TEAM CHEVY ADVANCE NTT INDYCAR SERIES INDIANAPOLIS 500 INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA AUGUST 23, 2020 RACE #7 OF 2020 NTT INDYCAR SERES:It’s here. After months of uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the dogged determination of the NTT INDYCAR Series – the Greatest Spectacle in Racing – the Indianapolis 500 is here. The traditional 33 car field is set for 200 laps/500 miles today, August 23, 2020 for the at the famed 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Just over half of the field for the 104^thrunning of the Indianapolis 500, will be 17 Chevrolet powered cars fielded by seven organizations: AJ Foyt Racing – Tony Kanaan, Charlie Kimball, Dalton KellettArrow McLaren SP – Fernando Alonso, Pato O’Ward, Oliver AskewCarlin – Max ChiltonDragonSpeed – Ben HanleyDryer and Reinbold – Sage Karem and JR HildebrandEd Carpenter Racong — Ed Carpenter, Rinus VeeKay, Conor DalyTeam Penske – Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud, Will Power Fans have multiple options for listening and watching all of the on-track activities on race day.  The Indianapolis race coverage begins live on NBC at 1:00 p.m. ET plus IndyCar radio network affiliates, Sirius 211, XM 205, IndyCar.com and the INDYCAR Mobile app powered by NTT DATA. BOWTIE BULLETS

• With second row starting spot running fourth quickest time Rinus VeeKay, Ed Carenter Racing Team Chevy driver posted quickest time in history for a rookie
• Cole for Conor: Race engineer Cole Pearn, who led Martin Truex Jr. and Furniture Row Racing to the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series championship, has joined Ed Carpenter Racing to lead Conor Daly’s “500” program. The jump from stock cars to Indy cars is unusual but not without success. In 2015, Brian Campe helped Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya win the “500.”
• Rick Mears is still with Team Penske as driver support and advisor, as well as Helio’s spotter. If you ask Helio, he will tell you Rick as seven 500 wins because he was Helio’s spotter for all three of his wins.
• ·Robert Wickens is the driver coach for Pato and Oliver at Arrow McLaren. Wickens was seriously injured two years ago and is confined to a wheel chair. He was an incredible driver and is a great influence and resource for the young drivers
• Since returning to INDYCAR manufacturer competition in 2012, Chevrolet has amassed 84 wins and 98 poles in 141 races along with six Manufacturer Championships
• Chevrolet has recorded six NTT IndyCar Series Manufacturer Championships since returning to manufacturer competition in 2012
• Helio aims for No. 4: Helio Castroneves again will attempt to join one of the most exclusive clubs in global motorsports – four-time winners of the Indianapolis 500 – this year in a Team Penske car. Castroneves’ third win came in 2009, and his chances to join A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears as four-time winners are dwindling at age 45 as he edges closer toward the end of his illustrious career. Can he get win No. 4?
• TK’s Last Lap continues: 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan will continue his final season of regular NTT INDYCAR SERIES competition in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on Aug. 23, driving for A.J. Foyt Racing. Can Kanaan punctuate his final campaign, consisting of all of the oval races on the schedule, with an emotional victory at age 45?
• Safety revolution: This will be the first year in which the new Aeroscreen will be used in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. The Aeroscreen, mandatory on all NTT INDYCAR SERIES cars starting this season, offers a revolutionary new level of driver protection and creates a sleek, jet fighter look to the open-wheel cars. The Aeroscreen’s IMS competition debut took place July 4 during the GMR Grand Prix on the IMS road course, but this will be the first time the safety device will be used in the Indy 500. The IMS oval debut of the Aeroscreen continues the Speedway’s legacy of automotive safety and technology development that started with the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911.
• Fernando is back: Two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso is back at IMS in a bid to become just the second driver to win the “Triple Crown” of motorsports – victories in the Monaco Grand Prix, 24 Hours of Le Mans and Indianapolis 500. Alonso, from Spain, will drive for Arrow McLaren SP while attempting to make his second start in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” The motorsports world was shocked last season when Alonso was bumped from the starting field during the Last Row Shootout by driver Kyle Kaiser and upstart Juncos Racing. Can Alonso bounce back this year and make history by entering Victory Lane?
• Chevrolet earned six consecutive CART Manufacturers’ Cup championships from 1988-93.
• Chevrolet has recorded 12 driver championships, including four in the past five years.
• Chevrolet has recorded 195 wins in Indy-style racing, including USAC, CART, Indy Racing League and IndyCar Series since 1965
• Chevrolet’s initial win, under USAC sanction, was by Al Unser in the Pikes Peak Auto Hill Climb on July 4, 1965
• Chevrolet has 84 wins and 98 poles in 141 in IndyCar Series races since returning to manufacturer competition in 2012.

CHEVROLET INDY 500 STATS
Chevrolet has a storied history with Indianapolis Motor Speedway as an engine manufacturer, provider of the pace car, entrant and even drivers. Chevrolet was co-founded in 1911 by Louis Chevrolet, the year of the inaugural 500-Mile Race. He competed in the ‘500’ four times, with a best finish of seventh in 1919. His brother, Arthur, competed in the 1911 and 1916 races and his other brother, Gaston, won in 1920 and finished 10th in 1919. Louis Chevrolet was also the owner of the 1921-winning car driven by Tommy Milton. The Louis Chevrolet Memorial is located just west of the entrance to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum. Inscribed on the pedestal that holds a bust of Louis Chevrolet is his motto “Never Give Up.” 

BATESVILLE, AR (August 22, 2020) – Jimmy Owens continued his spectacular 2020 season on Saturday Night in the 28th Annual COMP Cams Topless 100 – Presented by Nutrien Ag. Owens held off a furious charge from Hall-of-Famer Billy Moyer on the final lap for the $40,000 victory. Moyer charged from 18th to briefly edge in front of Owens as the two exited turn number two on the final lap, but Moyer drifted out too high and hit the outside retaining wall. Owens pulled away for his third win in the event’s history. Moyer fell from second to fourth at the finish as both Earl Pearson Jr. and Tim McCreadie slipped by him. Owens made his way to Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the 10th time this season and breathed a sigh of relief that the race was over. “I knew there was someone behind me. I didn’t know if it was the 39 car behind me or what. I didn’t know where to go on the track. He [Moyer] snuck around me and was by me. He must have gotten a little push off the corner and tagged the wall. I wasn’t worried too much about the tires until Timmy pitted for a flat because I knew he would come from the back. My hat is off to my crew, we had a great run all weekend.” Pearson moved into third on lap 77 and then to second on the final lap. He picked up $20,000 for his runner-up finish. “It was looking like they were going to have a heck of a finish between Jimmy and Billy.  We started sixth and finished second in this Lucas Oil car, so it was a good race for us. Billy got me on that restart. Jimmy’s on fire right now and it feels good to come home second to him. Jimmy is winning everything right now. Mooney did a heck of a job on the racetrack, especially with as many cars that were here and the heat. He did a really good job.” McCreadie came from the rear after a tire change and took home $10,000 for third. “I got together with another car and it cut the tire down. It must have pushed the body down into the tire. I probably should have pitted the yellow before. Dale McDowell helped me out because he told me what was happening during the caution. We passed a lot of cars. We’ve had two good weekends in a row now.”

The winner’s Ramirez Motorsports Rocket Chassis is powered by a Vic Hill Racing Engine and is sponsored by Reece Monument Company, Tommy Pope Construction, Boomtest Well Service, General Tire, Red Line Oil, Ohlins Shocks, Champion Spark Plugs, and Midwest Sheet Metal. Completing the top ten were Ricky Thornton Jr., Brandon Overton, Chris Madden, Josh Richards, and Tyler Erb.
Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series 
Race Summary 
COMP Cams Topless 100 – Presented by Nutrien Ag
Saturday, August 22nd, 2020
Batesville Motor Speedway – Batesville, AR

Tiger Rear Ends B-Main #1 Finish (15 Laps, Top 3 Transfer):  1. 1T-Tyler Erb[1]; 2. 9-Devin Moran[3]; 3. C8-Timothy Culp[2]; 4. 11J-Drew Armstrong[6]; 5. 36-Logan Martin[4]; 6. 14M-Morgan Bagley[5]; 7. 12M-Wendell Wallace[7]; 8. 86R-Rick Rickman[13]; 9. 22H-Daniel Hilsabeck[12]; 10. 92M-Chad Mallett[9]; 11. 78S-Steve Stultz[11]; 12. 71-Robert Baker[10]; 13. 93-Mason Oberkramer[8]; 14. 997-Travis Ashley[15]; 15. (DNS) 14G-Joe Godsey; 16. (DNS) 57-Mike Marlar; 17. (DNS) 14R-Jeff Roth

FAST Shafts B-Main #2 Finish (15 Laps, Top 3 Transfer): 1. 21M-Billy Moyer Sr[2]; 2. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[1]; 3. 21XXX-Neil Baggett[4]; 4. 1BJ-BJ Robinson[3]; 5. 86-Kyle Beard[6]; 6. 12-Jamie Elam[9]; 7. 56C-Colton Horner[10]; 8. 13N-Derrick Nichols[12]; 9. 13-Joey Smith[13]; 10. 5A-Austin Vincent[11]; 11. 90-Brian Rickman[7]; 12. 7D-David Payne[16]; 13. 12C-Scott Crigler[8]; 14. (DNS) 16-Tyler Bruening; 15. (DNS) 26R-Ross Farmer; 16. (DNS) 48-Mike Myers

EPPING, N.H. (August 22) – After a fast-and-furious day of qualifying, the elimination fields for the JEGS SPORTSnationals have been set at historic New England Dragway. The event marks the first time a JEGS SPORTSnationals race has been contested in the NHRA’s Northeast Division, and nearly 400 sportsman racers have packed the facility in a strong show of support.   Heading into Sunday’s final eliminations, Frank Aragona Jr. (Comp), Scott Gove (Super Stock), Eric Merryfield (Stock), Michael Lubniesski (Top Sportsman) and Mike Coughlin (Top Dragster) lead their respective fields. Racers, including those in Super Comp, Super Gas, and Super Street, also made time trial runs Saturday before completing the first round of eliminations. Aragona is the three-time and reigning NHRA Comp world champion. He drove his J/AA roadster to a 7.388-second run to claim the top spot over Ronald Proctor and Richard Schonberger. Aragona was a semifinal finisher in the Northeast Division Lucas Oil Series event held Friday at New England Dragway.  Gove was the low qualifier for the Division 1 event on Thursday and repeated the feat on Saturday by driving his SS/AM Dodge Daytona to a 7.935-second run on his 9.00-second index. Gove is the only driver in the 43-car Super Stock field to run more than a second under his index and leads Edward Schrader, Mark Nowicki and Al Smyth. A total of 84 drivers made qualifying runs in Stock Eliminator, but none were quicker than Merryfield, who took his Dodge Challenger Drag Pak to the top spot with a 10.348-second effort. Gove, the low qualifier in Super Stock, just missed the pole in Stock with his A/SA ’69 Camaro. Bob Moran and Gary Walters round out the quick four. Lucas Oil Series winner Lenny Williams will begin his quest for a second title from the No. 6 qualifying spot.  Lubniewski set a fast pace in qualifying for the Vortech Superchargers Top Sportsman category with a quick 6.246 run in his Chevy Cobalt. Lubniewski is more than two-tenths of a second quicker than No. 2 qualifier Jeff Brooks, who ran 6.492. Brooks is coming off a win during Friday’s Lucas Oil Series event. John Benoit, the winner of the JEGS SPORTSnationals event earlier this summer at National Trail Raceway, will look to sweep both events when he begins Sunday’s action from the No. 3 qualifying spot. Three-time and reigning Division 3 champ Coughlin made an impressive showing for the JEGS Mail Order team when he drove his familiar yellow and black dragster to the No. 2 qualifying spot in the Vortech Superchargers Top Dragster class. A runner-up at the recent JEGS SPORTSnationals in his native state of Ohio, Coughlin drove to a 6.109 to push current championship leader Anthony Bertozzi to the No. 2 spot. Coughlin and Bertozzi raced in the final of the Columbus event last month. Al Kenny and Scott Hall round out the quick four in Top Dragster. The final elimination rounds for the JEGS SPORTSnationals will take place beginning at 9 a.m. Sunday.

August 22, 2020

Matt DiBenedetto and the No. 21 Menards/Monster Energy Mustang wound up with a disappointing 20^th-place finish in the opening race of a Cup Series double-header at Dover International Speedway on Saturday.

But he and the team have reasons to be optimistic heading into Sunday’s second half of the twin bill, which will see the Monster Energy logos on the hood of the No. 21 Ford replaced by the colors of Richmond Water Heaters.

For starters, DiBenedetto and the team will carry a 27-point cushion over the Playoff cutline into Sunday’s 311-mile race. And due to a starting line-up set by inverting the top-20 finishers from Saturday’s race, they’ll take the green flag from the pole on Sunday.

Recent history is on their side as well. In the three double-headers run already this season, DiBenedetto and the Menards/Richmond team have significantly improved their finishing positions from the first race to the second. At Darlington, a 14^th-place finish in the opener was followed by a ninth-place run. At Pocono they went from 13^th to sixth, and at Michigan they improved from 15^th to seventh.

