

Series rookie Ryan Blaney was third quickest, 0.736 seconds off of Skeen’s quick time. Blaney got some road course laps under his belt prior to the weekend as he ran the ARCA race at Road America, finishing fifth.

“I can’t wait to get on the road course and see what we’ve got,” Blaney said coming into the weekend. “I know we’ll be fast. This team has been on a tear of late. I’m confident our Cooper Standard team will have a shot at winning Sunday afternoon which will put us right back in the championship hunt.”

Miguel Paludo was fourth quickest, followed by Ty Dillon. Dillon ran the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race in May, finishing seventh. He also run the NCATS race this weekend for Fitzpatrick Motorsports once again.

“I’m excited to race the trucks on a road course,” Dillon said. “I’ve raced at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park earlier this season in the (NASCAR) Canadian Tire Series. It was a lot of fun, and I really learned how to get around there in a car. I think it’ll help having that extra experience for this weekend’s race.”

Chase Elliott and Joey Coulter, who both have road course experience virtue of the ARCA Series, were sixth and seventh respectively. Road course ace Max Papis was eighth, followed by James Buescher and Johnny Sauter.

Points leader Matt Crafton was 16th at the end of the second session.

There was one incident during the session when John Wes Townley backed his truck into the tire barriers. He will be going to a back-up.

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will have two more practice sessions tomorrow before qualifying. They will then run the Chevrolet Silverado 250 on Sunday at 2pm EST.

World Challenge Series regular Mike Skeen will be making his Camping World Truck Series debut this weekend in the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Skeen is off to a good start as he led the first practice with a lap of 82.795 seconds.

“I’m excited to make my NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut with Sharp-Gallaher Racing,” Skeen said coming into the weekend. “SGR puts strong trucks on the track and I feel that with my road-course experience, we’ll be able to put the No. 6 Hawk Performance Chevrolet in contention for the win.”

The driver of the No. 6 Hawk Performance Chevrolet Silverado has experience at CTMP in the Pirelli World Challenge GT Series as he has claimed the pole position and won the last four consecutive races for the series at CTMP.

“I’m looking forward to racing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park again,” Skeen added. “We swept the pole positions and wins here in 2011 and 2012 in our Chevrolet Corvette in the World Challenge GT Series. Fortunately NASCAR is allotting us a lot of practice time to get used to the course. I’ll be taking that time to adjust to driving the Hawk Performance Silverado. My SGR teammate Max Gresham and I had a good test session at Kershaw (Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw, S.C.) to get ready for this weekend’s race. It will be a team effort this weekend as I lean on him for advice on the truck, and hopefully I can help him in his first road-course race.”

Skeen currently sits sixth in the World Challenge GT Series standings after winning at Lime Rock earlier this year.

Helping Skeen with his Camping World Truck Series debut is veteran crew chief Bryan Berry, who has crew chiefed in over 200 races in the Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck Series since 2000, working with Brendan Gaughan and Jason Keller in the past.

German Quiroga was second quickest at a lap of 82.816 seconds, 0.021 seconds off of Skeen. Quiroga, a truck series regular, has past road course experience throughout his experience in the NASCAR Mexico Series.

“I think the race will be equal for everyone because it’s the first time the Truck Series will be at the track,” the driver of the No. 77 Otterbox Tundra said. “I would say that I might have a small advantage because of my experience in the Mexico Series — I’m certainly not at a disadvantage by any means. Hopefully we will use that and put our No. 77 OtterBox Toyota Tundra in contention for the win.”

Quiroga, along with his teammates Timothy Peters and John Wes Townley, also took a trip to Bondurant driving school in Phoenix, Arizona in June for a two day training session on the techniques of road course racing.

“Working with the coaches at Bondurant made me realize things that as a driver, how or why I was doing them,” Quiroga commented. “It helped me to be a better driver for sure. I’m going to use that so that I can go a little faster this weekend. The test at VIR was good for the team. It gave us an idea of what we want and how we want our Toyota Tundra to be. Hopefully we can utilize that information and be close on our setup when we unload.”

Road course ace Max Papis was third quickest, 0.109 seconds off of Skeen. The driver of the No. 14 Sports Clip Chevrolet Silverado will be driving a third truck for NTS Motorsports this year. It marks Papis’ fifth NASCAR start this year as he has made one NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start – a 15th for Stewart-Haas Racing – and three Nationwide Series starts. In those three starts, two of them were on road courses with finishes of 17th and fourth.

“I am extremely excited to race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series,” Papis said. “As soon as I heard that NASCAR would be racing at this track, I knew I had to do whatever it took to be a part of it. Partnering with a great company like Sport Clips and getting support from KMC Wheels and Chevrolet is fantastic for me. I was able to win at this track in 1996 and have enjoyed good results there ever since. Canadian fans are extremely enthusiastic and I look forward to competing in front of the many fans and friends I have made in Canada throughout my career. Even though this track is new to NASCAR, the history of the track is tremendous. I look forward to bringing my determination and passion to win this historic race with a great team like NTS Motorsports.”

NTS Motorsports welcomes Jeff Stankiewicz to call the shots. Last year, Stankiewicz worked with as a crew chief for Parker Kligerman and Brad Keselowski at Brad Keselowski Racing.

“I am a fan of road course racing and I am excited to have the opportunity to compete with a great driver like Max Papis,” Stankiewicz said. “I have been fortunate enough to race at Watkins Glen, Mexico and Montreal, so I am thrilled to compete at another road course like Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. NTS Motorsports is a great team that has equipment capable of winning races. The Sport Clips Chevrolet will be in contention to not only run in the top-three, but will definitely be a favorite to win.”

Miguel Paludo, who has previous road course experience, was fourth quickest in his No. 32 Duroline Brakes and Components Chevrolet Silverado with Darrell Wallace Jr. rounding out the top five in his No. 54 Camping World/Good Sam Toyota Tundra.

Ryan Blaney was sixth quickest, followed by Chase Elliott, Brendan Gaughan, Ross Chastain and Chad Hackenbracht. Points leader Matt Crafton was 11th quickest.

The Camping World Truck Series has another practice this afternoon, followed by a pair of practices tomorrow before qualifying.