Dover’s 311-mile opener saw DiBenedetto start from 14^th place and move up to 11^th in the opening laps, but he soon found himself dealing with a loose handling condition.

The Menards/Monster Energy team made adjustments, but the handling issues went to the other extreme, with the car becoming too tight.
 
With no caution flags after Lap Eight other than for the Competition Caution and for the end of the two Stages, the only opportunities to make major adjustments to the No. 21 Mustang were during green-flag pit stops. And the lack of caution flag also took away chances to play pit strategies to get back to the front.
  
“With it being a short race and no yellow flags, we were kind of stuck with what we had,” Eddie Wood said. “The good thing is they can work on the car before tomorrow’s race and we’ll get another chance to try to gain some points going into Daytona, where anything can happen.”
 
After Sunday’s Drydene 311 at Dover, only the Aug. 29 race at Daytona International Speedway is left to run before the start of the 10-race Playoffs.
 
Sunday’s race at Dover is scheduled to start just after 4 p.m. Eastern Time with TV coverage on NBCSN. 

Matt McMurray, Mario Farnbacher finish second in VIRginia International Raceway thriller
Acura claims Manufacturers’ Championship lead
Misha Goikhberg, Alvaro Parente run seventh in #57 Acura NSX GT3 Evo

ALTON, Va. (August 22, 2020) – The #86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo of Matt McMurry and Mario Farnbacher shone at VIRginia International Raceway at the Michelin GT Challenge, finishing second in an exciting battle for GTD class honors.

The first of two GT-only rounds of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, VIR showcased a thriller that saw the #86 Acura claim the second step on the podium and take the leads in the Drivers’, Teams’ and Manufacturers’ championships along the way. Following today’s race, Acura takes over the 10-manufacturer GTD division lead with 121 points to 120 for Lexus and 113 for BMW. In the battle for the GTD drivers’ title, Farnbacher and McMurry leave VIR with 115 points, to 113 for Jack Hawksworth and Arron Telitz with 110.

McMurray stuck his NSX GT3 Evo on the second row of the grid in qualifying, and moved from fourth to second on the first lap of the race. The yellow flag flew at the end of lap one, marking the first of three cautions that disrupted the opening 30 laps of the two hour, 40-minute endurance contest.

Still in second with 57 minutes to go, McMurray handed the #86 Acura over to co-driver Mario Farnbacher. The German driver quickly cycled through to second place during the ensuing pitstops, before locking up the brakes while going for the lead in the first turn, and falling back to fourth after a brief off-course excursion.

Farnbacher recovered spectacularly, setting the fastest lap of the race and passing the #74 Mercedes-AMG of Lawson Aschenbach for third, and then reeling in the second place #48 Lamborghini of Bryan Sellers in the final 10 minutes of the event. Farnbacher utilized GTLM traffic as a “pick” to make a successful move on Sellers and secure second place on the final lap.

The sister #57 Acura NSX GT3 Evo from Heinricher Racing with MSR Curb-Agajanian started eighth on the grid and battled hard through a hectic race to finish seventh at the line. Misha Goikhberg tackled the first one hour and forty minutes before Alvaro Parente brought the #57 home seventh following a competitive battle with Pat Long’s #16 Porsche and #44 Lamborghini of Andy Lally in the final hour.

Though Gradient Racing struggled early in the race, they recovered to get valuable track time and prepare for the next round of the GTD Sprint Cup Championship [for shorter races on the schedule]. Starting ninth in the hands of Till Bechtolsheimer, the #22 Acura found the wall early in the race, but lost only two laps for repairs and returning to the track. Both Bechtolsheimer and co-driver Marc Miller kept pace with the field, despite their wounded car, turning useful laps and collecting data.

Next
The Meyer Shank racing team will next be in action September 4-6 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta for the Michelin Endurance Challenge Weekend–the event that has replaced the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen on the schedule. Contesting only the Sprint Cup, Gradient Racing will return to competition September 25-26 at the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio.

Acura Team Penske
IMSA’s Prototype category was not a part of the IMSA weekend at Virginia International Raceway, which featured the GTD and GTLM classes only. The Acura Team Penske ARX-05s will return to the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the next race on the schedule, September 4-6 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta for the Michelin Endurance Challenge Weekend.

Acura Motorsports social media content and video links from the IMSA Road Race Showcase at Road America will be available on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/HondaRacing_HPD).  Produced by the CoForce Digital Media, the YouTube videos can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV.  

Quotes
Mario Farnbacher (#86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo) started fourth, finished second: “Matt was super strong this weekend and that was actually the base for our success today. He improved quite a lot during the weekend, which was really nice to see how he has developed. He really didn’t make any mistakes so I am really proud of him. Also super happy with the team, they made great strategy calls especially during the first yellow to keep Matt out there. Unfortunately I locked up when I was behind (Bill) Auberlen so I had to push after that. There were some really awesome fights and really close battles with both Lawson (Aschenbach) and Bryan Sellers. I’m happy to be back on the podium, but somehow, at VIR I never stand at the top. Overall it was really good points which is why we are now provisional championship leaders. Hopefully we can maintain that through the next few races.”

Matt McMurry (#86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo) started fourth, finished second: “It’s great to get another podium. It’s not quite the win that we wanted but we got a lot of points this weekend and should now be in the championship lead. Everyone did an awesome job, strategy and pit stops were perfect today. Mario did some crazy laps and made some crazy passes to claw his way back up to second. Next up is Road Atlanta which is one of my favorite tracks.”

Anthony Alfredo and the ADS/Footing First Team Rally for Top-15 Finish at Dover International Speedway

13th   5th  10th

“I had a lot of fun today in the second race of our double-header weekend in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Dover International Speedway. We didn’t quite finish as well as yesterday; however, I think we deserved an even better finish. Our No. 21 ADS/Footing First Chevrolet was really fast today. Our day started off kind of hectic when we didn’t have any power steering to start the race. So, instead of starting fifth, we had to drop to the rear to start the race after making an adjustment. That definitely put us in a hole early on. Thankfully, we were able to make our way up inside the top 15 fairly quickly in the first two stages. We had a really long green flag run during the last stage. We struggled on the fire off, but our Chevrolet really came to us on that long run and had great speed on older tires. My crew chief Andy Street made the call to stay out on older tires as long as we could during that long green flag run. We were really hoping to catch a late caution because that would have put us in really good position late. Unfortunately, we never got that caution, so we stopped for fuel only. I was sliding all over the place just trying to maintain what we had on those older tires. We were able to bring our No. 21 ADS/Footing First Chevrolet home in the 13th position for another top-15 finish. Overall, it was another solid day for our team. I appreciate everyone at Richard Childress Racing for all their hard work. I can’t wait to go to Daytona International Speedway for my first time next week.”-Anthony Alfre

Austin Dillon And The Dow Coatings Chevrolet Team Lead Laps and Highlight Speed In Saturday Afternoon NASCAR Cup Series Race at Dover International Speedway

15th   32nd  18th

“We had a fast Dow Coatings Chevrolet today, and it felt good to race at Dover International Speedway with plenty of speed. We just need to work on the handling a little. I feel like I covered every inch of this place, experimenting and looking for the best line around the track for our tight-handling condition. We opted to stay out for the competition caution in Stage 1, and our gamble paid off with the race lead. Clean air was everything. We had a commanding lead early in Stage 1, but I just got too tight to hold the lead for the end of the Stage. When we pitted at the end of Stage 2, we were issued a speeding penalty and had to restart at the tail end of the longest line. That mistake is on me. We ran long before pitting at the end of the race, but a caution didn’t fall the way we hoped it would and we ended up finishing 15th. I’m sure we could have finished a few positions higher if more things would have gone our way today, but that’s the beauty of having another race at Dover International Speedway tomorrow. We’re going to work on it overnight and get it dialed in for tomorrow.”-Austin Dillon

Tyler Reddick and No. 8 Cat App Team Forge a Top-15 Finish at Dover International Speedway

13th   16th   17th

“Today was a good start to our doubleheader weekend at Dover International Speedway. Our No. 8 Cat App Chevrolet was fast from the start and just needed some tweaking on handling. The track built really tight at first today, but changed over the course of the race. I struggled with being too loose in the rear of our Camaro for the second half of today, which prevented me from trying a couple different lines on the track, so that’s something we’ll need to adjust on for tomorrow’s race. But the good news is we get a second shot to finish even better tomorrow and we definitely have a solid Cat App Chevrolet to work with. This is the best start to a doubleheader weekend that we’ve had this year, so I’m looking forward to getting back after it tomorrow.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY DRYDENE 311 TEAM CHEVY PRESS POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES AUGUST 22, 2020 
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:POS.   DRIVER5th      CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 MOUNTAIN DEW/TEAM RUBICON CAMARO ZL1 1LE7th      JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE10th    RICKY STENHOUSE JR., NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 1LE13th    TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CAT APP CAMARO ZL1 1LE15th    AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW/BEHR ULTRA SCUFF DEFENSE CAMARO ZL1 1LE 
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS: POS.  DRIVER1st      Denny Hamlin (Toyota)2nd     Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)3rd      Kyle Busch (Toyota)4th      Kevin Harvick (Ford)5th      Chase Elliott (Chevrolet) The NASCAR Cup Series doubleheader race weekend at Dover International Speedway continues with the Drydene 311 tomorrow, August 23, at 4:00 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBCSN, the NBC Sports Gold app, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY NOTES AND QUOTES:CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 MOUNTAIN DEW/TEAM RUBICON CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 5th“I think we had a decent Mountain Dew Chevrolet. We were off there to start and then had to take some extra time on pit road. Luckily, we got it close after we messed with it a good bit and made some adjustments, which helped. I was proud to be able to drive from the back, back to the front. We had some really good pit stops that put us in a decent position there too. I think we just needed a little more to run with Denny (Hamlin), Kevin (Harvick) and those guys so we will try to get a little better for tomorrow.” “We started too far off there at the beginning and then had to come in and make an extended pit stop there to get things right, but I feel like our Mountain Dew team did a really good job to get things close after that. We just got a little too far behind, I think, to run with those guys and we still probably needed a little bit to run with Martin (Truex Jr.) and Denny (Hamlin). Just got behind and took the rest of the day to get back to where we did. I think we have a little work to do over night. Looking forward to getting our NAPA Camaro on track tomorrow and trying to improve. I think we were in the ballpark, we just still needed a little bit to run with the leaders.” JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 7th“Solid day for this Ally Chevy team, we have some work to do but we will go to work tonight and get it right. Everyone did a great job, we have something to build on tonight and we will come back tomorrow and have something left for them. Bittersweet day tomorrow for me – my final Dover race.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 10th“That was a fun race in our No. 47 Kroger Chevrolet to mark off another top-10 finish. We were really tight at the start of the race, but Brian Pattie made some really good adjustments throughout the race to help us get faster and faster. Our cars this year have been some of the best I’ve had in my career, and this gives us a lot of confidence heading into tomorrow’s race. We learned a lot today and I’m excited for tomorrow to continue tuning this up tonight and have an even better day tomorrow at Dover.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CAT APP CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 13th“Today was a good start to our doubleheader weekend at Dover International Speedway. Our No. 8 Cat App Chevrolet was fast from the start and just needed some tweaking on handling. The track built really tight at first today, but changed over the course of the race. I struggled with being too loose in the rear of our Camaro for the second half of today, which prevented me from trying a couple different lines on the track, so that’s something we’ll need to adjust on for tomorrow’s race. But the good news is we get a second shot to finish even better tomorrow and we definitely have a solid Cat App Chevrolet to work with. This is the best start to a doubleheader weekend that we’ve had this year, so I’m looking forward to getting back after it tomorrow.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 DOW/BEHR ULTRA SCUFF DEFENSE CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 15th“We had a fast Dow Coatings Chevrolet today and it felt good to race at Dover International Speedway with plenty of speed. We just need to work on the handling a little. I feel like I covered every inch of this place, experimenting and looking for the best line around the track for our tight-handling condition. We opted to stay out for the competition caution in Stage 1 and our gamble paid off with the race lead. Clean air was everything. We had a commanding lead early in Stage 1 but I just got too tight to hold the lead for the end of the Stage. When we pitted at the end of Stage 2, we were issued a speeding penalty and had to restart at the tail end of the longest line. That mistake is on me. We ran long before pitting at the end of the race but a caution didn’t fall the way we hoped it would and we ended up finishing 15^th. I’m sure we could have finished a few positions higher if more things would have gone our way today, but that’s the beauty of having another race at Dover International Speedway tomorrow. We’re going to work on it overnight and get it dialed in for tomorrow. Our Dow Coatings Chevrolet has plenty of speed. We just have to get the handling right.”
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 18th“My GEICO-Germain Racing guys did a good job today and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s race. Dover is a very physically demanding track. I’ve been working really hard on my physical shape this season, so I’m excited to put it to the test. We have been really strong in the doubleheaders this season. The Sunday races have been our stronger race each time, which we will try to do again. We came out of the gate strong today and will look to translate that momentum into another solid finish tomorrow.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 ACRONIS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 21st“This isn’t how we wanted to start off the doubleheader weekend. Getting that damage early on really affected how our car handled. The guys did all they could on pit road, but we were playing the cards we were dealt. Not the first outing we wanted for Acronis, but we will make adjustments and changes tonight and be prepared for tomorrow’s race.”
BUBBA WALLACE, NO. 43 DOOR DASH CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 27th“Not the best effort today for our Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 DoorDash Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE team. I thought we were going to have a decent day, and then we kind of lost it the second-half of the race. We lost the handling on our Chevrolet Camaro and just could not really gain it back. Our DoorDash team tried to pull some strategy to salvage a decent day and it did not go our way. We have another shot at it tomorrow with our partner Columbia for their first race, so we are excited about that. Dover (International Speedway) is one of the best tracks we go to. We still have a lot of work to do. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.” KURT BUSCH, NO 1. GEARWRENCH CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Sidelined by damage sustained in an accident on lap 6; Finished 40th“What an unfortunate way to have our day end on lap six. Way too early to be racing like that. We didn’t even have a chance to get a feel for the car. Just disappointing for all of the guys that work so hard, especially on the doubleheader weekends like this. Hopefully we can turn our luck around tomorrow and have a strong run for the GEARWRENCH Chevy”.

Third win for No. 3 Corvette C8.R, team’s fourth straight since return to racing

ALTON, Va. (Aug. 22, 2020) – Corvette Racing won again in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on Saturday as Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor drove the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R to victory in the Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway. It’s the second win in a row for the Garcia/Taylor combo, their third of the season and the fourth consecutive win for Corvette Racing – the first time that’s happened for the team since 2014. Garcia and Taylor extended their lead in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) Driver’s Championship, as did Chevrolet in the Manufacturer’s standings. Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner placed fourth in the No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C8.R, just missing making the podium again with their teammates. The result was enough to keep Gavin and Milner third in GTLM points heading to Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in two weeks. Garcia, Taylor and the No. 3 Corvette will enter on one of the team’s hottest streaks in almost five years. For the second race in a row, they were the beneficiaries of late-race misfortune for the race leader but this time had to survive their own drama inside the final 20 minutes. Taylor started the race fifth but worked his way up to second in the first 30 minutes before making his first stop at the 30-minute mark. An error in the pitlane sent the No. 3 Corvette back to fifth, but an inspired drive and bad luck for his fellow competitors meant he pitted from the lead with less than 55 minutes to make the hand-off to Garcia. One of those unlucky cars was the No. 4 Corvette, which went off-track shortly after a restart when Gavin picked up debris on his tires prior to the race’s third and final restart after full-course caution just an hour into the race. Try as he might to clean off the pick-up and easing his way through VIR’s final corner, the Corvette still went wide and onto the grass across from pit entry. Gavin recovered nicely and carved his way back through the slower GT Daytona cars and was behind the No. 3 Corvette in only seven laps. He stopped for fuel, tires and driver change to Virginia native Milner with 65 minutes to go with hopes of another yellow to tighten the field back up. Meanwhile, Garcia had settled into second place but faced a 13-second gap to race leader Nick Tandy once the final GTLM pit cycle completed. The No. 3 Corvette got the break it needed with 17 minutes left when Tandy was forced to pit with a tire issue, sending Garcia to the lead. In a race filled with uncertainty, there was still a little left for the No. 3 Corvette. Garcia reported a vibration at the rear of the car from a damaged diffuser, just as Tandy went into the pitlane. It impacted the balance and handling of the Corvette, but Garcia held on to take a 3.521-second margin of victory. Corvette Racing’s next event is the TireRack.com Grand Prix at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on Sept. 4-5.

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – RACE WINNER: “Things are definitely going our way. We can’t complain about that! To do this, you need a fast car and a team to perform the whole time. We have that. We had our issues like the other teams did, but the main thing is that the ones we had were early so we could recover right away. Jordan did a really good job in his middle stint to drive back and maintain the gap behind the leaders. When I jumped in, the race was pretty much done. All I could do was keep some pressure on the 911 and not let him get away and have an easy race to the end. But we had our issues at the same time. They lost another tire and we had an issue with our diffuser. At first I thought it was terminal because it felt really bad. Once I got used to it, I could tell it wasn’t really interfering with the performance. I had enough of a gap to the 25 by about 12 or 13 seconds. With that, I could manage that in a way. It was very stressful to keep going but not knowing what would happen if the diffuser came off. Thankfully the C8.R is very strong all around! I’m very grateful for everyone at Team Chevy and Corvette Racing again. We just need to keep this momentum.” DID YOU HAVE ANY CONTACT WITH ANYONE OR DID THE DIFFUSER COME LOOSE BY ITSELF?“It just went. It was literally when I was watching the 911 go into the pitlane. At the same time, I had a massive vibration and I thought I had a tire blowing up. It was scary because it would have been a full lap back to the pits. Then I realized it was speed-related and wasn’t bad all the time. It took me three or four laps to be kind of cautious. Once I realized it was hanging on, I stepped up my pace a little bit more to make it difficult for the cars behind me to catch up. I was happy that traffic wasn’t too bad at that time and I could manage to stay ahead. “ WHAT WERE YOU FEELING SPECIFICALLY BEHIND THE WHEEL, AND DID YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS?“It took me a little bit, but the whole car was shaking a lot. At about 200 kph, the entire car was shaking. I knew it was coming from the back, but even the front end and front grip were moving around. The rear grip definitely was the same so maybe we were a little bit faster down the straights after that! Who knows. It was challenging to drive. Once I figured out what lines to use and not hit the curbs to keep both tires on the ground, it went my way a little bit.”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – RACE WINNER: “My time in the car was good. The Corvette C8.R has a pretty good cooling system, so it was nicer in there than it was watching! Heading into the race, our main objective was points. Seeing how strong the Porsches were on pace, we knew they were going to be hard to beat. We focused on our own race, and it came to us in the end with attrition and not making mistakes. We made one little hiccup in the pits but we were able to recover from that pretty quickly. At the end, Antonio was able to maintain a gap to second when he needed to, even with the vibration at the end. He did a great job of overcoming that. It’s an amazing day for Corvette Racing – the fourth win for the C8.R and third win for us. I’m definitely happy with this part of the season.” WOULD YOU AGREE THAT THIS WAS A RACE OF SURVIVAL? ALMOST EVERY CAR HAD A PROBLEM AT ONE POINT.“It felt like an endurance race with all the issues everyone was having. A lot of guys were making mistakes… going off-track, pit stop issues and tires. For us, it was about damage control and minimizing mistakes. Today was out-of-character in IMSA to see this many issues happen. I think we had the least amount of mistakes, and that’s why we won.”

OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FINISHED FOURTH IN GTLM: “For us, it came down to the wave-around after the last caution where one of the Lamborghini GTDs had to pass me to get back on his lead lap. I had to move off-line and run through a whole lot of pick up and I got my left side tires in it. Apparently I didn’t get them completely clean. Then on the restart it wasn’t completely clean, then I got into the Oak Tree corner and the car began to slide wide again. Maybe the tire wasn’t completely clean… there are just such fine margins here between having grip and no grip. Jordan (Taylor, No. 3 Corvette) nearly got by me as we came out but I stayed in front of him. On the brakes into the next corner, things were pretty messy. As I got into the final corner, I just lost the front of the car, got out on the curb and then was into the grass. Once you are in the grass there, you are a just passenger. It’s frustrating for sure. All I could do is apologize to the guys on the team because we had a great car today. We were fast, we were competitive. Looking at where we were and how things ended up, you could say the win was in the cards for us. But it wasn’t to be. A  lot of people had troubles and made mistakes. The only ones that ran trouble-free was the No. 3 Corvette. It’s amazing that we now have four wins in a row and that sets them at the top of the championship as leaders. Hats off to those guys. They have been fast and haven’t made mistakes. That is the name of the game. Others made mistakes and were punished for it. It is so competitive and there is no margin for error in this class.”

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FINISHED FOURTH IN GTLM: “Today was certainly a very weird race. I would say it’s very uncharacteristic in our class for everyone to have some sort of a problem. This is one that I think every team and driver pairing will look back on this one and wonder, ‘What if’. Obviously we’re super happy for the No. 3 guys. Antonio and Jordan drove a great race. They didn’t make any mistakes except for one little hiccup on one pit stop, but ultimately it didn’t have a huge bearing on their race. Congrats to those guys for keeping the Corvette win streak going and keeping Corvette on top. Our competitors are probably sick of seeing Corvette there but we aren’t. We went a very long time – more than two years – without a win, so we are just catching back up. I feel bad for Olly, and obviously he is bummed. We’ve all been there… one little mistake and that can end your chances for the day. I’ve made my share before, and we will both make them again. He was just unlucky today. His situation happened at a part of the track where then terrain makes it difficult to get back on the circuit. We win or lose as a team.  We always help each other and support each other through things like this. We will be better for it and for the rest of the year.”

BATESVILLE, AR (August 21, 2020) – Jimmy Owens survived a 4-lap shootout with Brandon Overton to win Friday Night’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series 30-lap feature at Batesville Motor Speedway. Overton crossed the finish line in second ahead of Jonathan Davenport, Shanon Buckingham and Kyle Bronson. Owens had pressure from Overton for the last half of the race as the two battled in lap traffic. A caution with four laps to go for Timothy Culp allowed Owens to pull away from Overton to take his ninth LOLMDS win of 2020. The caution with 26 laps complete allowed Owens to have a clean track in front of him as he sped away from Overton to record his 73rd career win in LOLMDS competition. “I was afraid to step out in traffic, I didn’t want to give up my track position. I wanted to see that last yellow because it gave us a clean track ahead. We hope to keep it rolling tomorrow night. The track will be a different animal tomorrow night with a 100-lap race. They usually prep the track a little different and there won’t be as many laps on it before the feature. Hopefully it will hold up and be a good race.” Overton ran second to Owens the entire distance and looks to improve one spot higher on Saturday Night than he did one year ago in the $40,000 to win finale. “We’ll take it, last night we had a little bad luck. Jimmy’s had a good year and we have been there with him all year. We’ve got to get a little better, so we’ll go onto tomorrow and see what happens.” Davenport rounded out the podium with his third-place run. “We are trying some new things on the car. It seemed like it was pretty good, we just need to tweak on it some more for tomorrow. We kind of got lost there at mid-season, but everybody has worked hard on the team and we have made a lot of strides the last two nights. It’s good to run here in front my car owner, Lance Landers and Steve Martin and everybody at Nutrien Ag Solutions. We have a bunch of farmers here this weekend, so hopefully we can get them a big win here tomorrow night.” The winner’s Ramirez Motorsports Rocket Chassis is powered by a Vic Hill Racing Engine and sponsored by Reece Monument Company, Tommy Pope Construction, Boomtest Well Service, Red Line Oil, General Tire, Ohlins Shocks, Champion Spark Plugs, and Midwest Sheet Metal. Completing the top ten were Earl Pearson Jr., Dale McDowell, Tim McCreadie, Shane Clanton, and Spencer Hughes.

ALTON, Va. (Aug. 21, 2020) – Corvette Racing will line up from the second and third rows at Virginia International Raceway for the Michelin GT Challenge following Friday’s 15-minute qualifying session in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT Le Mans (GTLM) class. Jordan Taylor qualified fourth and teammate Oliver Gavin fifth in the pair of Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.Rs around the 17-turn, 3.27-mile road course on the Virginia/North Carolina border. Saturday’s race will see Corvette Racing and Chevrolet go for their fourth straight victory on the season and an extension of their championship points leads. Taylor set a lap of 1:41.228 (116.291 mph) in the No. 3 Corvette that he shares with Driver’s Championship co-leader Antonio Garcia. Right behind was Gavin with a 1:41.662 (115.795 mph) lap in the No. 4 C8.R that he will drive with Tommy Milner. The quartet will try to give Corvette Racing its fourth victory at VIR since 2012 and third overall win in the GT-only race since 2016. Weather could potentially play a factor in Saturday’s 2 p.m. ET race (live on NBC Sports Gold and Trackpass). Qualifying and Friday’s opening practice each took place on a dry track while Friday afternoon’s final practice was in the wet with Gavin setting the fastest time of the session.  Corvette Racing is coming off a soggy, come-from-behind win from Garcia and Taylor at Road America earlier this month, and the pairing also won at Daytona in July in a rain-affected race. Gavin and Milner, third in GTLM points, were winners at Sebring in mid-July and finished second to their teammates at Road America. The Michelin GT Challenge at VIR is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET on Saturday with live coverage on NBC Sports Gold and Trackpass. NBCSN television coverage is set for 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. IMSA Radio will broadcast the race on IMSA.com, which also will host live timing and scoring.

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – QUALIFIED FOURTH: “Starting on the second row isn’t what we wanted, but I think it’s close to what we expected. It was a tough day to get a read on the track with a number of different series and going from dry to wet to dry again. Qualifying was the first time I’ve run dry laps here since 2017, which was interesting but a good learning experience. It looks like the race will likely be dry so we’ll take a close look at the data from this morning and qualifying to get a read for our race setup. I feel like we have a better handle on tire wear than we did at Road America, and we’re in good shape with our allotment. If this race comes down to strategy then I like our chances.”

OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – QUALIFIED FIFTH: “Certainly today was very challenging in a number of ways. The track and weather conditions were all over the place, which made nailing the qualifying setup difficult. We gave it our best shot, and I think we will race better than where we qualified. A lot goes into winning a race here at VIR with the track layout and unpredictable weather, which we could have more of tomorrow. So we will see. I’m confident that we have a good sample of data from this track with this new mid-engine Corvette now to come up with a good setup and strategy for the race.”

CHEVROLET RACING NTT INDYCAR SERIES INDIANAPOLIS 500 INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEEDWAY INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA TEAM CHEVY CARB DAY FINAL PRACTICE RECAP AUGUST 21, 2020

AND, NOW WE RACE 

INDIANAPOLIS – Practice, then qualifying and the final practice are over, and…now we race. The field is set for unday’s running the 1104^th running of the Indianapolis 500 with the field evenly split between manufacturers, The 17 Chevy powered entries have emerged reasonably unscathed over the several days of on-track action that started on Wednesday., August 12.   Although qualifying did not quite meet expectations, today’s final practice allowed the teams and drivers to make final adjustments to their cars for the 200-lap/500-mile race on the famed 2.5-mile iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Leading the field for final practice was Pato O’Ward piloting the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet with a speed of 225.355 mph.  The 104^th Running of the Indianapolis 500 will broadcast live on Sunday, August 23 starting at 1:00 p.m. with green flag at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC. Indycar radio network will also provide live coverage. DRIVER QUOTES: NO. 1 JOSEF NEWGARDEN, SHELL V-POWER TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:“I think it is pretty good to be honest with you. You don’t want to be over confident but I feel cautiously optimistic. It’s been fast in traffic and felt really fast today. I think Team Chevy has a really good package for us for the race. So feeling very confident wiith what they are bringing. Carb day is one of those days if you need it, you use it all. If you don’t, you take it easy and not use the car up. I’m optimistic. I think we have a shot.“It would be amazing to win this race. It is so special you just grow to love it more. I’ve been so fortunate, this is my ninth 500. I would love to win this race. But you can’t force her. If it is going to happen, it is going to happen. But to win one for the Captain in these trying times. We are going to do our best to put on a Magical 500. We are going to do our best to make it a great race. We obviously miss the fans.  But to be able to win it for Roger in this place, this year would be really special.” NO. 3 HELLIO CASTRONEVES, PENNZOIL TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:  “Good strong finish for the number 3 Pennzoil Chevrolet for Team Penske. We definitely have great pit stops. Everybody seemed to be in sync and  right now we just have to play the game, stay clean and go to the front!” NO. 4 CHARLIE KIMBALL, TRESIBA AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET:“Well firstly, I just want to say we miss the best fans in racing. It’s not the same. It’s a very different energy here on Carb Day. It was nice to get a good two hours of running. The No. 4 Tresiba Chevrolet came out pretty good this morning. We kept making it better, making it better. I’m pretty happy with the race car. I think we’re going to clean it and let her sleep until Sunday because we’ve got a lot of work to do on Sunday starting 29^th, but there are 500 miles. The guys did some practice pit stops and the guys have been great in pit lane all year and they were good today. I’m looking forward to Sunday’s race. There’s something special about being in those 11 rows of three starting The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, being a part of the 104^th Running. It’s just an incredible feeling even if the energy is very different.” NO. 5 PATO O’WARD, ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET:“I think we are ready for the challenge ahead. It was a very positive day in terms of how we were feeling in traffic, passing cars, and playing around in five, 10, and 15 car trains. I think it is going to be very interesting to see how the cars will behave on Sunday in 10-15 degree hotter temps. I think we are ready, and we ended the day very happy with how everything fell and felt. So we are looking forward to race day and going forward.”
NO. 7 OLIVER ASKEW, ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET: “It was good. Probably the best I have felt in traffic. I think we are really going in the right direction and made the right changes over the mid-week break. The No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet felt good throughout the stint and I passed a few different people. Race day is going to be a different animal but I’m sure we are ready to react to the challenges and have a good day.” NO. 12 WILL POWER, VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:“We were quite far off at the beginning of today. I was worried that we weren’t going to find anything, then we found some stuff late in the session and hopefully we have the Verizon5GH Chevrolet in the window where it needs to be. Obviously starting back in the pack, so I tried to run around cars where I will start and see how it is going to be. We have really good pit stops, great guys on the car. I think that is going to be our game wit strategy and our pit stops is where we are going to make time up.But it’s every man for himself, it is the Indy 500, but if we can be mistake free, we can get ourself to the top-five.” NO. 14 TONY KANAAN, ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET:Pretty good day, I mean beautiful day out here. Typical Carb Day. We ran through some tires, pit stops with the guys, checked if everything in the car was okay. The ABC Supply Chevy feels as good as it did last Sunday, so showtime in 48 hours.” NO. 20 ED CARPENTER, U.S. SPACE FORCE ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET: “It’s finally here! It’s time to race. We definitely have some work cut out for us with where we are starting. It’s going to take a lot of hard work with a balance of aggression and patience. Passing is possibly, but it is a lot harder in the past. We’re going to have to be opportunities. I am still confident that we’ll find out way to the front, but it’s going to be a battle out there. I am looking forward to the drop of the green, getting everyone on equal footing, on the same tires and running full stints. We’ll see where we are in the U.S. Space Force Chevrolet.” NO. 21 RINUS VEEKAY, SONAX ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET:We have a really strong car going into the race. I found out that passing is going to be tough. Track position is going to be important, but I think have the right people around to guide me through the race. With this car, we have a shot at winning! That’s a lot to say as a rookie, but it’s exciting! NO. 22 SIMON PAGENAUD, MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:“It’s always going to be about balance. Chevy has got it tremendous in race trim. We are equal to the competition, we have plenty of speed in race trim.  It’s going to be all about finding the balance in your race car the entire day The wind might change and when the wind shifts you might find yourself good in two and bad in four. The cars are very sensitive ths year, much more than last year. So balance is qoing to be evrrything. It’s also going to be about downforce, no question. We are going to have to run close to people and we need downforce. So the question is going to be how much. For me, it is going to be about balance. We are going to have to be aggressive from the start to pass people to get clean air.” NO. 24  SAGE KARAM, WIX FILTERS DRYER REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET:  “We rolled out with a bit more understeer than we had on Sunday. We just overshot our setups this morning. We went back to the garage then and put on last Sunday’s setup and felt a lot better at the end of the practice. I was able to run up on people and stay with them. Towards the end, I got in the gray and skimmed the wall in Turn Four. It didn’t do much to the car. We ran through some fuel settings and different mixtures to prepare for Sunday. We practiced in and out laps and had some excellent pit stops from the WIX Filters crew. As usual, they will help me pick up spots in the pits. They are always able to gain two or three positions on pit stops. I felt comfortable getting into the pit box and the crew is fast and consistent. I’m sure that will be the case Sunday too.” NO.41 DALTON KELLETT, K-LINE USA AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET: That’s a wrap on Carb Day. We just finished up our two hour practice—the last practice before the big race. The car feels really good. We did some balance checks and two really long runs. On the first long run, we felt pretty competitive; we did an aero sweep on the second run and came out a bit shy on our COP (center of pressure) and we were struggling a bit so it’s important that we keep on top of that for the race and adapt as the conditions change. Even today at 11 o’clock it was quite a bit cooler than when we finished up at 1. So we’re going to have to adapt the car and make changes during the stops and that’s going to be key to being fast at the finish. I can’t thank the A.J. Foyt Racing crew enough—they gave me a great car. The No. 41 K-Line USA Chevy feels great and I’m excited for three rows of 11 going into Turn 1 in a couple days!” NO. 47 CONOR DALY, U.S. AIR FORCE ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET:“I am definitely excited for the race. This is what we work all of these day for. The guys have done a good job putting together the U.S. Air Force Chevrolet. Hopefully, we can put all the right pieces together for a long 500 miles. We’ll see what happens in the end!” NO. 59 MAX CHILTON, GALLAGHER CARLIN CHEVROLET: “We just finished up our last practice of the week heading into the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday and I’d say that the Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet feels pretty good in race trim. The track has changed quite a bit since practice last Sunday, so we spent most of today’s practice finetuning some things with the car and working on our in and out laps trying to find some time there. The guys did a great job during pit stop practice getting me in and out quickly. I’m really looking forward to the green flag on Sunday and hopefully working my way up through the field quickly.” NO. 66 FERNANDO ALONSO, RUOFF ARROW MCLAREN SP CHEVROLET: “It was the last opportunity to test the last few items we had on our list. Some of them were ok and some of them we will not be keeping for the race. Now we have a more or less clear idea of what we want. Sunday is a completely different thing and it’s supposed to be a bit hotter, so we will try to adapt to the conditions. There’s nothing more to test on the table so it’s race time!” NO. 67 JR HILDEBRAND, SALESFORCE DRYER REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET:“We worked hard today on in and out laps and pits stops as those will help us gain spots in the race. We are getting closer to what will work best on the car on race day. We would like to have a car that is in our window to make adjustments throughout the race. Today were great track conditions. I’m not sure that Sunday will be this cool. We have run in track temps over 120 and 125 degrees. So we know what our cars can do in that heat. If Sunday is hotter, it doesn’t concern me since we ran well in the hotter condition. I hope some guys are overly-confident with their cars today because a hotter track could affect them more than us. Overall, we learned more again today with our race car.” NO. 81 BEN HANLEY, DRAGON SPEED USA CHEVROLET           

Richard Childress Racing at Dover International Speedway … Richard Childress Racing is no stranger to Victory Lane at Dover International Speedway, with four NASCAR Cup Series wins and three NASCAR Xfinity Series wins at the track affectionately known as ‘The Monster Mile’. The Welcome, N.C. organization added a virtual victory to the resume earlier this year, when Anthony Alfredo scored the win during the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series Saturday Night Thunder event. COVID-19 Relief … Own a piece of history by participating in an auction and sale of Richard Childress’ personal collection of memorabilia. All proceeds will assist COVID-19 relief efforts. Thousands of rare, hard-to-find and exclusive items from Richard Childress’ 50+ years in NASCAR are up for bid or sale. Visit https://www.ebay.com/str/RichardChildresscollection.Catch the Action … The NASCAR Xfinity Series’ first race at Dover International Speedway will be televised live Saturday, August 22, beginning at 12:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network and will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.  The NASCAR Cup Series’ first race at Dover International Speedway will be televised live Saturday, August 22, beginning at 4 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network and will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.  The NASCAR Xfinity Series’ second race at Dover International Speedway will be televised live Sunday, August 23, beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network and will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.  The NASCAR Cup Series’ second race at Dover International Speedway will be televised live Sunday, August 23, beginning at 4 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network and will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

This Week’s Dow Coatings Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 at Dover International Speedway… Dillon has 13 previous NASCAR Cup Series starts to his credit at Dover International Speedway, earning his best finish of seventh in October 2018 and best start of ninth in June 2017. In eight previous NASCAR Xfinity Series appearances at the track, Dillon’s best finish is fourth in May 2015, and he is the June 2013 Xfinity Series pole sitter at the Monster Mile. The 2011 NASCAR Truck Series champion has two starts at the track in the Truck Series, earning his best finish of fourth in the May 2011 event. He also finished ninth at the track in a NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race. Dow brings a science and engineering crew who is driven by limitless curiosity to the RCR Team …Austin Dillon and the RCR team are again supported by Dow’s materials science expertise and technologies this season. Backed by the power of data analysis and virtual modeling, Dow develops and manufactures high-performance components and materials custom-made for the No. 3 car. Dow and RCR’s partnership has expedited innovation and shortened testing time in the automotive industry by recreating in the lab one of the most extreme environments – the racetrack. After 7 years of collaboration, Dow scientists and RCR engineers are continuing to work together to make the No. 3 car faster, safer and more precise. Stay up to date with Dow’s exciting developments at www.dow.com/sports and follow us on Twitter @DowSports & @DowNewsroom. Welcome, Dow Coating Materials … Dow Coating Materials is the most innovative coatings raw material supplier in the world; driving fundamental shifts in the coatings industry and moving the market as the expert’s expert in coatings solutions. Through its mission of collaboration, inspiration, innovation and growth, the business provides material products, science, technology, and manufacturing solutions to the architectural and industrial coatings industry worldwide. Dow innovation and collaboration is on showcase this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway through a partnership with BEHR ULTRA SCUFF DEFENSE and Richard Childress Racing on the No. 3 Chevrolet driven by Austin Dillon. Dow Coating Materials manufacturing and R&D footprint spans across all major geographic markets where Dow does business. For more information, please visit  https://www.dow.com/en-us/industries/consumer/paints-and-coatings.  AUSTIN DILLON QUOTES:Does Dover drive like a giant Bristol, or not so much?“Not so much. There’s a lot of aero stuff that comes into play at Dover because you’re going so fast. You see different lines come into play as the rubber builds up. It’s always fun on a long run when you can run way up by the fence and find speed. Of course, there’s a bit of an unknown heading into the race with no practice or qualifying. I’m looking forward to it.” How hard is that when you pick up rubber during the cautions?“Yeah, it’s just a process that we go through every week that we have to try and balance our car around. It can get difficult at times, but Dover is a place where it’s fun.”

Tyler Reddick and the No. 8 Cat App Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE at Dover International Speedway … Tyler Reddick will be making his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Dover International Speedway during this weekend’s doubleheader. Reddick has five NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at the Monster Mile, earning his best finish of third in the series during the spring 2019 race under the direction of crew chief, Randall Burnett. The Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender also has one NASCAR Truck Series win at Dover from 2015. About Foley Cat … Foley Inc. is the Caterpillar Dealer serving Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Northern Delaware, Staten Island and Bermuda. Since 1957, Foley offers solutions for Power Generation, On-Highway applications, Construction Equipment and other job site Rental needs. Foley continually strives to offer you the best products and services available in the marketplace in order to create customer experiences that create customers for life. About the Cat App … For Cat customers, having access to information about your equipment anywhere, anytime is critical. The Cat App delivers simplified, streamlined data directly to mobile devices. This helps customers monitor machine location and health, react faster to fault codes and maximize uptime. It’s a mobile equipment management tool that gives them an easy way to monitor their entire fleet, request parts and service, and connect with their Cat dealer from the work site. The Cat App tracks exact location, machines’ operating hours, health and utilization data. It’s an on-the-go equipment management solution to be used out in the field in conjunction with my.cat.com for more capability when you’re in the office. And it allows customers to get the most from their equipment by moving an under-utilized asset to precisely where it is needed most. Designed for machine owners worldwide, Cat App users can choose from 35 different languages. You can download the Cat App here. Watch the Race with Cheddar’s… Don’t miss out! Cheddar’s is offering 15% off all To Go orders with the offer code RACEDAY placed on 8/22 and every Cup Series race day for the remainder of the 2020 season! Whether you’re watching the race on a Sunday afternoon or on a weekday under the lights, watch with all your Cheddar’s favorites for 15% off. Terms & conditions apply, visit cheddars.com/offer/race-dayfor full offer details. TYLER REDDICK QUOTE: Entering the Dover International Speedway doubleheader this weekend, you have three races left before the NASCAR Playoffs start. How does that shape your goals for the weekend?“We’re entering this weekend with our No. 8 Cat App Chevrolet with the goal of making up as many points as possible. With just three races left, we need to maximize everything we can. Dover is a tricky place to race, but I do have some success there to lean on. It was the site of my second win in the NASCAR Truck Series, so entering the weekend with that bit of confidence helps. Doubleheader weekends have been tough for us this year, but I know my team is doing everything they can to have us in a really solid spot when we roll off on Saturday and then build on that for Sunday’s race.”

Anthony Alfredo and the No. 21 ADS/Footing First Chevrolet Camaro at Dover International Speedway … After a slight break from NASCAR Xfinity Series competition, Anthony Alfredo will return to the seat of the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet for a double-header weekend at Dover International Speedway. This weekend will mark Alfredo’s NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at the ‘Monster Mile.’ He has one ARCA Menards Series East start from 2018, where he finished sixth. About ADS … Advanced Drainage Systems (ADS) is focused on drainage products and services that deliver solutions for the most persistent and challenging water management problems. From safely pre-treating and managing stormwater runoff, to helping developers and property owners harvest rainwater, we focus on the development of water solutions that make land more arable, cities more livable, and the world a greener place to live. Founded in 1966, ADS operates a global network of approximately 60 manufacturing plants and over 30 distribution centers. For more information visit https://www.ads-pipe.com/about-ads. About Footing First … After nearly 30 years of experience in arena planning, construction, and footing installation, Footing First has emerged as a leader in the development of synthetic equestrian footing since introducing the highly acclaimed TravelRight™ and TraveLite™ surfaces. We continue to manufacture these and other quality products and are determined to produce superior riding surfaces for every equestrian discipline. To learn more visit https://footingfirst.com/. Fast Start for Fast Pasta … In his first 10 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts in the No. 21 Chevrolet Camaro for Richard Childress Racing; Alfredo has secured six top-10 finishes and has an average finish of 11th. Success at the ‘Monster Mile’ … During NASCAR’s hiatus from on-track competition, Alfredo tamed the Monster when he scored the victory in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series Saturday Night Thunder Race at Dover International Speedway. Alfredo will hope to go from sim to reality this weekend, as the NASCAR Xfinity Series participate in a double-header weekend at the ‘Monster Mile.’ ANTHONY ALFREDO QUOTES: You were able to score a win at Dover International Speedway during the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Saturday Night Thunder Series. Despite that being a virtual win, does that give you any added confidence coming into a double-header this weekend? “Even though my eNASCAR win was virtual, it definitely still gives me confidence heading to the track in real life for a double-header because iRacing is very realistic, not to mention, I was competing against many of the same drivers I will be against this weekend in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. I’m really looking forward to taking on the ‘Monster Mile’ in our No. 21 ADS/ Footing First Chevrolet Camaro twice this weekend.”  What makes Dover such a difficult racetrack in your opinion? “Dover is a very difficult racetrack for multiple different reasons. The biggest challenge in my opinion is the overall speed of the track and how narrow the corner exits can get. When you come out of the banking, you are carrying so much speed and it is easy to accidentally make contact with the outside wall. It also is arguably one of the most physically demanding tracks on the circuit. With it being a doubleheader race, I will need to look at my personal notes from previous doubleheaders we have had to ensure I do all I can to prepare mentally and physically, which includes taking nutrition and hydration very seriously.”

Dixon Heads Strong Honda Effort on “Carb Day” at Indianapolis
Scott Dixon posts second-fastest run in final practice prior to the Indianapolis 500
Alexander Rossi, Takuma Sato also fast as Honda drivers claim seven of top ten speeds
104th running of the Indianapolis 500 takes place Sunday

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (August 21, 2020) – Five-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion and current points leader Scott Dixon led the way for Honda today in the traditional “Carb Day” final practice session prior to Sunday’s Indianapolis 500.

The final practice prior to Sunday’s running of the 104th Indianapolis 500 saw Dixon post the second-fastest lap speed of 224.646 mph, just one tenth of a second off today’s quickest driver, Pato O’Ward.
Alexander Rossi and Takuma Sato made it three Honda drivers in the top four of the speed charts today.

Zach Veach ran sixth fastest in today’s two-hour practice session, with fellow Honda drivers Marcus Ericsson eighth, Jack Harvey ninth and rookie Alex Palou rounding out the top 10.

Honda Racing social media content and videos from practice and qualifying from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is available on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD) and on Twitter at (https://twitter.com/HondaRacing_HPD).  Produced by the CoForce Digital Media, YouTube video packages can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV.  

Next
The 104th running of the Indianapolis 500 takes place on Sunday, August 23, with live television coverage on NBC starting with pre-race festivities at 1 p.m. EDT.

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Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) Second fastest today: “We had to go through our front wings [primary and spares] today, just to make sure they’re all close in case we need [a spare] in the race. The #9 PNC Bank Honda felt really good and really fast. It pulls up [to other cars] wicked fast. Hopefully that’s true when it comes to the race! It definitely looks like there are some good cars out there – and some not so good cars. I think there has always been, especially these last few years, an underlying tone of ‘it’s hard to pass’. This year [passing] has been a lot easier for us. I think a lot of credit goes out to HPD and Honda. We’re proud to be powered by them. They have done a lot to help that, and I think we’ve made a lot of changes on the team and the car that’s helped that as well. It’s good to see.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY DRYDENE 311TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT AUGUST 21, 2020 
TY DILLON, NO. 13 GEICO CAMARO ZL1 1LE, met with media via teleconference and discussed his season with Germain Racing to-date, the high temperatures inside the race car at the Daytona Road Course and the new rule for Dover this weekend, his thoughts on the cutoff race at Daytona, the balance of the season, and more. Partial Transcript:
FOR YOU GUYS OUTSIDE OF THE PLAYOFFS, AND ONLY THREE RACES LEFT TO TRY AND WIN YOUR WAY IN, HOW AGGRESSIVE DO YOU THINK THE RACING WILL BE BACK IN THE MID-PACK TO TRY TO GET UP FRONT DURING THESE RACES?“I think everybody is 100 percent aggressive every week. That’s the style this new car has kind of brought to the table. I think where the aggression will ramp-up is strategy, to put yourself up front, where you can use your defenses at the end of the race. I think there’s going to be some unique strategy with people trying to pop themselves up to the front near the end of the race or the end of these stages, that might put themselves in a vulnerable position to try to get those much-needed points or that stage win or that race win. I think the aggression of the overall mindset is going to go up. I know the drivers already drive to their full aggression in every opportunity they get. It’s going ramp-up these next couple of weeks. Everybody wants to get into the Playoffs. There’s a few spots left. For our team, we can’t do it on points. We’ve come very close at Dover, though. We know we can do it. We just have to put ourselves in the right position. In this wild time, we don’t really know what we’re going to have for a set-up in the car until we get on the track. Hopefully Saturday and Sunday we can get our car dialed-in and maybe we can be one of those teams that takes one of those chances and gives us the opportunity.”
LOOKING BACK TO LAST WEEK, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE DAYTONA ROAD COURSE STAY AROUND PERMANENTLY ON THE SCHEDULE?“Certainly. I would like to add more. I enjoy the road course racing. I enjoy the Roval-style of racing, where we’re using big tracks. We’ve got to continue to mix it up. I think the racing is good. It’s intense. It just adds so much more to it when we haven’t gone to a race track for, you know, the 500th time, it seems like; when all of the teams and everybody involved in NASCAR is learning a track for the first time. It equals the playing field. You get more storylines. We’ve got to continue to do unique things like that. I certainly encourage more changes along those lines of the Daytona Road Course.”
EARLIER THIS WEEK, MICHAEL MCDOWELL TALKED ABOUT NOT ONLY THE INCREASING TEMPERATURES INSIDE THE CAR GETTING REALLY TOUGH AND ALMOST DANGEROUS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ADJUSTMENTS NASCAR IS MAKING ON THE RIGHT-SIDE WINDOW? HOW TOUGH HAS THE HEAT BECOME FOR YOU GUYS INSIDE THE CAR?“It was quite brutal inside the race car, definitely. I think you could see it on everybody’s faces when they got out during the red flag. But I didn’t waste any time. I was glad that caution came out with the lightning strike. It was definitely a godsend that helped a lot of us to even finish the race. Luckily, I had my motor home there. I went straight back and gook a cold shower and changed into a fresh suit and put some ice on my body. I know I only had probably 20 or 30 minutes. But I did everything I could to cool my core temperature down, which really helped me to be able to attack at the end of the race. I don’t know if I would have had enough juice in my system to be able to go.
“I’ve certainly been training hard. I’m in the best shape I have ever been in. I’ve been training in the 96-degree, 98-degree North Carolina weather, running four or five miles with elevated heart rate ramp-ups in the middle of it. And, that was still one of the most brutal things. It’s just hard to beat 150, 140 with the ramped-up humidity inside of the race car. I wear a heart rate monitor every day and, in the races as well. And that was one of the highest ones that I have experienced. I simply have a lower heart rate due to a lot of my training. I was on an average of 148 beats per minute for four hours, in that heat, is crazy.  And I was up to around 3,000 calories burned. It was very brutal. It took my body probably, I’d say two days, at least to really start feeling like I was recovering.
“We have a driver group chat with NASCAR involved in kind of our version of the driver/council now, and there’s a lot of drivers that chimed-in and said hey, we’ve got to make a change. It’s really just gotten worse since we’ve run the right-side windows at the short tracks and road courses and not letting the air move around much. It’s very stagnant and steamy and inside those cars. I’m glad that we’re finally making a change. I would have liked to have had the change last week. But it’s changed now and hopefully this will work. I think it will. It just allows more air to move through the car, which is always a good thing.”
WITH THAT KIND OF HEART RATE FOR THAT LONG, YOU’RE ALMOST IN A DANGER ZONE, CORRECT?“Yeah, I mean that’s definitely around a marathon athlete’s heart rate for that long. And, a lot of us do train hard to where we can sustain that, and that’s part of who we are as being a great driver is the work you put into it. But even at that, it’s hard to sustain that when you’re inside your core temperature. It definitely changes a lot of things. You have your hydration and everything that plays into it. I feel very confident in my preparation, physically, every single week. And that was one of the toughest things I’ve gone through as a driver. And the hard part is recovering for what comes up this week is two races at other than road courses, I’d say Dover lines-up as one of the most physical race tracks that’s really rough inside the car just because it’s so fast and the banking changes. So, this will be another test physically. But luckily, we’re going to take those windows out, which should help us; and the races are a little bit shorter. So, we have that night of recovery. What you do from Saturday to Sunday is really going to be important to make sure you have the proper energy and your mind is clear to go race hard on Sunday.”
IN 2017 YOU HAD A REALLY GOOD RACE AT DOVER. WHAT DID YOU DO WELL AND HOW WOULD YOU HAVE TO TRANSLATE TO THE RACES COMING UP THIS WEEKEND?“Right out of the gate, we had a solid practice. We hit on some stuff early on there, in our rookie season. And at the start of the race we were running inside the top 20. But I remember the whole race saying you guys just give me track position and we’re going to be okay. I just had that feeling in the car. Sometimes it clicks like that at race tracks. We did a good job of working strategy in that race. I beat Jimmie (Johnson) on the restarts, I think two times in a row. And, was able to lead 23 or 24 laps. Kyle Larson was pretty fast that day. With about 20 to go, we were lining up to probably finish third or fourth and had a bad restart there at the end. There was speedy dry on the track and didn’t have much chance to make it off Turn 2 o the white flag lap. I know I can get it done there. I know what it takes to lead there against the best, even on older tires. So, it’s just a matter of hitting the set-up and making sure we can be aggressive on our calls. You’ve got to have a car capable of fighting for it. If your car is not going to handle well and stay out, you’re just putting yourself in a really high-risk of ruining a solid finish anyway. There’s a lot that goes into it. That day we had a really solid car.”
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST KEY TO HAVING A REALLY GOOD RACE AT DOVER?‘Patience and I think a lot of it is obviously every race, you’ve got to have a good car. The car is 80 percent of it these days; close to 90 percent. But that 10 to 15 mental side of being a driver and being able to hit your marks every time. Dover is one of those places that can be very physically demanding and just exhausting because of the roughness of the track and everything that goes into it. So, you’ve got to be physically there to take advantage of a strong car. And if you can do that, you really just have to just paint the bottom is usually where the fastest cars are. They can roll the bottom with more speed than anybody. And you’ve got to be able to hit that line in each corner, which will be 600 times a race. It just takes patience and you’ve got to be able to be very focused and fight through a lot of distractions, whether its physical or just the speed of the overall race at Dover.”
LOOKING TOWARD DAYTONA, DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE MORE RECKLESS SINCE IT’S A CUTOFF RACE?“Yeah, I’m anxious to see what happens in Daytona. I couldn’t imagine us being much more reckless and dangerous and aggressive at these superspeedways the way the last three years have gone. Actually, the last race at Talladega was probably the calmest one that we’ve seen. But there still seems to be a way that we only finish with about 10 to 12 cars every time. I don’t know how much more we could make it worse, but I think out of the gate you’re going to see a lot more pressure on people trying to earn those stage points early and then do whatever to win at the end of the race. I think the end of the race will get a little bit more aggressive coming to the checkered, which calls for anxiety and stress when people try to make a move where you’re going so fast and it can be so dangerous.”
IF YOU HAVE A SHOT TO WIN, HOW MUCH RISK DO YOU TAKE TO POTENTIALLY ACCOMPLISH THAT GOAL?“I know that if I can’t be there at the end, there’s no chance of us making the Playoffs anyway. So, my philosophy is pretty much concrete every time I go to a speedway, no matter the situation. It’s kind of the same process I follow. I got away from it a little bit at Daytona this year because we had such a fast race car. I wanted to get up front and I couldn’t keep our car out of the top 10 there. All-in-all, that was one of the worst races we had because with three or four to go, I was running inside the top 11 or 12 and got in a crash. So, I try to be patient and try to steal stage points if I can at a low risk and bide my time. But I always try to make sure that I finish. I think that’s going to be key at Daytona. It’s never too late for a crash to happen. You’ve got to be there at the end. You can’t take yourself out early just trying to force something to happen. You’ve got to be patient and line yourself up and trust what you feel and what you see.”
IN THE CHEVY CAMP IT’S HENDRICK VERSUS GANASSI WITH RCR WHERE YOU GUYS ARE AT THERE. WE’VE SEEN GREAT RUNS BY RCR. ASSESS WHERE YOU ARE WITH YOUR ALLIANCE WITH THAT TEAM.“For our team personally, it’s been up and down. If you look at RCR’s success this year, they’ve certainly had a lot stronger year than last year. I think we almost beat them with their cars in the points last year, which was a good year for us. This year, they’ve been stronger week in and week out and more consistent. Our approach has been a little different this year. And I think their approach has been a little bit different this year. But recently, we’ve turned it up. We’ve really had a bad Daytona 500 and then the next five races, we were really strong with some of the best results we’ve had since the pandemic hit, and we came out of the gate strong. And then we had a five or six-race stretch of the worst luck and just not good races since we’ve had since I’ve been here. And that put us in a deep hole when some guys were able to capitalize. We had one race at Charlotte where our power steering broke. We’ve had a race where we had a couple of pit road issues that put us a couple of laps down. The issues were mechanical, mental mistakes that kept taking us out for about five weeks in a row. And then we kind of got our feet back under us and started having some top 15’s and getting back to where we were at the beginning of the season. So now, we’re just pulling ourselves out of this hole a little bit. We’ve had a solid string of races. It’s late in the season, but our goal is to try to get ourselves back in that top 24 in points. If you look lately, where we haven’t had mechanical or mental issues during a race, we finish inside the top 20 almost every single week. So, we have improved in a lot of ways, but yes; we want to make the Playoffs, but there’s still 13 races to go and our goal is long-term and to keep improving and get higher in the points.
“We’d like to have a better outcome than we’ve had, but I think overall the Chevy Camaro ZL1 1LE has been a stronger car for all of us. But it is hard when you have a pandemic. There’s not a whole lot of developing we can do as a race team. We’re a small operation. To keep up in these kinds of times, when you’re split in your shop and have guys working all night one shift and then in the day, that can’t see each other. We have 47 employees trying to make this happen. It’s a tough thing to keep up with, but we’ve been able to get our feet back under us.”
THIS IS YOUR FOURTH SEASON WITH THIS TEAM. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS BEHIND SUCH A STRONG RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOU AND THE NO. 13 SQUAD, AND WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR YOU GUYS?“I think commitment to begin with; for four years to be committed to a driver starts with a very committed sponsor in GEICO that’s been with Germain Racing for a long time. And we’ve got to do all that we can for it to make sense for them. They’ve believed in me for the past four years to go out and give my best and help improve the team. And just having long-term mindset in all of this and trying to grow, it’s very hard now days in NASCAR for a single car team with less funding than other teams. You have to be efficient. You have to do things right and sometimes that comes at a cost of development. You have to be a perfectionist as a driver and a crew chief and a team to capitalize on the days where the guys that have a lot more capital and resources when they make mental mistakes that you can capitalize. You can’t afford to go out and crash four or five weeks in a row because you don’t have enough cars. You have to race and prepare different and see the sport different. The model is very tough right now for single-car teams. I’m hoping that NASCAR is going to change it and help on it. But it needs to change for one-car teams to be more successful that haven’t already been at the top level of the sport or have an incredible about of money to leapfrog into the top spot. If you don’t have three or four teams to spread the wealth with big name sponsors and a lot of money behind the effort, it’s just not a model that’s going to survive long term. But the thing is, you have teams like Germain Racing with GEICO behind them that’s been around for a long time because they’re committed to the sport and seeing it through and seeing a day where our team can equalize.
“There are good things happening in the future with our sport with the future of the car that are supposed to cut costs. I think we have to stay with the model we’re running and learning with right now in NASCAR with these single day shows. It’s saving a ton of money and helping teams like us. We won’t see the full benefit, but another two years down the road. It takes a while to catch-up. But if we can show up and race on race day, or maybe do a 15 minute practice session on race day where we shake down our cars and we only have to bring one car to the race track and buy less tires and don’t have to hotel rooms and rental cars, there’s so much expense that we save over time.
“And then you have a car that’s more common parts that’s supposed to be cheaper in general coming in 2022. You can start seeing teams like our team, get to the level that we need to be. And that’s where NASCAR has to get to. Or else, it’s unfortunately going to continue to go the way that we’ve seen for the last couple of years to where you have teams that just can’t hang on anymore and they can’t survive in this kind of environment. So, I believe in our sport and the direction it is going. And, I know everyone has a mindset to make it better. But we just have to get there. We have to do everything that it takes. We have to do it as media, as drivers, and as a sport in general. We have to help these middle and back-end teams have more exposure and more time, and stop being so heavily focused on the top three cars running every week. There are stories to tell with drivers like myself, who race from 25th to 18th. There’s a huge story to tell within those races. There are big wins for those teams that never get mentioned. There’s a lot that goes on, I think.
“We can only get better as a sport if we all get better. We can’t just keep focusing on the big-end teams and the guys running up-front week in and week out. So, if we want the sport to thrive, it takes a lot of focus throughout the field.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY DRYDENE 311TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT AUGUST 21, 2020 

JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE, met with media via teleconference to discuss his outlook going into the doubleheader at Dover International Speedway, the pressure and mindset that comes with racing on the Playoff bubble, thoughts going into Daytona as the last race of the regular season, and more. Transcript:  IN TALKING WITH WILLIAM BYRON YESTERDAY, I ASKED HIM HOW IT FELT TO KIND OF BATTLING WITH YOU FOR THAT LAST SPOT AND HE SAID IT WAS ‘ODD’. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT?“Yeah, it is odd. It’s unfortunate, as well. But it’s the situation that we’re in. With Chad (Knaus) on the box there, you just think of the layers of how it’s odd and we’re all fighting for that last spot in the Playoffs.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS WEEKEND? YOU’RE GOING INTO A REALLY GREAT RACETRACK – A DOUBLEHEADER. THIS IS A CHANCE TO REALLY PICK UP A LOT OF POINTS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING IN THIS POSITION RIGHT NOW?“I love the track, obviously. I’m very optimistic about how we’re going to run. Just overtime though, I’ve kind of helped my competition in some respect, especially inside the walls of Hendrick Motorsports. Chad Knaus is on the box for the 24 car, as we all know, and William (Byron) is a great student. He’s really increased his game at Dover, so I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get points on him or especially a lot of points on him. For all of us out there, Dover is a track where you can get caught up in stuff and have a lot of cars affected. And then we roll onto Daytona after that, which who knows how to even approach that. I think the first race – being smart, just kind of see how things unfold, see where things lay out – will get me a better mindset on how I need to race on Sunday.”
TWO QUESTIONS – FIRST, WHAT WAS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE OF ALL THE 11 DOVER WINS THAT YOU HAVE? DOES ONE STAND OUT THAT’S SIGNIFICANT, MILESTONE OR PERSONAL REASON? “It’s hard to pick one, but what does come to mind is kind of a pattern that developed after my rookie year in how I grew to count on that fall Dover race to really give our team the shot in the arm by winning and running well. Which leads me to my rookie season, my second win there – we won the first time at Dover and then went the rest of the summer without winning and struggled. The start of the summer slump that happened for myself and Chad, that was like the first time we went through it and then we recovered. When I look back, I can of smile now and I had no idea the foreshadowing of that year, of that track and what that would mean. So, I kind of look back to that.”
I KNOW ON THE DALE JR. PODCAST, YOU SAID YOU WERE HOPING FOR 14 OR 15 INDYCAR RACES NEXT YEAR. IS ANYTHING AT ALL CONCRETE FOR NEXT YEAR OR, NO MATTER WHAT RACING SERIES IT IS, IS IT STILL HOPEFUL PLANNING AND TALKING?“It’s still in the planning stage right now. When I look at the road and street courses IndyCar has, last year there were 12. So, when I say 15, I would love to throw in a few more races – if they’re sportscar races, NASCAR races, whatever they might be. But nothing is concrete. Kind of the planning cycle for corporate America is going on and budgets are being allocated, so I certainly hope here in the short term we’ll have some exciting news, but right now nothing is concrete.”
WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON WHAT NASCAR SHOULD DO IF A DRIVER TESTS POSITIVE IN THE PLAYOFFS AND HAS TO MISS A PLAYOFF RACE? OBVIOUSLY NOW, THERE’S A WAIVER, YOU’VE GONE THROUGH IT, YOU CAN STILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS. SHOULD THE RELIEF DRIVER’S POINTS COUNT TOWARDS THAT PLAYOFF DRIVER? SHOULD THE PLAYOFF DRIVER WHO IS SICK BE ABLE TO GO TO THE NEXT ROUND? WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE SITUATION BECAUSE THIS COULD CERTAINTLY PLAY OUT IN THE COMING WEEKS.“It’s been a big concern of mine since the beginning and something I’ve had talks with internally at NASCAR. Ironically, I ended up being the first guy in that situation. In my opinion, the precedence has been set and you’ve got to see it through. I haven’t had that luxury and although it might just be a few points I would have received, I didn’t get the points for the Brickyard and wasn’t under the impression that was ever an option. So, I think the bed has been made and they need to see it through the rest of the year.”
BECAUSE IN SO MANY CASES, SOMEBODY DOES NOT SHOW SYMPTOMS, DOES THAT MAKE IT EASY IF SOMEBODY KNOWS THAT THEY’VE TEST POSITIVE THAT THEY CAN DECIDE ‘HEY, AS A DRIVER, I CAN KEEP ISOLATED, I’M GOING TO GO AHEAD AND STILL RACE AND NOT COST MYSELF A CHANCE AT THE CHAMPIONSHIP’?“Now you’re understanding all the frustration and agony that I went through in July. Again, there’s been a precedence that’s been set and I think it needs to stay the same and stay the course. I can add though that once you get a positive test, you’re in the system and I’m not sure how you hide that. Where you can hide that is if your symptoms aren’t too great, you’re asymptomatic, something in that department where you’re not ill – you can lay low, self-quarantine, just bide some time and wait out the quarantine clock. But once you have a positive test, it triggers state departments and a lot of other things start happening then and I’m not really sure how you hide that.”
WITH THIS TALK OF INDYCAR RACING AND YOUR INTEREST IN ROAD COURSES, IF NASCAR WERE TO ADD MORE ROAD COURSE RACES OR EVEN STREET RACES POTENTIALLY, WOULD THAT BE SOMETHING THAT YOU WOULD CONSIDER DOING MORE NASCAR EVENTS NEXT YEAR?“Yeah, I would definitely look at that. That would be really exciting. I think the idea of street racing is a really good one, could be a lot of fun and a great experience. Depending on the more natural tracks or road courses, if one would come about, I would definitely look at it. I feel like the Road America track, it’s so fun watching the Xfinity Series race there and that would be a great fit for a Cup car.”
DO YOU THINK IT GIVES YOU AN ADVANTAGE HAVING TWO RACES AT DOVER THIS WEEKEND, WHERE SINCE YOU’VE HAD NO PRACTICE, YOU CAN DEVELOP AT LEAST A COMPETITIVE BASELINE AND WITH ALL YOUR EXPERIENCE AND SUCCESS AT THAT TRACK, IT WILL HELP YOU HAVE A FIGHTING CHANCE ON SUNDAY?“I think so. The one caveat to that is the driver I’m focused on has Chad Knaus on the box, and he’s a student, friend, somebody I’ve mentored and kind of taught how to drive good there and be competitive there. So, it is a very unique situation to be in and I wish it wasn’t a Hendrick teammate that I was fighting for that last spot with.”
DID YOU TEST POSITIVE OR DID YOU TEST FALSE-POSITIVE FOR COVID? WHEN YOU LOOK AT WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE WORLD OF OUTLAWS RIGHT NOW AND THEM HAVING A BREAKOUT OF SORTS, HOW MUCH DO YOU COMMEND NASCAR FOR JUST REALLY PULLING THE REIGNS BACK ON THIS SITUATION? “I feel like NASCAR has done an amazing job in creating distancing and these different compartments that don’t overlap so that we can control the spread. I think Hendrick Motorsports has done as great job as well. Once you experience a positive test in your circle – if it’s you, your family or someone through contract tracing – you really start to understand how quick this can move around and the impact that it has on your professional life and personal life. I feel that it was very well thought out and because of that, we haven’t had a spread or move around a lot within our sport and we’ve been able to go to the track week in and week out. As far as my testing, I don’t know if I will ever have an answer or conclusion. I do know that I tested positive and then I had two negatives quickly after. I had zero symptoms, so I could have been asymptomatic or I had a false-positive. But, I don’t know how to ever prove it one way or the other. I just don’t know.”
THE END OF THE SEASON IS FAST-APPROACHING AND THE END OF YOUR FULL-TIME CAREER. WINNING, IS THAT SOMETHING NOW THAT YOU’RE ANXIOUS ABOUT GETTING THAT WIN, ONE MORE WIN IN YOUR FULL-TIME CAREER? IS IT GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTING? WHAT’S THE FEELING NOW WITH THE END OF THE SEASON FAST-APPROACHING AND STILL TRYING TO GET THAT WIN?“Yeah, it depends on the day and the experience. I never wanted to have a winless drought or have a winless season. But I’ve worked through so many of those emotions over the last couple of years and also understand that there are factors that I can’t control that have affected my performance. We haven’t had the performance that we’ve wanted as the 48 car and for our company. Again, depends on the day and when you run really well, it increases that desire to win. To run up front last week and finish fourth felt good, but at the same time, I really want to win and wish that I had a little bit more for 9 car and had a shot at it. With time running out, I feel like something that does help me is that this isn’t a hard stop for me in motorsports and I know there are wins still out there for me. That’s just the glass is half full point of view that I have and I guess maybe the way I manage some of the disappointment over the last few years, but I need to make the most out of each opportunity that I have ahead of myself and I will certainly do that.”
THE WILDCARD IN ALL OF THIS IS THE LAST RACE OF THE REGULAR SEASON IS THE SUPERSPEEDWAY IN DAYTONA. YOU MAY END UP GETTING INTO THE PLAYOFFS BECAUSE JUST OF THE NATURE OF THE DAYTONA RACING. OBVIOUSLY, YOU CAN NAVIGATE YOUR WAY AROUND THAT PLACE AS WELL PRETTY WELL. SO, ALL IS NOT LOST WITH EVERYONE THINKING WITH THREE RACES TO GO, YOU’RE ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN. THERE ARE STILL PLENTY OF OPPORTUNITIES, CORRECT?“There are plenty of opportunities. Of course, I would like to control things these next two races at Dover and not have to worry about Daytona. The reason I bring that up is somebody below the cutoff line or below where I am in points could win at Daytona. That’s not unrealistic and then it really complicates the situation. I really don’t want to depend on Daytona. If I do, I do and I’ll have to be smart and use all my years of experience to figure something out. But I don’t even want to think about Daytona yet (laughs).”
YOU’VE TALKED ABOUT HOW YOU’RE A VICTIM OF YOUR OWN SUCCESS, PERTAINING TO WILLIAM (BYRON) AND HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AT DOVER. DO YOU STILL HAVE THAT SAME FEEL? HAVE YOU LOST A LITTLE BIT THERE? HAS EVERYONE GAINED A LITTLE BIT THERE? THE NUMBERS CERTAINTLY AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE THERE. WHERE ARE YOU AT WITH DOVER WHEN YOU LOOK AT THESE RACES THIS WEEKEND?“I’m not sure that our company has lost anything at Dover. I think Alan (Gustafson) and Chase (Elliott) do a phenomenal job in really getting the potential out of the car week in and week out. Alan’s experience and the connection between those two has really made the difference and they’ve been very competitive and won a few times at Dover. The journey that I’ve been on over the last three or four years, the last year of Chad (Knaus) and I, we just weren’t bringing the best out of one another. A couple trips there with Kevin and then Cliff (Daniels) and I have been finding our way. We’ve been competitive every time we’ve been there, but to be great just takes something special. I think the potential is there and I feel really good this weekend. Cliff has been on the box for a lot of the wins that I’ve had at Dover and our relationship and connection is very strong. So, I’m optimistic about that. But when I look through the garage area, there’s been a lot of teams studying how we’ve gone fast around that track. You look at other drivers zoning in on their game and getting better and on top of that, it’s just a never-ending journey for a crew chief and these crew chiefs on other teams are getting stronger too. Long story short, the potential is there for us, I think we can do it. But the field has definitely gotten stronger.”

BATESVILLE, AR (August 20, 2020) – Tim McCreadie remains one the hottest drivers on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series tour as he passed race leader Jimmy Owens coming to the white flag. He held off Owens on the final lap to win Thursday Night’s 30-lap preliminary event at Batesville Motor Speedway. McCreadie, coming off a $50,000 win last Saturday Night at Florence Speedway, came from the fifth-starting spot for his fourth LOLMDS win of 2020. Owens finished in second followed by Dale McDowell, Earl Pearson Jr., and Billy Moyer Jr. The race ran caution-free for all 30 laps and saw Owens do just as he did a week ago. He dominated the race for 3/4ths of the race, but a late race charge by McCreadie left Owens in the runner-up spot despite leading 28 of the 30 circuits. In Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the 19th time in his career, McCreadie continued his stretch of late race heroics. “It’s tough to lead here late in the race. You’ve got a lot of lap traffic, but that’s part of it. We got a good bite going into three and four and the car stuck enough to get around Jimmy [Owens]. It’s amazing what’s happened for our team in the last two weeks. I stayed out on the road with the guys after Florence and went down to Longhorn. We worked on some things this week. This deal is not easy. There are so many guys that can win each night. If you make a small mistake they are all over you.” Owens was happy with his results in tonight’s Prelim A-Main. “We tried a couple of things tonight. This track is different than what we run on all year. We kept a steady pace and got into traffic. McCreadie went to the outside at the end and got around me. The car could move around pretty good out there until we got behind traffic.” McDowell is coming off a top five finish at Florence in the North-South 100 and said he can build on his podium finish tonight at BMS. “We haven’t been here in 3 or 4 years. I am sure Shane will make some adjustments for tomorrow night. I was behind those two battling for the lead and I could see what they were doing, so that’s something that might help us for tomorrow night and Saturday.” The winner’s Donald and Gena Bradsher Longhorn Chassis is powered by a Cornett Racing Engine and is sponsored by Mega Plumbing of the Carolinas, Bilstein Shocks, VP Fuels, Sweeteners Plus, and D&E Marine. Completing the top ten were Jonathan Davenport, Shane Clanton, Brandon Overton, Stormy Scott, and Spencer Hughes.

TEAM CHEVY ADVANCE DOVER DOUBLE HEADER DOVER INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY DOVER, DE AUGUST 22-23, 2020
DOVER DOUBLE: RACE #24 & 25With just three races left in the regular season, the NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) returns to Dover International Speedway for the third doubleheader race weekend of the 2020 season. The race weekend will consist of six races packed into three days of action, including two NCS events on back-to-back days: the Drydene 311 on Saturday, August 22nd, at 4:00 p.m. ET and the Drydene 311 on Sunday, August 23rd, at 4:00 p.m. ET. The NCS doubleheader around the 1-mile oval known as the “Monster Mile” will mark the 24th and 25th races on the revised NCS schedule. 
In addition to the NASCAR Cup Series events, the three-day race weekend kicks off with ARCA Menards Series East Series on Friday, August 21st, at 2:00 p.m. ET, followed by the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series race on Friday, August 21st, at 5:00 p.m. ET. Also accompanying the NASCAR Cup Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series will take part in a doubleheader race weekend, with the first event taking place on Saturday, August 22nd, at 12:30 p.m. ET, and will return for the second event on Sunday, August 23rd, at 1:00 p.m. ET. In compliance with the pandemic guidelines, all events during the doubleheader race weekend will be run without spectators. 
BOWTIE BULLETS·       Of the 100 appearances made by NASCAR’s premier series at the “Monster Mile”, Chevrolet has made its way to victory lane 41 times, more than any other manufacturer. Other statistics of note include 25 poles, 201 top-five’s, 382 top-10’s and 18,783 laps led. 
·       Current Chevrolet drivers that have recorded wins at Dover International Speedway include:Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1 1LE, with 11 wins (June 2017, May 2015, June 2014, September 2013, June 2012, September 2010, September 2009, May 2009, September 2005, September 2002, June 2002)Matt Kenseth, No. 42 Clover Camaro ZL1 1LE, with three wins (June 2006, May 2011, May 2016)  Kurt Busch, No. 1 GEARWRENCH Camaro ZL1 1LE, with one win (October 2011)Chase Elliott, No. 9 Mountain Dew/Team Rubicon Camaro ZL1 1LE, with one win (October 2018)
·       27 different organizations have scored NASCAR Cup Series victories at Dover International Speedway, with Chevrolet team Hendrick Motorsports leading the way with 20 wins among six drivers: Jimmie Johnson (11), Jeff Gordon (five), Geoff Bodine (one), Ken Schrader (one), Ricky Rudd (one) and Chase Elliott (one). 
·       In his 10 career starts at the 1-mile track, Team Chevy’s Chase Elliott tops the leaderboard in a variety of statistical measures: leads all active drivers in average starting position of 8.875 and average finishing position of 8.6; holds the record for the youngest series Dover pole winner (May 3, 2019 – 23 years, 5 months, 8 days); and his October 2018 trip to victory lane made him the youngest Dover race winner (22 years, 10 months, 0 days). ·        Since the start of the electronic scoring system, the record for the closest Margin of Victory in a NCS race at Dover International Speedway was captured during Jimmie Johnson’s September 2005 victory, where he took the checkered flag over Kyle Busch by 0.080 seconds. 
DOVER SCORECARDChevrolet driver Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1 1LE, is no stranger to success at the famed “Monster Mile” and his impressive statistics throughout his NCS career proves just that. Of his 36 starts in NASCAR’s premier series at the track, Johnson leads the series in wins making 11 trips to victory lane. Johnson also leads the series’ active drivers in top-five finishes with 17 and top-10’s with 25. Of the 116 different drivers that have led laps at Dover International Speedway, Johnson tops the leaderboard by leading 3,110 of the 14,165 laps he has completed – a laps led percentage of 22%. Other series-best records he currently holds at the track incudes an average running position of 8.848, fastest laps run with 1,428, and 10,110 laps ran in the top-15 (84.1%). 
PLAYOFF OUTLOOKWith 23 races into the 2020 season and three left in the regular season, the quest continues to make the top-16 in the standings and secure a spot above the Playoff cutline for the chance to compete for the title of the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Champion. Heading into the doubleheader Dover race weekend, three Team Chevy drivers have locked themselves into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs by virtue of victory:             Chase Elliott, No. 9 Mountain Dew / Team Rubicon Camaro ZL1 1LE – 4th in Standings                       Victories: 2 (Charlotte Motor Speedway and Daytona Road Course)                       Stage Wins: 6; Stage Top-Five’s: 18; Stage Top-10’s: 34            Alex Bowman, No. 88 Acronis Camaro ZL1 1LE – 8th in Standings                       Victories: 1 (Auto Club Speedway)                       Stage Wins: 4; Stage Top-Five’s: 13; Stage Top-10’s: 27            Austin Dillon, No. 3 Dow / Behr Ultra Scuff Defense Camaro ZL1 1LE – 9th in Standings                       Victories: 1 (Texas Motor Speedway)                        Stage Top-Five’s: 2; Stage Top-10’s: 11 With 10 drivers having already won a race, there are just six spots up for grabs for the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Here is a look where the remaining Team Chevy top-16 currently sit:             Kurt Busch, No. 1 GEARWRENCH Camaro ZL1 1LE – 12th in Standings                       Stage Wins: 1; Stage Top-Five’s: 4; Stage Top-10’s: 19            William Byron, No. 24 Axalta Camaro ZL1 1LE – 16th in Standings                       Stage Wins: 2; Stage Top-Five’s 8; Stage Top-10’s: 20 CAMARO ZL1 1LE ON THE POLEFor the remainder of the 2020 NCS season, the race weekend format will consist of no practice or qualifying. The starting lineup for Saturday’s Drydene 311 will be set by a combination of the finishing position from the previous race (weighted 50%), rank in team owner points standings (35%) and the fastest lap from the previous race (15%). Team Chevy’s Chase Elliott will lead the field to the green in Saturday’s Drydene 311 in his No. 9 Mountain Dew/Team Rubicon Camaro ZL1 1LE.  Here are Team Chevy’s top-20 starters:            1st      Chase Elliott, No. 9 Mountain Dew/Team Rubicon Camaro ZL1 1LE           6th      Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1 1LE           8th      William Byron, No. 24 Axalta Camaro ZL1 1LE           9th      Kurt Busch, No. 1 GEARWRENCH Camaro ZL1 1LE           11th    Alex Bowman, No. 88 Acronis Camaro ZL1 1LE           16th    Tyler Reddick, No. 8 Cat App Camaro ZL1 1LE           19th    Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47 Kroger Camaro ZL1 1LE The starting lineup for Sunday’s Drydene 311 will be set by the finishing order of Saturday’s event, with an inversion of the top-20 finishers.  TUNE-INNBCSN will telecast the 311-lap, 311-mile Drydene 311 live at 4:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, August 22nd. Returning on Sunday, August 23rd, NBCSN will telecast round two of the doubleheader race weekend with the 311-lap, 311-mile Drydene 311 live at 4:00 p.m. Live coverage can also be found on the NBC Sports Gold App, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.  QUOTABLE QUOTES:CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 MOUNTAIN DEW/TEAM RUBICON CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 4th IN STANDINGS“To me, doubleheaders mean that there are a lot of points on the line in a short matter of time. Thankfully, for our good run at the DAYTONA Road Course and this new qualifying format, we will get to start up front on Saturday at Dover. Having that first pit box is also a huge thing for us this weekend.” ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 88 ACRONIS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 8th IN STANDINGS“I am excited to get to Dover this weekend and I know our team is too. We were really strong in Dover last year and I know that these guys have been working hard on our Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE’s for this weekend. This track is physically demanding not only on the driver, but the car as well. We have to stay up front and I have to keep the car clean and out of trouble.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 GEARWRENCH CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 12th IN STANDINGS“Dover is a tough, challenging track that changes a lot with the rubber build-up. I expect that the second race (Sunday) will be much more difficult than the first race (Saturday). With all of the other series competing there this weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday; getting the track all rubbered-in and no practice will make it challenging. This track changes the most and the car has to have an adaptive set-up to be ready for all of that; but the second race is definitely going to be way tougher than the first race.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 16th IN STANDINGSBRYON ON RACING AT DOVER:“Even though it’s concrete, Dover’s surface changes a lot during the race. It’s really temperamental and holds a lot of rubber. When it does that, it widens the racetrack out. It’s a tough track to get ahold of for that reason. You have to prepare for when the rubber lays down and have your car handling how it needs to once that happens. You have to stay on top of those things. I feel like our guys have done a good job in preparing and we’ll see what we have when we unload.”
BYRON ON RACING WHILE ON THE PLAYOFF BUBBLE:“This is going to be a tough weekend, for sure. We need to have good runs on both days. I’m hopeful that we can either get the win or create a good buffer in the point standings so we can go to Daytona and have a bit of a less stressful race. That would be the ideal situation. I would rather be in the position we are, though, ahead in points, instead of trying to play catch up in these final races. It puts things in my hands more, and I like that challenge, especially for a doubleheader weekend.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CAT APP CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 19th IN STANDINGS“We’re entering this weekend with our No. 8 Cat App Chevrolet with the goal of making up as many points as possible. With just three races left, we need to maximize everything we can. Dover is a tricky place to race, but I do have some success there to lean on. It was the site of my second win in the NASCAR Truck Series, so entering the weekend with that bit of confidence helps. Doubleheader weekends have been tough for us this year, but I know my team is doing everything they can to have us in a really solid spot when we roll off on Saturday and then build on that for Sunday’s race.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 24th IN STANDINGS“I’m excited to head to Dover International Speedway this weekend. I’ve had some really strong runs at Dover in the past, and I feel like the cars I am driving this year are better than cars I’ve had in the past so that gives me a lot of confidence heading into a track that I’ve run well at. I think we can perform better at Dover than ever before, and the doubleheaders only help that. The opportunity to adjust our setups following Saturday’s race can be a real advantage at a track like Dover and we’re looking forward to having two strong runs this weekend in the No. 47 Kroger Chevrolet to set us up for a great shot at getting into the Playoffs at Daytona International Speedway next week.” MATT KENSETH, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 28th IN STANDINGS“Dover is my favorite track on the circuit. A great race track—really fast, very challenging, but also really hard to pass. We’re back to the normal package with a lot of power and less downforce, so I’m looking forward to this one. Historically, it’s been good track for the 42, and it’s been a decent track for me too. Hopefully we go there, get our cars to run good, and have a couple of good days there. I’m looking forward to a double header again. I felt like at Michigan we made significant gains from race one to race two with drivability and handling, even though our box score didn’t really show it with some of the problems we had, but we did run better.” RYAN PREECE, NO. 37 SCOTT BRAND CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 30th IN STANDINGS“We had a rough start this season but August has finally got us heading in the right direction. Dover has been a funny track for me in the past. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it, but keeping your car clean and working on track position is always important. Dover is a really fast racetrack and I’m happy to be able to adjust between Saturday and Sunday races. We have to take it one race at a time. We had a really decent race there in the fall of last year, and I feel like that’s something we can build off of heading into the doubleheader this weekend. The regular season may be coming to an end, but we’ve still got 13 races to finish out the year strong and run well in the No. 37 Scott Brand Chevrolet.” 

DELAWARE, Ohio (Aug. 20) — When the drivers in the NHRA Pro Stock class got together and decided to run throwback car designs at this year’s 66th annual Denso Spark Plugs U.S. Nationals, five-time class champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. was quick to select his favorite ride. “It was pretty easy for us to pick the 2000 design we used to win our first Pro Stock championship, which also happened to be the car I drove to my first Indy win in Pro Stock that same year,” Coughlin said. “Fortunately, when we started to overlay that design on my current JEGS.com Elite Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro, it really seemed to fit really well. It was meant to be!”  Already a world champion after winning the 1992 Super Gas title, Coughlin was just a few years into his pro career when he entered the 2000 U.S. Nationals with a very competitive JEGS.com-branded Oldsmobile Cutlass. He was the runaway points leader, having won seven of the first 15 races of the year, and the chase pack seemed to be getting smaller and smaller in his rear-view mirror. But qualifying at Indy that year was a disaster and Coughlin and crew barely limped into the elimination field in the 16th and final position. His challengers were licking their chops. After all, no one had ever emerged from the 16th starting spot and found the winner’s circle before. “The guys pulled an all-nighter and chased away the gremlins that were hampering us in qualifying,” Coughlin said. “We knew we needed to be perfect to even get out of the first round but it turns out there was a little extra magic in that ol’ Cutlass and it just came to life on race day.”  By the end of the day Coughlin had not only secured his first Indy win in the Pro Stock class but he’d also become the first, and to date, only, professional drag racer to win an event from the 16th qualifying position. “Coming from the most difficult starting position to win the race was just a phenomenal accomplishment,” Coughlin said. “I already liked that car a lot but after Indy it just became so special. We cruised to a few more wins down the stretch that year and captured the championship, which really sealed my love affair with that car. “I know when I walk up to get into my car at this year’s U.S. Nationals and see that throwback paint scheme, it’s going to fire me up. From the mock-ups I’ve seen it looks great. Woody (Scott Woodruff, director of media and motorsports at JEGS) really did an awesome job putting this together.”Coughlin pointed out that a large decal of his original Oldsmobile will grace the hood of his Camaro so fans can see the old and new cars at the same time.“What’s interesting is the fact we’re coming into this year’s Indy with the same kind of momentum we had in 2000,” Coughlin said. “We’ve been on a strong run that really dates back to last year’s Countdown to the Championship where we jumped from eighth to second in the title chase, finishing just behind our teammate Erica Enders. “We’ve been fortunate enough to earn two wins in three final-round showings in the four races the NHRA has held this year and we’re in the points lead, so there are definitely some familiar feelings to how it was 20 years ago.” Should Coughlin prevail at this year’s “Big Go” it would be his 66th Pro Stock win and his sixth U.S. Nationals victory. Aside from his 2000 triumph, Coughlin also won the Pro Stock trophy in 2002 and 2009. Additionally, he won the 1992 Super Gas title and the 2004 Mopar Hemi Challenge. “We’re going to stay aggressive,” Coughlin said. “This has been a season of unknowns and, even now, none of us know how many more times we’ll be able to race so we’re going to get after it like there’s no tomorrow and have no regrets. We did win the last Indy races a few weeks back and I have complete confidence Rickie Jones (crew chief) will deliver a great racecar for me to drive.”

Michelin GT Challenge At VIR
Virginia International Raceway, Alton, Va.
1:30 p.m. EDT Saturday, August 22, 2020
Live Coverage on NBCSports.com TrackPass and IMSA Radio

ACURA NSX GT3 EVO TEAMS
Defending GTD champion Meyer Shank Racing is once again in the thick of the 2020 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title chase with their pair of Acura NSX GT3 Evos. On the strength of a pair of podium finishes in three races this season, Acura is second in the GTD Manufacturers’ Championship, just five points out of first place, with seven races remaining.

Defending GTD Drivers’ Champion Mario Farnbacher and co-driver Matt McMurry are currently fourth in their #86 Acura NSX GT3 Evo, just four points off the lead in the drivers’ title chase. The pair finished third when the 2020 season resumed at the Daytona WeatherTech 240 in July, and second at the most recent round at Road America.

Meyer Shank Racing, meanwhile, currently is ranked third in the Teams’ Championship, also four points out of first.

MSR has continued its partnership with businesswoman/racer Jackie Heinricher in 2020 to field the #57 Acura NSX GT3 Evo for drivers Alvaro Parente and Misha Goikhberg. The pair finished fourth at the WeatherTech 240 at Daytona International Speedway in July.

The Texas-based Gradient Racing organization is fielding the #22 Acura NSX GT3 Evo in the seven, shorter GTD “Sprint Cup” races for drivers Marc Miller and Till Bechtolscheimer. The pair finished a solid 10th in their IMSA debut at the WeatherTech Daytona 240, and are currently ranked ninth in the Sprint Cup standings after two of seven races in that “championship within a championship.”

Meyer Shank Racing claimed both the Drivers’ and Team championships in GTD in 2019, with Farnbacher and Trent Hindman scoring one win (with endurance co-driver Justin Marks) at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, and four second-place finishes in 10 races.

ACURA TEAM PENSKE
IMSA’s Prototype category is not a part of the race weekend at Virginia International Raceway, but the championship-defending Acura ARX-05s will return for the sixth round of the 2020 championship, the Six Hours of Atlanta, September 6 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

The combination of Acura Motorsports, Team Penske and the Acura ARX-05 DPi resulted in a sweep of IMSA’s season-long championships in 2019, claiming the Manufacturers’, Teams’ and Drivers’ championships.

Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya combined for three race wins and four additional podium finishes to claim the 2019 Drivers’ Championship in the #6 Acura Team Penske entry. Teammates Helio Castroneves and Dane Cameron combined to win the most recent round in the series in their #7 Team Penske Acura ARX-05, the IMSA Sports Car Showcase at Road America, earlier this month in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

The Acura ARX-05 is the latest in a line of endurance prototypes to be fielded by the company, dating to 1991, just five years after the launch of the Acura brand. Based on the successful ORECA 07 chassis, the ARX-05 DPi features Acura-specific bodywork and utilizes the race-proven, production-based Acura AR35TT twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 engine.

WHERE TO WATCH
Live flag-to-flag race coverage from the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR will be available on the NBC Sports App and NBC Gold with NBCSN Trackpass authentication. The race broadcast also will re-air Sunday, August 23, on NBCSN, starting at 10 a.m. EDT.

Fans can listen to audio commentary via IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com and Sirius XM Radio; and follow the race live via in-car cameras, IMSA Radio and timing & scoring available worldwide on IMSA.com and the IMSA mobile device App.

Acura Motorsports social media content and video links from the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR will be available on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/HondaRacing_HPD).  Produced by the CoForce Digital Media, the YouTube videos can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV.