Erb, Sheppard, Blair, Hammer, Pierce and more prepare for Farmer City Raceway April 1-2FARMER CITY, IL – March 28, 2022 – A bullring battle approaches for the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Model Series as it makes its return to Farmer City Raceway for the Illini 100.  Two nights of wheel-to-wheel action highlights the Spring tradition as a potential $26,000 payday is on the line.  A 25-lap sprint paying $6,000-to-win kickstarts the weekend for The Most Powerful Late Models on the Planeton Friday, April 1. On Saturday, April 2, the weekend continues in a 75-lap finale paying $20,000-to-win. This year’s Illini 100 will make history as it also serves as the season opener for the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota. Their highly anticipated debut features two nights of racing action on the 1/4-mile bullring.  Joining the World of Outlaws and Xtreme Outlaws Midgets are the Pro Late Models on Friday and the DIRTcar UMP Modifieds on Saturday.  A practice session is available for all divisions on Thursday, March 31.  TICKETS: https://bit.ly/35io6lo If you can’t make it to the track, watch all the action live on DIRTVision – either online on with the DIRTVision App. Here are some of the storylines to keep an eye on at the Illini 100:Erb Leads the Way: Dennis Erb Jr. sits atop the points standings for the first time in World of Outlaws CASE Late Models history. The Carpentersville, IL driver has a 30-point advantage on reigning champion Brandon Sheppard entering the Illini 100.  Erb enters the weekend with one World of Outlaws win (Volusia), three top-five finishes, and seven top-10’s in eight races. However, a Series triumph at Farmer City has eluded the veteran.  He finished 14th and 11th in last year’s Illini 100 Features. However, he still found success on bullrings in 2021. Erb scored two of his three wins on 1/4-mile tracks (Circle City and River Cities).  Back home in Illinois: Four-time and defending Series champion Brandon Sheppard can’t wait to return to the Land of Lincoln after misfortune at Cherokee last weekend.  He’s found Victory Lane three times on Illini 100 weekend—the most recent win coming in 2019. “The Rocket Shepp” had a fifth and a third in 2021 at the track and has the chance to make history this weekend.  If the New Berlin, IL driver sweeps both races, he will have $26,000 in his pocket and more wins than any other driver in World of Outlaws history—passing Josh Richards at the top of the list. Sheppard had seven top-five’s, and eight top-10’s on bullrings in 2021.  Hammer Time: Farmer City Raceway is a home-state race for many full-time World of Outlaws drivers. But it’s an actual “home game” for Kyle Hammer.   The Clinton, IL driver has the chance to bring not only the home state but hometown fans to their feet this weekend as he lives less than 10 minutes away from the track. The Rookie of the Year candidate is ninth in points entering the weekend, with a top-five finish at Volusia Speedway Park.   Black and Green Machine: Max Blair is on a roll after winning the Rock Gault Memorial at South Carolina’s Cherokee Speedway last weekend and a third-place finish on Friday. The Centerville, PA driver enters the weekend third in points—38 points behind Dennis Erb Jr. Blair also has an early advantage in the battle for Rookie of the Year—58 points ahead of Tanner English.  He had success with the Series on bullrings in the past, scoring a top-five in his only appearance on a 1/4-mile track in 2021 (Circle City).  Rookie Blue: While Tanner English faces a deficit heading into the first World of Outlaws race in the Midwest, it’s a track that plays into his favor.  Two of his three Series starts in 2021 came at Farmer City Raceway, where he earned a fourth-place finish during Friday’s program.  This season, the Benton, KY driver has three top-10’s so far this season and is tied with Hudson O’Neal for fifth in the standings.Defending the Crown: Last year’s Illini 100 is a moment Bobby Pierce won’t forget. He held off Cade Dillard for his first career World of Outlaws triumph, something that eluded the Oakwood, IL driver for years.  The “Smooth Operator” will return to the 1/4-mile bullring this weekend to defend his crown as one of the many Illinois drivers hoping to keep the World of Outlaws out of Victory Lane.  Pierce was successful in seven of the eight Series races he ran on bullrings in 2021—scoring six top-fives, including five trips to the podium. Bad Boys for Life: Anytime the World of Outlaws travel to the Prairie State, they know a challenge is coming from the “Illinois Bad Boys.” Illinois drivers swept the 2021 Iliini 100 as Pierce, and Mike Spatola won their first career World of Outlaws Feature. In 17 Series Features at Farmer City Raceway, nine drivers from Illinois have won nine, including three by Brandon Sheppard. Brian Shirley and Shannon Babb are behind Sheppard on the World of Outlaws winners list at Farmer City, with two wins apiece. Other Land of Lincoln drivers to keep an eye on this weekend are defending Farmer City Raceway Track Champion Kevin Weaver and Ryan Unzicker, who narrowly missed out on a victory last year, finishing second to Spatola. WHEN AND WHEREApril 1-2, Farmer City Raceway in Farmer City, ILABOUT THE TRACKFarmer City Raceway is a 1/4-mile bullring Online – www.farmercityracing.comPREVIOUS WINNERS 2021- Mike Spatola on April 2; Bobby Pierce on April 3 2019 – Brian Shirley on April 5; Brandon Sheppard on April 6 2017 – Brandon Sheppard on March 31; Brian Shirley on April 1 2016 – Josh Richards on April 2, 3 2015 – Scott Bloomquist on April 17; Brandon Sheppard on April 18 2014 – Shannon Babb on April 26 2013 – Billy Moyer on April 6 2012 – Jimmy Mars on March 31 2010 – Billy Moyer on April 10 2009 – Shane Clanton on April 4 2008 – Billy Moyer on April 5 2007 – Shannon Babb on April 27 2006 – Billy Moyer on Aug. 14 TRACK RECORDBrandon Sheppard- 11.750 set by Brandon Sheppard on April 5, 2019.On the Internet World of Outlaws CASE Late Models Series Twitter – Twitter.com/WoOLateModels – @WoOLateModels Instagram – Instagram.com/WoOLateModels – @woolatemodels Facebook – Facebook.com/WorldofOutlawsLateModelSeries YouTube – Youtube.com/WorldofOutlaws DIRTVision – DIRTVision.com – Platinum annual FAST PASS for $299 or monthly FAST PASS for $39/month Around the Turn: The Most Powerful Late Models on the Planet travel to Atomic Speedway in Waverly, OH for the Outlaw Invasion April 22-23. Feature Winners: (7 Drivers) Rank- Driver- Hometown-WinsDale McDowell, Chickamauga, GA- 2Ashton Winger, Hampton, GA-1 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA-1 Dennis Erb Jr., Carpentersville, IL-1 Chris Madden, Gray Court, SC-1 Michael Brown, Lancaster, SC-1 Max Blair, Centerville, PA-1HEAT RACE WINNERS (20 Drivers) Rank- Driver- Hometown-WinsDale McDowell-Chickamauga, GA-6Chris Madden-Gray Court, SC-5Brandon Sheppard- New Berlin, IL-4Max Blair, Centerville, PA-3Darrell Lanigan, Union, KY-2 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA-2 Dennis Erb Jr., Carpentersville, IL-2 Ricky Thornton Jr., Chandler, AZ-2 Kyle Strickler, Mooresville, NC-2 Mike Marlar, Winfield, TN-2Devin Moran-Dresden, OH-1 Ashton Winger, Hampton, GA-1 Ross Robinson, Georgetown, DE-1 Kyle Hammer, Clinton, IL-1 Mark Whitener, Middleburg, FL-1 Frank Heckenast, Jr., Frankfort, IL-1 Ryan Gustin, Marshalltown, IA-1 Michael Brown, Lancaster, SC-1 Daulton Wilson, Fayetteville, NC-1 Ross Bailes, Clover, SC-1Last Chance Showdown Winners (16 Drivers) Rank- Driver- Hometown-WinsMax Blair, Centerville, PA-3Cade Dillard-Robeline, LA-2 Devin Moran, Dresden, OH-2Hudson O’Neal- Martinsville, IN-1 Logan Martin, Plains, MO-1 Tyler Bruening, Decorah, IA-1 Chris Simpson, Oxford, IA-1 Shane Clanton, Zebulon, GA-1 Spencer Hughes, Meridian, MS-1 Mike Norris, Sarver, PA-1 Chase Osterhoff, Kankakee, IL-1 Tyler Erb, New Waverly, TX-1 Boom Briggs, Bear Lake, PA-1 Josh Richards, Shinnston, WV-1 Anthony Sanders, Spartanburg, SC-1 Banjo Duke, Sumter, SC-1PODIUM FINISHES (16 Drivers) Rank – Driver, Hometown – PodiumsDale McDowell, Chickamauga, GA-4Devin Moran, Dresden, OH-2 Dennis Erb Jr., Carpentersville, IL-2 Darrell Lanigan, Union, KY-2 Chris Madden, Gray Court, NC-2 Max Blair, Centerville, PA-2Kyle Larson, Elk Grove, CA-1 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA-1 Brandon Sheppard, New Berlin, IL-1 Ashton Winger, Hampton, GA-1 Chase Junghans, Manhattan, KS-1 Mike Marlar, Winfield, TN-1 Michael Brown, Lancaster, SC-1 Ryan Gustin, Marshalltown, IA-1 Ross Bailes, Clover, SC-1 Daulton Wilson, Fayetteville, NC-1FOX FACTORY HARD CHARGER (8 Drivers) Rank – Driver, Hometown – H.C.Hudson O’Neal, Martinsville, IN-1 Brandon Sheppard, New Berlin, IL-1 Tanner English, Benton, KY-1 Max Blair, Centerville, PA-1 Gordy Gundaker, St. Charles, MO-1 Devin Moran, Dresden, OH-1 Brent Larson, Lake Elmo, MN-1 Carson Ferguson, Concord, NC-1SLICK WOODY’S QUICK TIME Award (7 Drivers) Rank – Driver, Hometown – QTsChris Madden, Gray Court, SC-2Kyle Hammer, Clinton, IL-1 Dale McDowell, Chickamauga, GA-1 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA-1 Shane Clanton, Zebulon, GA-1 Brandon Sheppard, New Berlin, IL-1 Trent Ivey, Union, SC-1CASE Feature Lap Leaders (11 Drivers) Rank – Driver, Hometown – Laps LedDale McDowell, Chickamauga, GA-65Max Blair, Centerville, PA-56Dennis Erb Jr., Carpentersville, IL-39 Ashton Winger, Hampton, GA-39Chris Madden, Gray Court, SC-29Brandon Overton, Evans, GA-25Michael Brown, Lancaster, SC-25Brandon Sheppard, New Berlin, IL-18Kyle Hammer, Clinton, IL-17Kyle Strickler, Mooresville, NC-15Ryan Gustin, Marshalltown, IA-22022 World of Outlaws Late Model Schedule & WinnersNo./ Day, Date / Track / Location / Winner (Total Wins) 1. Thursday, Jan. 20 / Volusia Speedway Park / Barberville, FL / Dale McDowell (1) 2. Friday, Jan. 21/Volusia Speedway Park/Barberville, FL/Ashton Winger (1) 3. Wednesday, Feb. 16/Volusia Speedway Park, Barberville, FL/Brandon Overton (1) 4. Thursday, Feb. 17/Volusia Speedway Park, Barberville, FL/Dale McDowell (2) 5. Friday, Feb. 18/Volusia Speedway Park, Barberville, FL/Dennis Erb Jr. (1) 6. Saturday, Feb. 19/Volusia Speedway Park, Barberville, FL/Chris Madden (1) 7. Friday, March 25/Cherokee Speedway, Gaffney, SC/Michael Brown (1) 8. Saturday, March 26/Cherokee Speeway, Gaffney, SC/Max Blair (1)

The World of Outlaws Case Construction Equipment Late Model Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: Case Construction Equipment (Official Construction Equipment), DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); contingency sponsors include Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, Fox Factory (Hard Charger Award), MSD, Penske Racing Shocks, Quarter Master, Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award), Swift Springs, and Wrisco–Wieland Metal Services (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including Dirt Car Lift, Capital Race Cars, Behrent’s Performance Warehouse, FIREBULL, Integra Shocks, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, Racing Electronics, Reliable Painting, Rocket Chassis, and Sea Foam.

(3/28/22) Sacramento, CA … The high-powered NARC Fujitsu General Sprint Cars will embark on their 63rd season this Saturday, April 2nd at Stockton Dirt Track’s $6,000 to win Asparagus Cup.

It will mark NARC’s 21st visit to Stockton since the central valley facility opened in 2013. The three-eighths mile will be the busiest track on the 2022 calendar with the Third Annual Asparagus Cup slated to be the first of four trips this year.

Joining the West Coast’s premier 410 sprint car series will be the Legends of Kearney Bowl and the NorCal Dwarf Cars.

Who to Watch

The title defense will begin this weekend for 2021 series champion Dominic Scelzi of Fresno, and the venue may be the ideal location for the “Dominator.” With three victories, Scelzi is the winningest series driver through 20 races at Stockton and also owns top-fives in his five of his last seven starts.

2019 titlist, D.J. Netto of Hanford, has a wildly consistent recent record at Stockton. In his last nine series races, he’s finished no worse than fourth leading to a 2.8 average finish over that span. Netto also claimed the 2021 season opener at Stockton.

San Jose’s Tim Kaeding will begin his hunt for a third series championship at a track that’s been very kind to him. In nine NARC starts at Stockton, Kaeding owns a pair of wins and six podium finishes.

Although Shane Golobic of Elk Grove has only scored a pair of NARC wins at Stockton, he is always contending for the top spot.

Now teamed with Roth Motorsports, Australian Kerry Madsen plans to be at the season opener and should be an immediate contender. While he hasn’t made a NARC start at Stockton, he’s contested half a dozen World of Outlaws feature events and come away with five top-10s and a victory.  He has 28 World of Outlaw national wins to his credit.

Eight-time NARC feature winner, Willie Croft, would love to open his 2022 campaign with a momentum-building win as he pursues his first title. He’s yet to earn a NARC win at Stockton, but Croft has been strong with four runner-ups to his credit at the central valley facility.

Though he doesn’t own a NARC victory at Stockton, Hanford’s Mitchell Faccinto has shown consistency in his 13 NARC appearances at the track with 11 top-10s and a best finish of second in June of 2016.  He is driving the 2022 campaign for the potent Fresno-based Tarlton Motorsports team.

Also expected to compete are Campbell’s Bud Kaeding, Sebastopol’s Joel Myers Jr., Benicia’s Billy Aton, Hanford’s Michael Faccinto, Clovis’ Sean Watts, Aromas’ Justin Sanders, Iowa’s Austin McCarl, Idaho’s Logan Forler, Tanner Holmes from Oregon, and more.

Fan & Competitor Info

The NARC-King of the West Hoosier Tire format will feature ARP Fast Time Qualifying, Brown and Miller Racing Solutions 8-lap Heat Races, a 6-lap Sunnyvalley Bacon Trophy Dash, a Kaeding Performance Semi if necessary and the Fujitsu General USA 30-lap Feature.

The pit gates will open at 1:00 P.M. with the main gate set to follow at 4:00 P.M. The driver’s meeting will also begin at 4:00 P.M. followed by wheel pack at 4:30 P.M. Qualifying is scheduled to start at 5:00 P.M.

Pit passes are priced at $40. Adult GA tickets are $25. Kids ages 5-12, seniors ages 65+ and military (valid ID required) will be admitted for the discounted price of $20. Kids 4 and under are free. Tickets can be purchased on race day at the gate or in advance via the following link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/narc-kws-410-sprint-car-series-legends-of-kearney-bowl-norcal-dwarf-cars-tickets-289266884037.

The Stockton Dirt Track is located on the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds at 1658 S Airport Way Stockton, CA 95206. For more information call 209-466-9999 or visit stocktondirttrack.com.

The Asparagus Cup can be viewed live on floracing.com along with the entire NARC Fujitsu General Sprint Car schedule.

FINAL 2021 NARC King of the West Fujitsu 410 Sprint Car Series
Championship Points Standings 

1. Dominic Scelzi, Fresno – 2229
2. DJ Netto, Hanford – 2164
3. Tim Kaeding, San Jose – 2163
4. Bud Kaeding, Campbell – 2145
5. Sean Becker, Roseville – 2115
6. Billy Aton, Benicia (R) – 2078
7. Sean Watts, Clovis – 2026
8. Justin Sanders, Aromas – 1936
9. Shane Golobic, Elk Grove – 1758
10. Joel Myers Jr, Sebastopol (R) – 1548
11. Geoffrey Strole, Hanford (R) – 1445
12. Corey Day, Salinas (R) – 1350
13. Austin McCarl, Altoona, Iowa – 1250
14. Mitchell Faccinto, Hanford – 1237
15. Mitchel Moles, Raisin City – 1206
16. Jessie Attard, Sydney, AUS (R) – 1092
17. Willie Croft, Colfax – 1061
18. Ryan Robinson, Foresthill (R) – 1043
19. Blake Carrick, Lincoln – 1039
20. Rico Abreu, Rutherford – 979

The NARC Fujitsu General USA Racing Series is also sponsored by Hoosier Racing Tires and Floracing.com.  Associate and product award sponsors include Automotive Racing Products (ARP), Brown & Miller Racing Solutions, Bullet Impressions, Dirt.Travel, FK Rod Ends, Johnstone Supply, Kaeding Performance Center, Kimo’s Tropical Car Wash, KSE Racing Products, Maxim, Pyrotect, Roth Motorsports, Safecraft Safety Equipment, Saldana Racing Products, Schoenfeld Headers, SCI Racing Products, Scelzi Enterprises, Starr Property Management, Swift Metal Finishing, Sunnyvalley Bacon, System 1 Ignition, Ultra Lite Brakes, Vortex Wings, Wilwood Disc Brakes, and Winters Performance Products.

Doorslammers – in association with VP Racing FuelsSanta Pod RacewayFri.20 – Sun.22 May 2022
£90,000 is up for grabs when Santa Pod Raceway presents its annual Doorslammers race in association with VP Racing Fuels. Entries from across Europe are expected to challenge for the record prize fund. 
‘Doorslammer’ is a drag racing term for any car with functioning doors – a ‘tin top’, in circuit racing parlance – so no dragsters, altereds or roadsters are invited. But that doesn’t preclude machines that pack a mean punch. At the top level, any saloon-car resemblance may barely be skin-deep. 
In 2018, Mattias Wulcan’s Chevrolet Camaro-bodied Blackbird entry from Sweden hit a jaw-dropping 262mph in pursuit of the big prize yet had to return the following year actually to win it. 
As Associate Sponsor of the event, VP Racing Fuels is also the Official Fuel Supplier for the venue and Title Sponsor of the Doorslammers’ premier race class, Pro Doorslammer. These heavyweights attract the most attention – brutal machines radically different from any ‘tin top’ seen on a circuit. The no-holds-barred shoot-out pits class-legal Pro Modifieds – which otherwise contest national and European championships – against the unregulated monsters of Sweden’s eighth-mile Top Doorslammer league, reconfigured for this weekend to run the full quarter-mile – and indeed against any other outlandish vehicle whose owner considers it fit for the challenge. 
In place of the usual, seeded qualifying ladder, elimination pairings are drawn at random before each knockout round until the last two contestants left standing dash for the cash. 
It’s truly a matter of “run what ya brung… and hope ya brung enough”. 
Alongside the headline VP Racing Fuels Pro Doorslammer class, the Doorslammers weekend features five other heads-up categories – Pro Street, True Street, Front-Wheel Drive, 6-Cylinder and 4-Cylinder – plus separate daily Big Bracket competitions on Saturday and Sunday, all racing for hefty cash prizes. 
VP Racing Fuels can be purchased online at  https://www.santapodshop.com/garage/race-fuel or directly from the Santa Pod on-site “Garage” shop.  Pre-orders are welcome too by calling the telesales team at Santa Pod Raceway on +44 (0) 1234 782828. 
VP Racing Fuels is best known as the World Leader in Fuel Technology®, fuelling champions in virtually every form of motorsport on land, sea, and air since 1975. The company operates internationally with businesses including race fuels and lubricants, consumer small engine fuels and automotive additives, and licensed retail fuel stations. VP’s partnership with Santa Pod provides availability of its products to all racers competing at the renowned British venue. For more information, visit VPRacingFuels.com. 
Doorslammers 2022 takes place at Santa Pod Raceway, near Wellingborough NN29 7XA, from Friday 20^th to Sunday 22^nd May. Full information and advance booking facilities are available online at https://santapod.co.uk/doorslammers.php or by telephone at 01234 782828. Advance admission prices start at just £25 per day, with kids aged 5-15 at £5 per day – advance booking only, no admission on the gate. There is free paddock access and overnight camping is free with multi-day tickets. 

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (March 28, 2022) – The broadcast announcers called Chris Dyson “dominant” and it would be tough to dispute that description of his performance at Road Atlanta during this weekend’s third round of the 2022 Trans Am by Pirelli series. Bouncing back from a hard race at Charlotte Motor Speedway the previous weekend, Dyson won the pole at Road Atlanta in his #20 ALTWELL Ford Mustang by a healthy .579-second margin, grabbed the lead going into the first turn and led every lap of the 100-mile sprint. Dyson crossed the finish line 37 seconds ahead of his closest pursuer, Tomy Drissi. While dueling early in the race with Drissi, Dyson also set the race’s fastest lap, thereby securing the maximum number of available championship points, and extending what had been the slimmest of series point leads. This weekend’s triumph marks Dyson’s third Trans Am win at Road Atlanta – he won in 2018 and 2020 – to go with a class win in the American Le Mans Series. “The ALTWELL car was fantastic today,” Dyson exclaimed in a post-race interview. “This was a fabulous weekend for the team. The car was fast right off the trailer. I really felt completely in synch with the track all weekend, in all conditions.” The promise demonstrated with victory in the season-opening race at Sebring International Raceway last month and a front-row start on the Charlotte Motor Speedway “Roval” circuit threatened to evaporate a few laps into last weekend’s Charlotte race. A tire issue while contesting the lead with eventual race winner Paul Menard catapulted Dyson into the wall surrounding the circuit’s tall banking. “The crew had to repair the car after the issue we had last weekend, which wiped out the right side of the car,” Dyson said. “And then we had some engine problems yesterday right as official practice started here at Road Atlanta. But everybody just kept their head down and executed. The great work by the team over the past week saved us from a setback becoming a disaster for our 2022 title effort.” Dyson continued, “It’s tough when you have a bad race and get behind early in the season. You spend the rest of the season playing catch-up. And sometimes you don’t. In the past that has happened to us in this series. You just can’t let your guard down. Thankfully we persevered through a lot here and extended the points lead. I’m delighted and I can’t wait to get to the next races in California.” Old Friends In Atlanta In honor of Plaid, his team’s primary branding partner for the 2018 through early 2021 seasons, Dyson this past weekend wore a driver’s suit with the Atlanta area-based crafts company’s logo emblazoned on the chest. “It was great to have folks from Plaid here as our guests this weekend,” Dyson said. “They have been terrific supporters for the team in Trans Am since our debut, and it was wonderful to have Mike McCooey, President and CEO of Plaid Enterprises, Inc., give the ‘Start Your Engines’ command and then for me to win the race in their hometown.” California Bound The fourth race of the 2022 Trans Am by Pirelli season takes place in Monterey, CA, south of San Francisco, at WeatherTech Laguna Seca, April 22-24. A week later the series travels north to Sonoma Raceway in the Napa Valley wine country.  Video Coverage of Road Atlanta The Road Atlanta race will be televised on a tape-delay basis on CBS Sports Network and also MavTV, dates TBA. Modern Wellness with ALTWELL ALTWELL provides purposefully curated and flavored products to help improve your overall wellness, sleep, relaxation and balance. We know that can be a different experience for everyone, so we prioritize being able to serve the unique needs of our customers. We’re committed to helping you live each day with comfort and calm. That’s why all ALTWELL products are crafted with product quality and consumer satisfaction in mind. Plaid Headquartered in Atlanta, Plaid Enterprises, Inc. is one of the world’s largest, most diverse manufacturers of creative do-it-yourself products. Plaid’s product innovation and dedication to the ever-changing needs of consumers have made the Plaid family of products among the most recognized and desired brands worldwide. Founded in 1976, Plaid began as a publisher of how-to craft books. The company soon expanded into manufacturing, with paint becoming the primary focus. Today, Plaid is the industry’s leading small batch paint manufacturer, proudly producing paint in its facilities located outside of Atlanta, GA.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (March 28, 2022) – The broadcast announcers called Chris Dyson “dominant” and it would be tough to dispute that description of his performance at Road Atlanta during this weekend’s third round of the 2022 Trans Am by Pirelli series. Bouncing back from a hard race at Charlotte Motor Speedway the previous weekend, Dyson won the pole at Road Atlanta in his #20 ALTWELL Ford Mustang by a healthy .579-second margin, grabbed the lead going into the first turn and led every lap of the 100-mile sprint. Dyson crossed the finish line 37 seconds ahead of his closest pursuer, Tomy Drissi. While dueling early in the race with Drissi, Dyson also set the race’s fastest lap, thereby securing the maximum number of available championship points, and extending what had been the slimmest of series point leads. This weekend’s triumph marks Dyson’s third Trans Am win at Road Atlanta – he won in 2018 and 2020 – to go with a class win in the American Le Mans Series. “The ALTWELL car was fantastic today,” Dyson exclaimed in a post-race interview. “This was a fabulous weekend for the team. The car was fast right off the trailer. I really felt completely in synch with the track all weekend, in all conditions.” The promise demonstrated with victory in the season-opening race at Sebring International Raceway last month and a front-row start on the Charlotte Motor Speedway “Roval” circuit threatened to evaporate a few laps into last weekend’s Charlotte race. A tire issue while contesting the lead with eventual race winner Paul Menard catapulted Dyson into the wall surrounding the circuit’s tall banking. “The crew had to repair the car after the issue we had last weekend, which wiped out the right side of the car,” Dyson said. “And then we had some engine problems yesterday right as official practice started here at Road Atlanta. But everybody just kept their head down and executed. The great work by the team over the past week saved us from a setback becoming a disaster for our 2022 title effort.” Dyson continued, “It’s tough when you have a bad race and get behind early in the season. You spend the rest of the season playing catch-up. And sometimes you don’t. In the past that has happened to us in this series. You just can’t let your guard down. Thankfully we persevered through a lot here and extended the points lead. I’m delighted and I can’t wait to get to the next races in California.” Old Friends In Atlanta In honor of Plaid, his team’s primary branding partner for the 2018 through early 2021 seasons, Dyson this past weekend wore a driver’s suit with the Atlanta area-based crafts company’s logo emblazoned on the chest. “It was great to have folks from Plaid here as our guests this weekend,” Dyson said. “They have been terrific supporters for the team in Trans Am since our debut, and it was wonderful to have Mike McCooey, President and CEO of Plaid Enterprises, Inc., give the ‘Start Your Engines’ command and then for me to win the race in their hometown.” California Bound The fourth race of the 2022 Trans Am by Pirelli season takes place in Monterey, CA, south of San Francisco, at WeatherTech Laguna Seca, April 22-24. A week later the series travels north to Sonoma Raceway in the Napa Valley wine country.  Video Coverage of Road Atlanta The Road Atlanta race will be televised on a tape-delay basis on CBS Sports Network and also MavTV, dates TBA. Modern Wellness with ALTWELL ALTWELL provides purposefully curated and flavored products to help improve your overall wellness, sleep, relaxation and balance. We know that can be a different experience for everyone, so we prioritize being able to serve the unique needs of our customers. We’re committed to helping you live each day with comfort and calm. That’s why all ALTWELL products are crafted with product quality and consumer satisfaction in mind. Plaid Headquartered in Atlanta, Plaid Enterprises, Inc. is one of the world’s largest, most diverse manufacturers of creative do-it-yourself products. Plaid’s product innovation and dedication to the ever-changing needs of consumers have made the Plaid family of products among the most recognized and desired brands worldwide. Founded in 1976, Plaid began as a publisher of how-to craft books. The company soon expanded into manufacturing, with paint becoming the primary focus. Today, Plaid is the industry’s leading small batch paint manufacturer, proudly producing paint in its facilities located outside of Atlanta, GA.

Circuit of the Americas Race Report

1st5th in Points

24th15th in Points

Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain finished first and teammate Daniel Suárez 24th in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Chastain prevailed in a three-car duel in the final lap to give Trackhouse Racing its inaugural victory after just 48 races in its history. It also marked Chastain’s first career Cup Series victory in 121 starts. It was an impressive performance for both team Chevrolets as the drivers led 46 of the race’s 69 laps. The victory secures Chastain a place in the 2022 NASCAR Playoffs.Ross ChastainStared 16th and quickly moved to eighth in the opening laps. He finished 13th because he pitted with three laps to go in the first stage to better his starting spot in the second stage. Chastain continued to show speed taking over the lead but choosing to pit in the stage’s closing laps and finished eighth. He started the final stage in third and took over the lead on lap 33 and led nearly every lap the rest of the way outbattling AJ Allmendinger and Alex Bowman on the last lap that included contact and a few lead swaps. Daniel SuárezSuárez qualified second on Saturday, it was the best qualifying effort in Trackhouse Racing’s brief history. He quickly showed his car was the fastest on the track leading all 15 laps and winning Stage 1. It was his first stage victory at Trackhouse Racing and the team’s second of 2022. Suárez restarted Stage 2 in 20th, but suffered a flat tire when he was spun in traffic in the first turn. He pitted his Chevrolet for repairs and finished Stage 2 in 37th. In the final stage, Suárez began a slow march from the back of the field climbing to 17th by lap 40 when he reported he had lost most of the his power steering.He climbed to 12th but a flat tire with three laps remaining dropped him back through the field and he finished 24th. NotesThe NASCAR Cup Series returns to action Sunday at Richmond (Va.) Raceway.

Watch the Amazing Finish and Trackhouse Racing’s First Victory

“When it comes to a Cup win, man, I can’t let that go down without a fight. Justin Marks, Trackhouse, AdventHealth, and the Moose supporting me is awesome. A million Moose members, they better be celebrating tonight all across the country and the world.”— Ross Chastain

“I am so disappointed because we had a rocket ship today. But we got spun, and then the power steering went out and that made it hard.”I am very happy for Ross and all of Trackhouse Racing. Especially happy for Justin Marks. It will be our turn soon. I hope the people at Trackhouse enjoy the victory.” – Daniel Suárez

NASCAR CUP SERIES CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS ECHO PARK AUTOMOTIVE GRAND PRIX TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT MARCH 27, 2022 ROSS CHASTAIN GETS FIRST-CAREER NASCAR CUP SERIES WIN AT COTAClaims Berth in 2022 NCS Playoffs AUSTIN, Tx. (March 27, 2022) – It was a trip to Circuit of The Americas (COTA) that turned into a monumental race weekend for Ross Chastain and his Trackhouse Racing team. For the first time in his career, Ross Chastain drove his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Camaro ZL1 to victory lane to capture his first-career NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) win in the 2nd Annual EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. The triumph comes after a string of strong finishes for the 29-year-old Florida native, including consecutive runner-up finishes.  “It’s insane. To go up against some of the best with AJ (Allmendinger) – I mean, I know he is going to be upset with me; but we raced hard, both of us, and he owes me one,” said Chastain. “But when it comes to a Cup win, man, I can’t let that go down without a fight. So, Justin Marks, Trackhouse, AdventHealth, the Moose. A million Moose members, they better be celebrating tonight all across the country and the world. Chastain took the green of the 68-lap, 231.88-mile race from the 16th-starting spot. Battling for the lead throughout Stage Two, the team’s Crew Chief, Phil Surgen, brought the No. 1 ONX Homes/iFly Camaro ZL1 down pit road prior to the end of the second stage, giving Chastain a fourth-place spot to start the final stage. Piloting his Chevrolet-powered machine to the lead on the first lap of the final stage, Chastain survived last-lap chaos to capture the checkered flag at the 3.41-mile, 20-turn Texas road course. In just the second season for the organization, the Chevrolet driver’s victory also brought Trackhouse Racing its first win in NASCAR’s premier series. Trackhouse Racing’s founder and owner, Justin Marks, is no stranger to the sport, going from a driver to ownership role when he started the organization at the beginning of the 2021 season.  With six points-paying races in the books for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, the Camaro ZL1 has recorded four wins to lead all manufacturers. Joining fellow Chevrolet drivers Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman and William Byron on the win list, Chastain makes for the fourth different Chevrolet driver to have now claimed a spot in the 16-driver NCS Playoff field. Circuit of The Americas holds a special place in Chevrolet’s NASCAR history, where the bowtie brand captured its unprecedented 800th all-time NASCAR Cup Series win in the series’ debut at COTA last season. Since that milestone victory, Chevrolet has gone on to capture its 40th NCS Manufacturer Championship and 33rd NCS Driver Championship. Now, with Chastain’s victory at COTA, Chevrolet sits at 818 all-time wins in NASCAR’s premier series, extending its win record over all manufacturers as the winningest brand in NASCAR. Chastain led the bowtie brigade to four of the top-five and six of the top-10 finishing positions in the first of six road course circuit events on the schedule for the NASCAR Cup Series, the third time this season that the Camaro ZL1 has accomplished this feat. Alex Bowman drove his No. 48 Ally Camaro ZL1 to a runner-up finish, making it a 1-2 sweep for the Camaro ZL1. Chase Elliott, No. 9 Llumar Camaro ZL1, drove to a fourth-place finish, with Tyler Reddick, No. 8 3CHI Camaro ZL1 rounding out the Team Chevy top-five. Erik Jones, No. 43 FOCUSFactor Camaro ZL1, crossed the finish line in ninth; and Austin Dillon, No. 3 Bennett Camaro ZL1, came home tenth to give the bowtie brand an impressive six of the top-10 finishers. Chevrolet has now posted 18 top-five’s and 28 top-10’s thus far this season to lead all manufacturers. The NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Richmond Raceway with the Toyota Owners 400 on Sunday, April 3, at 3:30 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 ONX HOMES/iFLY CAMARO ZL1; PHIL SURGEN, CREW CHIEF, NO. 1 ONX HOMES/iFLY CAMARO ZL1; AND JUSTIN MARKS, OWNER, TRACKHOUSE RACING, RACE WIN PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT: THE MODERATOR: If I could have your attention, we’re going to go ahead and start with our post-race media availability here for the second annual EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix.And we are joined by the happy owner of the No. 1 Onyx Homes Chevrolet of Trackhouse Racing, that is Justin Marks. Congratulations. Some thoughts on your triumph here today. JUSTIN MARKS: This was an ambitious thing to sort of dream up, and I asked a lot of people that had a lot of experience in this sport and seen a lot of teams come and go to trust me and to commit to Trackhouse. And so to be here not even — not even a year and a half really into our existence, I’m just proud of everybody that committed.Every single one of these people, they own a piece of this victory. So it was always Ross. That’s what I told him when he got out of the car: It was always you. When the Ganassi buy-out happened, and he texted me as I got off of the press conference stage of the Hall of Fame, and he just wrote, “I want this.” He had to be patient with me while I let the dust settle, but we all were huge, huge believers in Ross’ talent.We knew what he was capable of doing, and he has proved it the last month at Trackhouse. And I think we’ve really just opened a door for him and Phil and the 1 team moving forward.I’m proud of everybody. Chevrolet, Onyx Homes and Moose and AdventHealth. It’s a really, really great day for us. THE MODERATOR: We’re also joined by crew chief Phil Surgen. Congratulations on your win today. Walk us through the excitement there in the final lap from your perspective. PHIL SURGEN: Thanks. A little too much excitement there for a little bit. We knew we had a really strong car all day, and Ross’s restarts were really good. Tyler got by us on one of those restarts late, and we had to fight back for the lead.To come back and fight for the win with AJ, one of the best in the business, was great. And then that last lap was just crazy. I think going for the win on the last lap, everything is on the table. They muscled around, and we prevailed. Q-I’ve got one for each. I’ll start with Justin. Congratulations on to both of you. Justin, you said that you had to get people to trust you and to believe in what you were selling. What’s your sales pitch? How did you convince them? How did you get good at this? You convinced Chip Ganassi to sell his whole team to you.JUSTIN MARKS: Trackhouse is — it’s an investment in the people. The thing is this car — I really believed since day one that this car delivers an opportunity for these companies to feel like real teams and to really invest in teamwork, the way the 9 and the — I’m sorry. The way the 1 and the 99 work together and how everybody feels motivated and empowered.The pitch was, let’s build a great team together, let’s do all of this together. That was the inside of the building pitch. The outside of the building pitch is this sport is ready for challengers. It’s ready for disruptors. It’s ready for people to come in and challenge the status quo and how we do things, have some fun, look good, try to be fast, win races, have a good time doing it.I just have always been authentic about my mission. I just take a lot of pride in seeing everybody’s smiles and happiness today. The pitch was, Let’s just do something great together. Q-Where is Pit Bull? Have you heard from him?JUSTIN MARKS: I just talked to him on the phone. He said he is smashing a watermelon over his head and drinking champagne. Q-Where is he doing that?JUSTIN MARKS: I said I’ll join him as soon as I can. Q-Phil, congratulations. I imagine when you hear that the team is being sold, it’s a little scary and there’s a lot of upheaval. Here you are running the best that this car has ever run since it’s essentially the same driver/crew chief combination. What’s the difference?PHIL SURGEN: Last summer there was a little bit of an unknown there when the team gets bought, and you don’t know how things are going to shake out. Met with Justin pretty early on. Felt really good about what he had to say and felt great about the opportunity to work with Ross again and work with many of the same guys.Last season we did a lot of building, and we got some performance out of the car, particularly the second half of the season.It’s just determination. It’s hard work, and it’s assembling the right group of people. Right now we’ve got every component of it working well together.We got the pit crew. We’ve got the road crew. We’ve got everybody at the shop. Obviously, Ross’ talent speaks for itself, but everything is just working great together right now. And we spent all the offseason focused on developing the Next Gen car and are able to come out of the gate really strong this year. Q-Justin, I know you’re tweeting, but you’re checking them off as you go, right? From contenders to winners, now you have to fight for a Cup Series championship. What would that that mean for you guys to have a fight in winning a Cup Series championship?JUSTIN MARKS: I don’t think we can put the cart before the horse. I think it just comes down to fundamentals. We just have to continue executing, taking advantage of our strengths and improving our weaknesses as much as we can.Tomorrow these guys are going to be in the shop just thinking about Richmond, right? That’s the next one, right? Richmond? Whatever is next.That’s the thing, right? What I say is it’s the aggregate of all the small things that make opportunities for big things to happen. Just to have an opportunity to be at this stage, on this stage, and to be able to compete at this level of the sport, I’m really, really lucky. Lucky that everybody committed to this.We feel like I don’t want to use the word ‘championship’. We just got here, so it’s like we still have a lot to learn. And we haven’t been to a short track yet. We still have a lot to learn with these race cars.We’ll just keep fighting along and doing the best that we can, and we’ll see where we end up at the beginning of the fall. Q-Obviously, I didn’t see this coming, so I’m a little bit still confused about how you guys have done all this. Why do you guys have the speed? Is it that your drivers were this good all along, and they didn’t have the stuff to show it? Are the cars better than everybody else and that’s why you look good? Why is this happening?JUSTIN MARKS: I think a lot of it has to did with this car showcasing the talent of the people behind it. I think that we were coming out of an era in the sport where you could engineer a piece of equipment that was so much — so far superior to everybody else’s, but now we do truly basically have the same stuff.I say it’s an execution car. It’s a car that shines when people work together and really try to prepare well and methodically and think about it. It’s a driver’s car. We have two incredible race car drivers. I’ve said this about Daniel all along, and I’ve said it about Ross for ten years that I’ve known him. These are championship-caliber talents. We just need to get them in a spot where they can shine.And Chevrolet is strong right now. Our preparation is on point. Everybody is super motivated, so we’re just very — workflow is super effective during the week. I say all that knowing there’s a piece of me that I don’t know really besides the fact that we just have really, really good people that are united and working hard and preparing well, executing well. Q-I have two questions. First for Justin. What do you remember about your first conversation with Ross about driving for Trackhouse? And for both of you, what have the last three weeks been like with this near miss, near miss, near miss, going and having that happen? What does this feel like after all of that?JUSTIN MARKS: My first conversation with Ross was — I asked him — you know, obviously, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the week that we announced the Ganassi buy-out was confusing for a lot of people. So I had to talk to a lot of people.Ross didn’t really know which way was up. Am I a part of this? Do I have a future with the company? What’s the plan here?I told him to be patient because we just tried to keep the buy-out so quiet that really when we went in to make the announcement, there was really only 12 people in the world that knew about it, and it was shocking for a lot of people.So there was a lot of work we had to do in the weeks afterwards. And then when we got to the point where, okay, the dust is settled, we know sort of which way is up and we’re planning for what’s next, I told Ross when he got out of the car on the front straightaway, It was always you, it was always you.I called him. I was up in Michigan, and I called him, and I told him that I’ve always been a huge believer in your talent. I think that you’re prime to break through. I want to put you on a two-year deal so you’ve got some job security. This is your race team. Let’s go win.He just dove right in and committed, and you see the result of it. The last couple of weeks have been just — you’re just seeing the fruits of your labor, and I just think it’s made everybody in the company believe that great things are possible for this enterprise, and we’re getting closer. We just keep doing it, our day will come. THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our race winner Ross Chastain. We’ll continue on with questions. Q-(Off microphone)PHIL SURGEN: The last three weeks have been really reassuring for us. It proved that all the efforts that everybody at Trackhouse have put in in the last six months were — everything they were doing was right.Like Justin alluded to, everybody in every department is doing the right things, and it gives you that confidence that it is truly the right things, and the long hours and the efforts that you are putting in are for something. It’s reassuring to know that you can get the results. It’s hard when you don’t. Q-I wouldn’t mind if both Justin and Ross answer this, but it’s for Justin. There’s going to be a lot talked about. Was the move kosher? Was it fair? Was it over the line? Is there anything that really is over the line with this Playoff system?JUSTIN MARKS: I struggle to find what’s too much. Today was not different than how you see so many of these races end. They’re so hard to win, and it’s just sort of like the way people think about racing each other and attacking the race track, it changes throughout the race.These races almost always have late race restarts, and there’s so much on the line that you just get to a point where it’s, like, all right, who just wants it the most.NASCAR has proven over the last four decades that they’re going to let these races play out like they may, and they’re going to let it self-police. These guys all wanted it. There’s always contact at the end of these races.Honestly, today is just not that much different than what you see a lot of times on green-white-checkereds at these race tracks. You take that white flag, and it’s like who wants it the most? Who wants it the most?Ross got beat up a little bit today too. I want to make sure people remember, Ross got used up a little bit today a couple of times. And when the money is on the line and a Playoff spot is on the table, you do what you got to do. That’s my opinion.Ross, your take?ROSS CHASTAIN: I didn’t draw it up that way in my head, but, yeah, I did what I did. I stand by it. Q-Two questions for Ross. First of all, congratulations on your win. It’s a long time coming. My first question is, you know, what were some of the lessons you learned from racing for JD Motorsports and Ganassi that’s helped you with Trackhouse Racing?ROSS CHASTAIN: Old tires, scuffs. Yeah, it’s everything. It’s race craft. It’s just laps. I got the Xfinity Series in in 2015, and I didn’t know how to turn right at all, and that was when Justin was in the series quite a bit on those tracks.I would go to him. I knew him from the start of my career in 2011 with Stacy Compton, and I just kept racing. I didn’t really have any great success at it, but it was just laps and race craft, and it all came together today. Q-How did you keep your faith up knowing you went through those ups and downs, especially when you weren’t sure if you were going to go up to Ganassi with what happened, and then you get this opportunity with Trackhouse, and obviously excelled with it?ROSS CHASTAIN: Yeah, there were some days there where I didn’t know. Turns out Justin pretty much knew all along. When the sale happened, I texted him. I was at a wheel force test with Chevy and said I want this, and he said I know. Give me some time.To me that time should have been five minutes. I was, like, okay, just respond and say you got the job, but took some days and weeks. We were talking and figuring it out, and this is big business. This is big business racing, and this is a huge industry. You don’t just get the ride because you want it. I get that.But I don’t know how I could have ever scripted my career and the people that I met along the way, the people that I hurt along the way, the people that I wronged along the way, but it’s all got me here one way or the other.Part way through last year, I’ve said it in several interviews. I don’t know why I keep bringing it up. Because it helped me, but Mike Metcalf gave me a book called “It Takes What It Takes”. And it reset my whole mindset.I didn’t get worked up today when we had the lead. I didn’t get too high, and I didn’t get too low whenever we lost the lead to Tyler. It just is what it is. And thank neutral and go get it in the next opportunity. Q-I bet you can guess what I’m going to revisit. Yesterday I asked you about winning on a road course, and you said, I’m not a road course driver. I’m not good at road courses. Look what you did today. How special is it for you to get that first win on a road course?ROSS CHASTAIN: I’ve went to school when every driver is working to be the best race car driver that they can be, and I have been no different.Over the years I tried to be better, and Chevy gives us a ton of support. Once I became a backed Chevy driver in 2018, the resources I had at my disposal were incredible. I’ve tried to never go to sleep without using one of their resources, and it’s cost me other things in life and creature comforts of personal life.I’ve never sacrificed — no driver does, but I never sacrifice anything that I couldn’t. If there’s just one little thing I could do with the group of boys and girls that Chevrolet gives to us drivers, I just know what it was like without that, and I realize now how unfair that is, right, but they give us drivers the resources to become better.It might be something very small, and there’s been a few things I’ve learned that are huge. I’ve put in work. I’ve came out here to COTA both years ahead of the race and rented — one was a Skip Barber car, and one was just another race car. And it was just to get laps at this place. And I just did it last week, and it’s just — I just need to keep getting better.I didn’t feel like I could come here without showing up ahead of time and getting some laps. It’s not always convenient, but I want to be — everybody does, we want to be the best race car drivers we can be. Really the job never stops. Q-I would assume then you wouldn’t have necessarily years ago thought you were going to get your first win at a road course?ROSS CHASTAIN: Several years ago I just wanted to — I thought I had found my niche in the sport. I thought I found a comfortable spot. I thought I could make a living. It wasn’t glamorous by any means, but it was a way to stay in the sport that I loved and do what I loved.And I was preparing myself to get more involved with the farm back home and probably live in Florida more, travel to the races on the weekends, and not put a lot of effort, put more effort into the farm during the week, and then come back to the races.I was a few years out from that, but I had come to terms with that, and then in 2018 that all changed. Q-Phil, has Ross’ driving elevated, or has the new car elevated his driving? What do you see in him?PHIL SURGEN: Obviously, been running good this year. Better this year with the new car than the old car, but I don’t think it’s elevated his driving.You look back at a lot of the — particularly the road course events last year. We came here and finished fourth in the rain, and the other road courses were a high point for us as well.I don’t think it’s elevated it. It’s always been there. We’ve been working hard to put the car under him that he needs, and it showed today. THE MODERATOR: Phil, congratulations. We’ll move you along to your next stop. We’ll continue on the floor. Q-One for Ross and one for Justin. Ross, you and I have talked through the years about the good and the bad and things like that. How does a watermelon farmer from Florida process their first NASCAR Cup Series win, making the Playoffs with that, and then going ahead with this new team building your career?ROSS CHASTAIN: I don’t know how to process it yet. I sit here, and I look at this, and I think back to the stories of our family. They were in south Georgia for a long time. My great granddad moved the family south to Florida. My granddad two years in to living in Punta Gorda, Florida, enlisted in the service, he and his brother, because it was going to be a better life.You think about that, and that’s unfathomable for me. They came back, built the farm up. My dad and uncle became old enough to farm on their own. They’ve grown the farm to an incredible spot. And when you just think about agriculture right now, it’s scary. We don’t have crop insurance. In our area it’s not a thing. I think it’s coming down the pipe, but it really keeps the number of watermelon farmers to a very small group of us, probably five or six, there’s probably ten. We just honed in on watermelons as the family business. It started eight generations ago. Really before that 12 generations ago they were farming, but back then everybody farmed. We stuck with it, for better or worse, and every generation has stayed with it.When I look at that, and I think about what my great grandfather and farther back and then my granddad, what he has lived through, it’s incredible that we’ve been able to get into this sport.My dad liked it. Did some hobby racing. Got me into it. Mark Martin, which was here today, came by my car. Mark Martin the NASCAR driver came by my car and gave me a fist-bump and said, You’re awesome, with some other words. I love what you are doing, and keep being bad to the bone. He said some other words.I was, like, wow. His son Matt was the reason I wanted to race. They raced at 417 at my local track in The Fast Kid Series. Bobby Diehl ran it. And we ran the next race. It was Matt’s last race.To think back to the farming and then tie that into the racing, how my career has went, it’s just like there was never — I wanted to race, and that’s all I wanted to do. All this extra stuff now and to get to talk about watermelons on a national level, get to talk about agriculture in a positive light.It’s a scary world, and a small minority of people are very vocal, and they think that farmers are trying to kill them and hurt them, and it’s just not the case. We’re trying to feed the world.It’s a very small number of people in the world that grow the crops that feed this world and feed this population worldwide, so it’s a thankless job for the farmers. The real farmers. I’m just the one that gets to talk about it now, but I think for farmers and small racers everywhere, this is a big win. Obviously, I think so. Q-Justin, we know you are also a race car driver and pretty darn good on road courses. You have your own team. Have you considered getting a third car going just for a couple of one-offs to try it out?JUSTIN MARKS: No. I would like to drive the car. I think it would be fun to drive the car, but I think those days have passed me by, at least at this level.I have a Trans-Am car, and I’ll go have some fun. But I think what’s really interesting about today is — Ross alluded to it a little bit — it kind of makes sense. I came up road racing, and I never really got the car figured out on the ovals in NASCAR and really tried to develop my racing craft.Through that process Ross and I spent a lot of time together at the race tracks, and I tried to help him where I could help him and watched him get faster and faster and faster.For us to come and for him to be the one that delivered the first win for this company at a road course is just — it’s just kind of a cool story. It just kind of makes sense. It’s kind of wild.ROSS CHASTAIN: It makes sense? I don’t think it makes sense.JUSTIN MARKS: Makes sense to me.I love racing. I love race cars. I always have since I was four years old, as much today as at any point in my career. And I made a decision a couple of years ago that if I was going to fly to the top of the heights of this sport, I was going to have to do it on this side, not in the race car, and we have. Q-Ross, the watermelon you smashed today, was that the watermelon you started the season with?ROSS CHASTAIN: No, no, it didn’t last. No. That one was actually last week. We got rid of that one and got a new one. Q-(No microphone)ROSS CHASTAIN: We buy them at the grocery store just like everybody else does. My food comes from the grocery store, and our watermelons for NASCAR Cup Series victories do too. Q-Your dad wasn’t here. You talked to him on FaceTime, but your mom was here. Can you just share what it was like interacting with them for the first time after this? What did you tell them?ROSS CHASTAIN: I don’t know how to put it into words. Obviously, they were the first two, right? Yeah, I wish my dad was here. So with our farm, him and my brother, Chad — my dad Ralph and my brother Chad, they farm and run JDI Farms. And there’s five full-time people, and we bring in a crew to plant, to water the plants, plant the plants, harvest the plants.If Chad comes to the race, my dad stays back, and if my dad comes to the race, Chad stays back, and Chad spots. Chad is the one, he raced at Watkins Glen for Niece Motorsports last year, and it’s my dad stayed back to keep the farm going. No different than any other business: if the boss is away, the mice will play, right?You got to stay on everybody, and plants are in the ground, and we’ll start harvesting in a few weeks. This is our go time to grow the watermelons. So, yeah, I wish he was here, but my mom is here, and she’s just supported me the whole way.That was the closest I came to crying after the race and just now just thinking about she doesn’t get to come to as many as she wants to. She’s a traveling nurse, so she’s working an assignment now in north Georgia doing what she wants to do, right? She likes to take care of people, and she wants to save lives, and she’s worked through COVID and never backed down and has actually saved lives.For her to take time out of her schedule to come and to work her work schedule around to be here, it’s not lost on me. Chad comes and spots, and hopefully gets to race a little more. And we’re just racers. So I wish dad was here, wish a lot of people were here, but that’s not how the world works. Q-I have a couple more for Ross. When you hear that Ganassi is being sold, do you think my chances of winning a Cup race are not good because you don’t know what it’s going to do to that time, and you don’t know what your future is?ROSS CHASTAIN: No, that thought didn’t cross my mind. It was more the text I got a few hours before was Justin bought Chips. I said, I hope you mean Doritos.JUSTIN MARKS: What did you say?ROSS CHASTAIN: I said I hope you mean Doritos. I knew exactly what it meant, but I had — my blind humor was, and it was instant. I looked over at Darrian Grubb, who was sitting next to me. We were at the wheel force test.I said, do you know?He is, like — I looked at him.He said, What’s wrong? I said, Do you know?Know what?I showed him the text, and he is, like, I got to make a call. Then I made a call. Yeah, it’s for real.Once I knew it was Justin, I knew I had a shot, but I’ve been around enough to know, in the small scale I’ve seen the business side of this, and I know the numbers that it takes to fund these deals. I just didn’t know what this meant.Yeah, there was some definite questions, and the answer I got was some questions just aren’t ready to be answered.No, did I think I would never win a Cup race? That thought did not cross my mind. I just didn’t know if I would ever — more it was I didn’t know if I would ever drive in Cup again. Q-Did that text come from Spire, I guess?ROSS CHASTAIN: T.J. Q-Does the fact that AJ isn’t running full-time and isn’t trying to get a Playoff spot, does that go through your head at all and influence the move that you made?ROSS CHASTAIN: No, it’s just a race car. I know who I’m racing around. I’m aware of my surroundings. And honestly, through the carousel I thought with Alex to my right and AJ ahead of me, I didn’t think there was a way to win. When we got to 19, everything happened, and it was not the plan.The plan was stay out front when we took the white, and I just babied it. I eased it into 12 too much, and he got to me. It only took a small little bump in 15. I was so loose through there all day. You saw it in qualifying. It’s where I slipped up and missed the fast five and was managing that all day, and it only took a small little bit.No, I don’t race anybody any different.I’ve cost AJ a win at Daytona in the Xfinity Series, and he was obviously a quarter mile away from winning here. He has taught me a lot, and I’m sure that our friendship will hurt for this. I feel like I had started to win some of his friendship back, and just being nice to each other when you see each other. It took a while.I hate that because I’ve lived through that in my career for 12th place in Xfinity. I’ve fought, and I’ve roughed people up and gotten into people. I’ve wrecked Justin Marks. He was going to win Road America in 2016, 2017. I wrecked him and James Davidson for no reason. It’s not lost on me that I make some of the same mistakes. It’s just staring down a Cup Series win. I just couldn’t let that go. Q-My question is, with the last four races you’ve had four top three finishes. What do you attribute your recent success in the NexGen car, and can you carry this momentum all the way to Phoenix in November?ROSS CHASTAIN: I don’t know. You never know your next race how you’re going to run. This car is so volatile to drive. One bottom-out in the car one time at California, and I hit the wall almost head on and destroyed it. Kicked off our season in the hole.It’s no guarantees. We have to keep working hard. We’ve had this talk after the third — the first, third, and first second, I guess or maybe even after Vegas I think because Daniel had ran good at California. Then we ran good at Vegas. And Ty Norris got in front of the shop and said, Look, this is not the time to stop. This is not the time to rest on what we’re doing. Yes, it’s great, but this is what we’re here to do. We’re winners. Believe it. You keep building the cars like this, Daniel and Ross can win.It hasn’t slowed down, and I don’t expect it to slow down. Q-How do you stay neutral now?ROSS CHASTAIN: Man, it’s not easy, but that’s the whole point, right? You have to work at it. It’s not easy in the car to not get excited when I take the lead. It’s not easy to get down whenever I lose the lead.It’s not. It’s hard. This stuff is hard. Mentally thinking the right things for me in those moments are so challenging, and it’s something that I’ve just had to work at. No different than doing push-ups or air squats or running or biking. Mentally I have to work at it because I’m not good at that.I feel like just like I have to work to be a good road course racers, to turn right. Turning left kind of came natural. I will say that. From an early age I felt like guys I would race against a lot of times tried too hard, but I could race with anybody growing up, and mentally I didn’t realize that until the last few years that that’s a job. That’s a workout. That takes effort.It’s easy to get down. It’s easy to get depressed. We live this glamorous life, and we fly all over and race cars for a living, and everybody in this room covers it, and we all live this life, but everybody is fighting stuff. Everybody has things that pull at them. It’s easy to get down.Fighting that, you have to — I have to fight it. I have to, no, get that out. Back to the basics. Okay. Do I need to warm my tires? Do I need to keep the engine cool? What gear am I in? I’m dropping the clutch to fire behind the pace car and about to lose my spot because the ignition is off. Quit messing up. Focus. How much brake temperature do I need? What can I control? That’s how I stay neutral. Q-Ross, was that your brother? I’m assuming that was Chad that you picked up.ROSS CHASTAIN: Yeah. Q-What was that moment like? What did you guys say? Then I have a quick follow-up.ROSS CHASTAIN: We were screaming. You know, I just couldn’t leave him back there. He supported my entire career. We’re six years apart. He watched me race growing up. His racing car just didn’t have the opportunities that I did and the investment it takes to get going as a kid at 18 years old or now 16 for the Truck Series in some races. It’s only going up, and it’s just astronomical.It’s one of those things that the fact that he is — we’re brothers. We’re just, it’s us. We have a big family, and it starts at the top with our grandparents, our Mima and granddaddy on my dad’s side, our Mima and Papa on my mom’s side. To have all four we know we’re lucky, but what they’ve built into our family, the family that they’ve built is — I just couldn’t leave him back there.As soon as I got done doing my burnouts and in one, I was, like, Chad where are you at? Get out on the track. Then I drove slow. I didn’t do any burnouts with him. I just eased around the track, but I wasn’t going to leave him back there and make him fight his way into the track. Get in. We’re going. We won because he is my brother and I love him. Q-When will you let it soak in, and how will you celebrate?ROSS CHASTAIN: I don’t know. I don’t know that that question is ready to be answered.JUSTIN MARKS: That will probably be the topic of discussion on the flight home?ROSS CHASTAIN: Yeah.JUSTIN MARKS: We will celebrate. Q-Justin, as much as Ross won the race, Suarez dominated stage one, led all 15 laps. Circumstances prevented him from being contending for the win, but obviously he had a solid start to the day, and obviously, showing the same kind of speed that Ross has shown all year.JUSTIN MARKS: Yeah. Super, super proud of the 99 team. Daniel was very focused this week and put a lot of pressure on himself to try to deliver a win today, and circumstances dictated otherwise.He wants it really, really bad, and I know that it’s coming for him soon. He has a ton of speed. He has a great team behind him. We’re all behind him. He lost his power steering with 28 laps, had no power steering the last 28 laps of this race. He was a warrior and soldier to finish this thing.He has a lot of fight in him. He is not going to give up until we get him in Victory Lane. I think both of our cars will be in the Playoffs this year. We just got to make sure we put them in that position. Q-This is going to seem weird. Daniel, last year it was all him. This team started with him. I’ve seen this happen before. I saw it happen with your buddy Shank last year when Helio got the first win. Could Daniel be disappointed that he didn’t get the first win?JUSTIN MARKS: Yeah, of course. I think he is gutted today. Especially after leading every lap in the first stage and winning it, and he was so early in the process of building Trackhouse that I think in his mind he was always going to be the guy that was going to deliver our first win. I think that’s hard on him.But in a way I always try to take the long view on this stuff. These are our guys. These are our drivers. We’re building a team around both these guys, and that’s what I’ll tell him this week is you have an awesome opportunity to win Richmond in five days from now, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.These guys are all so competitive. We’ve done a good job at Trackhouse building two teams that really, really help each other. But when you distill that all the way down to the glory of winning a race and your first career race and sticking a Chevy in the Playoffs, it’s hard. It’s hard to navigate that teamwork, that selflessness and all that.He is gutted. He came over and gave Ross a hug. He understands the mission here, and he is probably already thinking about Richmond. And I’m excited to see what he is going to do the next couple of weeks. Sure, it’s human nature. Q-For the record, how many Ganassi people did you keep? How much of this is old Ganassi?JUSTIN MARKS: I think we have 128 people on the payroll, and 110, 105? Really a lot of them. It was important for me to keep a lot of those people because they know that building, they know workflow in that building, they’re used to working together. It’s a pretty tall mountain to climb if you put 120 people together that have never worked together and say, Go do this.There was some attrition. There were some people in the company that didn’t see it and went to go do something else, and that’s fine. The group that was left is fully, fully bought in. I’m really happy for all of them. Q-Do you count Ross in that number, by the way, of 105 people that you —JUSTIN MARKS: Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. He raced out of that building, you know? Q-I didn’t know if he is independent because you didn’t…JUSTIN MARKS: No, absolutely. Q-So, Ross, he has said several times that it was always you, but it had to be — he had to be quiet and do things quietly. He also said you texted him that as he was leaving the stage at the press conference. Why did you want all in, and how did you convince him? I guess he didn’t have to be. It was always you.ROSS CHASTAIN: I didn’t convince him. He already knew. It was important to just — I have a good group around me, and it was like, What do we do? I had to fight off the fear. They asked at the wheel force test, Are you ready to get back in? I said, No, I need ten minutes. Ten turned into 30. They’re, like, We’ve got to get going. I said, You don’t want me driving your car right now.Once I sent the text — this sounds funny. I’ve done all I can do. He knows. He will see it when he sees it, but I still have a job to do here, so we finished out the day. Q-What did the text say?ROSS CHASTAIN: I want this. Q-What did Daniel say?ROSS CHASTAIN: Out there? Everything is a blur. Good job, proud of you. Yeah. I can’t believe I still have a voice, honestly. My right hand hurts from high-fiving and hugging people and slapping people. My back is probably bruised from all the punches I got in the back, slaps. Q-Ross, I have two questions for you. Your journey within NASCAR to this point started July 29th, 2011, in a Truck race at Indianapolis Raceway Park. At what point in the last 11 years since that night did you allow yourself to believe that what you did today could happen, would happen, was possible?ROSS CHASTAIN: I’m a good couch racer. I believed for a long time, but Justin asked me on the front stretch, Do you believe yet? I would say that I still struggle with that.Yeah, I don’t view myself as a Cup Series winning race car driver. I just feel like I have to work to get there, and I’m not there yet. There’s so many mistakes I make.There’s mental, but physical. There’s the shifting, the braking, just the feedback in practice. There’s so many ways to mess this stuff up, and I haven’t done it perfect yet. I’ve learned to think neutral and just, okay, don’t get too worked up if I do something wrong. Just right back to it. It hasn’t happened yet. Q-You didn’t get your first real chance in race-winning equipment until the last five years or so. You’ve been in everything a driver could want or need to drive to get to this point. What’s your message to drivers who are currently where you used to be in back marker cars? What’s your message to them today?ROSS CHASTAIN: There is no right or wrong way to do this. You see guys every year take a different path. If you don’t have the resources to go rent or get in or you’re not hired to drive something really good and in the lower series, it’s just the economics of this sport. You kind of have to bring something.Wherever you can plug in, I mean, I’m a proponent of starting out. You race. You just race everything you can. As long as you’re at the track, you have a chance to — you just never know, right? I’ve carried around an extra set of driving stuff in case somebody got sick, and I’ve blown up in races and started races and then gotten in somebody else’s truck to finish the race for them.You just have to keep going. If you are bought in — you have to buy in. You have to live in Mooresville or the area. You just have to be there.Something comes up and you meet a crew chief and run into him at lunch, and he is, like, Hey, we don’t have a driver or his money fell through. I don’t have anything, but I’ll drive it. That’s how the Mario — that’s how the DGM deal.That’s how I drove for Mario Gosselin yesterday was last Friday we’re headed to Atlanta, and he is looking for somebody with some sponsorship, and I’m, like, well, I don’t have anything, but I’ll drive it. He was, like, You’ll drive it? Yeah. Mario, yeah, I want to race. I want to race.He couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t believe that he let me drive. I think that it’s surreal that I get to drive race cars for a living, so if you are able to do that in this sport, if you can pay your bills, and you have to give up a lot. You have to give up a personal life.Some guys balance both. I’ve never been able to balance both. I’m 29 and single and just chasing race cars. I know it sounds silly to say, but that’s a conscious effort to do that. THE MODERATOR: Justin, Ross, congratulations. Tremendous win today. Good luck next week at Richmond.

Austin Dillon Earns Career-Best Road Course Result with Top-10 Finish in the No. 3 Bennett Transportation & Logistics Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 at COTA

10th

21st

18th

“We finished in the top 10 in the No. 3 Bennett Transportation & Logistics Chevrolet, which is a really great testament to all of the hard work everyone has put into our road course program at RCR and ECR. We came from a long way back after qualifying 21st on Saturday, and then we had a little bit of pit trouble that sent us back even further during the race. Luckily, these races are really long so you can’t let an early penalty get you down. As a team, we just stayed focused and we were able to progress and make the car better. We were able to just keep going and get all the way up there to finish where we needed to. We were really good on those restarts at the end. To come back after two bad races, where we were taken out of the race and it was out of our own hands, feels good. We kept this one in our hands all day and it was wild there at the end. It feels great to get a top 10. COTA is probably not our best track, but it’s becoming better and better for us. I’m really proud of our guys and the effort that we put in our Bennett Transportation & Logistics Chevrolet.”-Austin Dillon

Tyler Reddick and the No. 8 3CHI Chevrolet Lead Laps and Have Spectacular Showing at COTA

5th

4th

10th

“This one hurts because we were so close to a win, but I know that we will find Victory Lane in the No. 8 3CHI Chevrolet soon. We were strong today, and spent most of the race contending in the top five. We were leading the race on the final restart, but I just didn’t get a good launch off Turn 1. I almost had the No. 1 car cleared, but didn’t quite. We were really on the loose side all day long and that made us pretty susceptible to getting aggressive at the end. It was just easy to get moved around there and ultimately that was a problem. With just a little bit of pressure from anybody behind us, the back of the car was out of the track. Our Chevy could get through the esses pretty well and could do a lot of things really well, but if we had to battle with other cars in traffic, it was hard to get the good launch off the corner and complete a pass or battle hard. It’s tough to settle for fifth after being so close to a win, but we will learn from today, go back to the simulator and go back to work. Proud of everyone on this team and really thankful to have 3CHI on board the No. 8.” -Tyler Reddick

March 27, 2022

Harrison Burton and the No. 21 Freightliner team came away from Sunday’s EchoPark Texas Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas with a 17^th-place finish plus six Stage points.

Burton lined up 19th for the start of the Cup Series’ first road race of 2022, and ran outside the top 20 until the closing laps of Stage One when crew chief Brian Wilson elected to stay on the track while others ahead of the Freightliner team opted to make pit stops.

Burton moved up to ninth place and collected two Stage points.

After making his pit stop during the caution period following the end of the Stage, Burton returned to the track in 28^th place. He gained six spots before the team used their Stage One strategy again, moving up to seventh at the end of that 15-lap run. He earned another four points there.

In the third and final segment of the race, the No. 21 team found more speed and Burton had moved into the top 15 before being collected in a crash that damaged the right front of his Mustang.

After the pit stop and fresh tires, he returned to the track in 29^th place and had worked his way to 23^rd when another caution flag set up an overtime finish.

A strong drive over the final two laps netted Burton six spots.
 
“It was a good day,” Eddie Wood said. “For the first road-course race of the year it went really well.
 
“Harrison didn’t get turned around or spin on his own, and he made up some spots there at the end.”
 
Wood went on to say it was a good day for the entire Freightliner team.
 
“The pits stops were good,” he said, adding that crew chief Brian Wilson made good decisions from the pit box. “The strategy was good. There was a lot of back and forth about when to pit because there were so many options.
 
“The ones he chose worked out.” 
 
Burton and the No. 21 team now head to Richmond Raceway for next Sunday’s 400-lap run.

NASCAR CUP SERIES CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS ECHOPARK AUTOMOTIVE GRAND PRIX TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES & QUOTES MARCH 27, 2022
 TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:POS.   DRIVER1st      ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 ONX HOMES / IFLY CAMARO ZL12nd     ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL14th      CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 LLUMAR FILMS CAMARO ZL15th      TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 3CHI CAMARO ZL19th      ERIK JONES, NO. 43 FOCUSFACTOR CAMARO ZL110th    AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BENNETT CAMARO ZL1  TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS: POS.  DRIVER1st      Ross Chastain (Chevrolet)  2nd    Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)3rd      Christopher Bell (Toyota)4th      Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)5th      Tyler Reddick (Chevrolet)
The NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Richmond Raceway with the Toyota Owners 400 on Sunday, April 3, at 3:30 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 ONX HOMES / IFLY CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 1stChastain has been so close this year to getting that first career win. Ross, today you couldn’t be denied. You had to fend them off at the end. You go from first to third. There was beating, there was begging. What was that last lap like, and what is this first win like?“I don’t know. It’s insane. To go up against some of the best with AJ (Allmendinger) – I mean, I know he is going to be upset with me; but we raced hard, both of us, and he owes me one. But when it comes to a Cup win, man, I can’t let that go down without a fight. So, Justin Marks, Trackhouse, AdventHealth, the Moose. A million Moose members, they better be celebrating tonight all across the country and the world. Phil Surgen (Crew Chief), man. He is so good. People don’t know how good this group is. I can’t believe Justin Marks hired me to drive this car.”
You lost control of that final restart. You get a good restart on the outside, which nobody had done. What did you have to do to make that happen, and how is that watermelon tasting right now?“It’s never tasted sweeter, I got to tell you. I don’t know. I don’t know how we got back by. I was so worried about AJ (Allmendinger) on the second-to-last restart that I let Tyler (Reddick) drive right by both of us. And AJ is so good. I’ve learned so much from him. And it was like how do you go beat the guy? He taught me so much. I’ve learned so much from so many people from 417 Speedway back home with my dad.I was thinking about on those late restarts, my dad used to make me race on old tires, and back then I was not going to win. It was in my head before I even started. It crossed my mind, like, We’re not going to win, we’re on old tires, but I couldn’t think that way. I thought neutral. Chevrolet, everything they do for me gave me the tools to try to go execute and we did it.” AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BENNETT CAMARO ZL1– Finished 10^th“Finished top-10 and we were really good on those restarts at the end. Came from a long way back. You know we had a little pit trouble that sent us back, but we were able to just keep going and get all the way up there to finish where we needed to. Luckily these races are really long, so you can’t let an early penalty get you down. Just stay focused and we were able to progress and make the car better. To come back after two bad races getting taken out kind of out of our own hands, we kept this one in our hands all day and it was wild there at the end. It feels great to get a top-10. Probably not our best track that we would look forward to coming to and it’s becoming better and better for us. Really proud of our guys and the effort that we put in our Bennett Chevrolet.” TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 3CHI CAMARO ZL1– Finished 5^thWALK ME THROUGH THOSE LAST FEW LAPS“Yeah, just didn’t get a good launch off turn one. And just almost had the 1 car cleared but didn’t quite. We were really on the loose side all day long and that make us pretty susceptible to getting aggressive at the end. So, was just easy to get moved around there and that was kind of a problem I had all day. Just a little bit of pressure I had from anybody, and the back of this car was out of the track. It could get through the esses pretty good and could do a lot of things really well, but we just missed it in a little way where if we had to battle with other cars in traffic, it was really hard to get the good launch off the corner and complete a pass or really battle hard. So, it was tough, but we will learn from it and go back to the simulator and go back to work.” CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 LLUMAR CAMARO ZL1– Finished 4^thWHAT WAS YOUR POINT OF VIEW AND WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO DO TO HAVE A FINISH THIS SOLID? YOU FOUGHT FOR IT ALL DAY LONG CHASE.“Yeah, I didn’t really have to do anything. They just kind of wrecked and they were out of the way so I just kind of ran it on the road and I got a free couple of positions, so I will take it.”
YOU AND KYLE BUSCH WERE GETTING INTO IT A LITTLE BIT EARLY OR WERE YOU GETTING INTO IT? WAS THERE ANYTHING HOT AND HEAVY BETWEEN YOU TWO?“No, I messed up earlier in the race.  I got crossed up in the braking zone and hit him. Obviously, we were racing for last and probably weren’t even racing for Stage points and I think he knows me better than that. But yeah, that was completely on me…….and my fault.” AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 16 ACTION INDUSTRIES CAMARO ZL1– Finished 33rd“This Action Industries Chevy was so fast, and our pit stops were great all day. If we had a long run, nobody was going to touch us. I’m so proud of everyone at Kaulig Racing. All these men and women have had a lot of sleepless nights trying to just get these cars to the next race. I was doing everything I could do to try to sweep the weekend for them. We were that close. We know we had a shot to win the race. It’s tough to win a Cup race, so when you put yourself in a position to legitimately run up front all day and have a shot to win it, it’s a pretty great day. Unfortunately, just we needed about two more corners.” WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 RAPTORTOUGH.COM CAMARO ZL1– Finished 12th“Tough day. Definitely put us behind with the speeding penalty. We were going to cycle out there in between AJ (Allmendinger) and Reddick (Tyler) and messed it up on my part. I thought our car was decent all day. Definitely some things to work on, but good to come home 12^th, get a solid finish and we’ll be good at Richmond and Martinsville. Looking forward to it.” ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1– Finished 2^ndWHAT’S YOUR TAKEAWAY ON THAT LAST LAP IN THE BATTLE FOR THE WIN?“We had a really fast Ally Chevrolet Camaro and I have been trying to do a better job as a race car driver at these road courses and I felt like from where I started the weekend, we accomplished that. So, thanks to Greg (Crew Chief Ives) and all the guys and really happy for Ross (Chastain) in getting his first win. Its been a crap weekend, so I am ready to get home and see the dogs and move on to next weekend. But glad to come home with a second place finish.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS ECHO PARK AUTOMOTIVE GRAND PRIX TEAM CHEVY RACE WIN QUICK NOTES & QUOTE MARCH 27, 2022

ROSS CHASTAIN CAPTURES FIRST-CAREER NASCAR CUP SERIES WIN AT COTACamaro ZL1 Scores Fourth NCS Victory of 2022 Behind the wheel of his No. 1 ONX/iFly Camaro ZL1, Ross Chastain scored his first-career NASCAR Cup Series win in the 2nd Annual EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas (COTA).  ·       Ross Chastain scored his first-career NASCAR Cup Series victory in 121 starts in the series.  ·       It also marks the first NASCAR Cup Series triumph for Trackhouse Racing in the organization’s second season of competition. ·       Chastain’s triumph is the fourth of the season for the Camaro ZL1, and the second victory for Chevrolet at COTA. ·       The winningest brand in NASCAR, Chevrolet now sits at 818 all-time NASCAR Cup Series victories.  ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 ONX HOMES/iFLY CAMARO ZL1 – Race Winner Quick QuoteQ.Chastain has been so close this year to getting that first career win. Ross, today you couldn’t be denied. You had to fend them off at the end. You go from first to third. There was beating, there was begging. What was that last lap like, and what is this first win like?ROSS CHASTAIN: “I don’t know. It’s insane. To go up against some of the best with AJ (Allmendinger) – I mean, I know he is going to be upset with me; but we raced hard, both of us, and he owes me one.
But when it comes to a Cup win, man, I can’t let that go down without a fight. So, Justin Marks, Trackhouse, AdventHealth, the Moose. A million Moose members, they better be celebrating tonight all across the country and the world.
Phil Surgen (Crew Chief), man. He is so good. People don’t know how good this group is. I can’t believe Justin Marks hired me to drive this car.”
Q.You lost control of that final restart. You get a good restart on the outside, which nobody had done. What did you have to do to make that happen, and how is that watermelon tasting right now?ROSS CHASTAIN: “It’s never tasted sweeter, I got to tell you. I don’t know. I don’t know how we got back by. I was so worried about AJ (Allmendinger) on the second-to-last restart that I let Tyler (Reddick) drive right by both of us.
And AJ is so good. I’ve learned so much from him. And it was like how do you go beat the guy? He taught me so much. I’ve learned so much from so many people from 417 Speedway back home with my dad.
I was thinking about on those late restarts, my dad used to make me race on old tires, and back then I was not going to win. It was in my head before I even started. It crossed my mind, like, We’re not going to win, we’re on old tires, but I couldn’t think that way. I thought neutral.
Chevrolet, everything they do for me gave me the tools to try to go execute and we did it.” 

Watkins crosses in 17th to finish runner-up in points, Ferguson drives Sanders No. 42 to 11th

GAFFNEY, SC – March 26, 2022 – Coming into the final race of the winter season, Ross Bailes faced an uphill battle unlike few he’s seen before in the seat of a Super Late Model. Staring into the face of defiance, not once did he flinch.

Seventeen points stood between he the 2021-22 Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar Series championship going into Saturday night’s Rock Gault Memorial finale at Cherokee Speedway. Starting fourth, Bailes drove the Billy Hicks Racing Longhorn No. 79 to a runner-up finish against a field of World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Model Series drivers, besting Ben Watkins by 15 positions to overcome a 17-point gap between the two in the standings and clinch his first Xtreme Series title.

“It feels good, I’m just glad it’s over,” Bailes said with a sigh of relief.

VIEW FINAL POINTS STANDINGS

While full-time Outlaw Max Blair celebrated in Victory Lane with the $20,000 Feature winner’s check, Bailes collected a $15,000 check of his own as Xtreme Series champion, plus a $1,000 bonus from Drydene Performance Products. He endured 60 laps of green-flag racing and kept his tires under him in a slight game of tire wear management while his competition stumbled, forced to come from out of the Last Chance races to make the show.

“Something I didn’t want to do was blow a tire running second,” Bailes, of Clover, SC, said. “There were times where I could have got up beside Max. If I wasn’t running for points, I might have done some things different or went a little harder.”

Bailes began the night with a bang, qualifying second in Group B and winning his Heat Race to claim a spot in the redraw. His championship rivals struggled – Watkins 11th-quick and Carson Ferguson 12th. This gave him a big advantage in track position for the Feature – an important element in longer-length main events.

Once Bailes got to second behind Blair, the two played a cat-and-mouse game in traffic. Though he was never able to make the pass, Bailes still had the pressure turned on full blast.

“We came here to win the race,” Bailes said. “I’m not gonna say we we’re stressing about it, but it was obviously in the back of our minds. Just like at Lavonia [in February], when Ben took the lead, I felt like there was a top there, but I didn’t want to go and try it because I didn’t want to lose more spots and points.”

Further back in the pack, Watkins was holding onto the 17th-18th spots, forcefully trying to muster the momentum needed to start gaining spots in the field.

“Especially around here, the competition’s just so tough,” Watkins, of Lancaster, SC, said. “We got behind a little bit early and it was just so hard to recover.”

Though he did not recover in the running order, he was able to hold on for a runner-up finish in the Xtreme Series standings – one worth $8,000.

“We’re still going to hold our heads up and be happy,” Watkins said. “We came into this thing pretty optimistic in going for the championship. It was nice to have a good run at it.”

Watkins and the Sandwood Racing/Wesley Page team put in a great deal of work in their pursuit for the Series title, shining especially in their efforts to repair the broken rear-end components that dropped them out of the Feature on Friday.

“It definitely makes us feel good,” Watkins said. “Last year when we teamed-up with Wesley and got something going, everything was fresh. I felt like coming into the start of this season, we had one good year behind us. Everything’s continuing to gel.”

Ferguson also suffered mechanical failure Friday night, breaking an oil pump while leading a Last Chance Showdown. Doug Sanders, veteran driver from McAndenville, NC, loaned Ferguson his car to finish out the weekend, which he drove from 24th-to-11th in Saturday night’s Feature to clinch third-place in the points championship.

“We had a lot of luck at the beginning of the season; definitely didn’t think we’d be in any kind of points chase with this deal,” Ferguson said. “We just ran it to get some seat time through the winter before the regular season started.

“After a few races, we found ourselves [tied for the lead] in the points after the first night at Lavonia, and that’s when the bad luck started.”

His near-top-10 Saturday night did break a stretch of two DNFs, which started with an untimely wreck at Lavonia Speedway in February and continued Friday night at Cherokee. But as a Super Late Model rookie driving for national championship-winning car owners, third-place is a great foundation on which he’ll continue to build his name in the Super ranks.

“I’ve got a lot better than other people starting out,” Ferguson said. “I’ve got a lot of connections that other people don’t when they first start, so a big thanks to Donald and Gena Bradsher and Wesley Page for putting me where I need to be, and now it’s up to me.”

ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)

Rock Gault Memorial Feature (60 Laps): 1. 111V-Max Blair[3]; 2. 79-Ross Bailes[4]; 3. 18D-Daulton Wilson[1]; 4. 71-Hudson O’Neal[8]; 5. 42-Cla Knight[5]; 6. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[6]; 7. 57-Zack Mitchell[7]; 8. 19R-Ryan Gustin[14]; 9. 11H-Spencer Hughes[12]; 10. 69*-Carder Miller[10]; 11. 42S-Carson Ferguson[24]; 12. 1-Brandon Sheppard[2]; 13. 45-Kyle Hammer[9]; 14. 24D-Michael Brown[19]; 15. 421-Anthony Sanders[17]; 16. 16-Tyler Bruening[23]; 17. 16W-Ben Watkins[20]; 18. B1-Brent Larson[21]; 19. 81E-Tanner English[15]; 20. 11D-David Duke[18]; 21. 99B-Boom Briggs[27]; 22. 1R-Josh Richards[25]; 23. 11-Gordy Gundaker[13]; 24. 118-Matt Henderson[11]; 25. 121-Pearson Williams[22]; 26. 16E-Ethan Wilson[26]; 27. 1D-Brent Dixon[16]

Gravel & Macedo Offer Five Lead Changes in Exciting SoCal Showdown

PERRIS, CA – March 26, 2022 – Any of the 10 World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series champions will tell you that the ability to battle adversity is crucial in climbing the mountaintop.

If you’re one of the best, you’re certainly going to experience a fair share of glorious moments over the course of a 90-race schedule, but you’re not exempt from the bumps in the road. It’s about how you handle those moments that define your season.

On Saturday, David Gravel and Big Game Motorsports passed their first true test of the season with flying colors. From on the wrecker with a junked race car at 10pm Friday night to basking in victory lane’s confetti at 10pm on Saturday, the #2 boys excelled with an A+ bounce back.

“This feels really good,” a relieved Gravel said post-race. “I feel like we’ve been in contention to win every race this year but maybe one, so to have a 15th & 23rd following that start to the season was a bit depressing. We knew we were fast every night, but the results just didn’t show for it. These guys busted their asses today to make this possible. They woke up super early, built this new car, and it all paid off.”

A 7am alarm clock and all-day effort from Cody Jacobs, Trey Bowman, and Zach Patterson eventually led to the new car being finished just before hot laps. From there, Gravel took the wheel and did what he does best – timing in second, winning the heat, and topping a wild 30-lapper at Perris Auto Speedway.

To seal the deal on the rewarding comeback, Gravel was forced to manage a race that featured the most lead changes this season. He and Carson Macedo swapped the top spot on five occasions, including a pair of sliders on Lap 28 as things got heated. The Watertown, CT native then survived a green-white-checkered to bank his 71st career win and second of the 2022 season.

“When the #41 slid me like that I was ready to go and I was gonna give it right back at him,” Gravel commented on his battle with Macedo. “Those cautions were killing me, but it all worked out. These guys had to strip down the junked car, build this kit car today, and I’m glad I can reward them with a win. We deserved this win.”

Finishing second for the second-straight night was Corey Day, a teenager who continues to steal headlines across the nation. On Friday, he set the record for youngest runner-up in World of Outlaws history at 16 years, 3 months, 27 days. On Saturday, he took to the PAS 1/2-mile one day wiser and backed up his performance with another P2 effort against The Greatest Show on Dirt.

The Clovis, CA native and prodigy of two-time World of Outlaws champion Jason Meyers dealt with his own slice of adversity, too. Contact with Macedo at the start of the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash sent the #14 flipping before he even had a shot to race for the pole position. After repairs were made, Day started sixth in the Feature and drove forward to earn his second podium in his third-career start.

“Running second against the Outlaws is cool enough, but then to do it two nights in a row is crazy,” said Corey, the son of former west coast sprint car star Ronnie Day. “I watch these guys on DIRTvision every single week and try to learn as much as possible, especially when I’m racing against them. I messed up that last restart again like I did last night, but it’s a teaching moment.”

Finishing third was Carson Macedo of Lemoore, CA in the Jason Johnson Racing, Albaugh #41. He paced the opening seven laps on Saturday, then again controlled laps 9-12, and briefly commanded lap 28, but ultimately took the final step of the podium.

Going for his 20th career win – 5th in his home state of California – Macedo was all over Gravel for the win until a tiny mistake sent the Phil Dietz prepared machine over the cushion and backward at the white flag. It’s their third podium in 10 races as JJR continues to build a championship-contending operation.

“To win these Outlaw races you can’t make any mistakes, and I made too many tonight,” Macedo admitted on the frontstretch. “I felt strong early on, but definitely stalled out when I hit traffic. It’s so tough to be the leader in those situations because you just don’t know where to go. I threw a couple of things at David, but couldn’t land them right in front of him. I just need to get a little sharper.”

Closing out the top-five on Saturday night was championship leader Brad Sweet in fourth-place aboard the Kasey Kahne Racing, NAPA Auto Parts #49, and Sheldon Haudenschild with a west coast best of fifth-place in the Stenhouse Jr. / Marshall Racing, NOS Energy Drink #17.

Rounding out the top-10 at Perris was D.J. Netto in the Netto Ag #88N, Jacob Allen in the Shark Racing #1A, Spencer Bayston in the CJB Motorsports #5, Cory Eliason in the Rudeen Racing #26, and Donny Schatz in the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing #15.

NOS NOTEBOOK (Perris Auto Speedway, 3/27/22)

David Gravel’s 71st career World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series victory brings him to one away from tying Jac Haudenschild for 12th on the All-Time Win List. He’s only 13 wins away from reaching Stevie Smith (84) to enter the top-10.

James McFadden was a contender for the win all throughout Saturday’s 30-lapper in the Roth Motorsports #83. The Australian was running second and tracking down David Gravel for the lead on Lap 26 when a right rear issue sent him to the pit area with a 22nd-place DNF.

Dominic Scelzi of Fresno, CA was in the hunt for his first-career World of Outlaws win before causing the final caution of the night. He was running third in the Scelzi Enterprises #41S and battling for second with Day & Macedo before spinning in turn two on the last lap.

Carson Macedo collected his 10th career Slick Woody’s QuickTime Award by circling Perris Auto Speedway in 14.125 seconds. He and David Gravel are the only drivers to top qualifying on multiple occasions through 10 races. NOS Energy Drink Heat Race wins went to Corey Day (1st career), David Gravel (187th career), and James McFadden (23rd career).

Macedo topped the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash, while Logan Schuchart won the MicroLite Last Chance Showdown and followed that with a KSE Hard Charger Award by running 12th-from-19th.

UP NEXT (Tues) – After three weeks in California, the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series now begins the journey back east. The Greatest Show on Dirt has a busy week with three races including stops at Vado (NM) Speedway Park on Tuesday, March 29, Lawton (OK) Speedway on Friday, April 1, and Devil’s Bowl (TX) on Saturday, April 2.

NOS Energy Drink Feature Results (31 Laps, GWC) – 1. 2-David Gravel [2][$10,000]; 2. 14-Corey Day [6][$6,000]; 3. 41-Carson Macedo [1][$3,500]; 4. 49-Brad Sweet [7][$2,800]; 5. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild [9][$2,500]; 6. 88N-DJ Netto [5][$2,300]; 7. 1A-Jacob Allen [11][$2,200]; 8. 5-Spencer Bayston [8][$2,100]; 9. 26-Cory Eliason [13][$2,050]; 10. 15-Donny Schatz [10][$2,000]; 11. 18-Giovanni Scelzi [12][$1,600]; 12. 1S-Logan Schuchart [19][$1,400]; 13. 24-Rico Abreu [15][$1,200]; 14. 24X-Chase Johnson [16][$1,100]; 15. 21-Mitchell Faccinto [20][$1,050]; 16. 83JR-Kerry Madsen [17][$1,000]; 17. 11K-Kraig Kinser [18][$1,000]; 18. 88-Austin McCarl [21][$1,000]; 19. 7S-Jason Sides [22][$1,000]; 20. 19AZ-Tanner Thorson [23][$1,000]; 21. 41S-Dominic Scelzi [4][$1,000]; 22. 83-James McFadden [3][$1,000]; 23. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [14][$1,000]; 24. 91R-Brody Roa [24][$1,000]. Lap Leaders: Carson Macedo 1-7, 9-12, 28; David Gravel 8, 13-27, 29-31. KSE Hard Charger Award: 1S-Logan Schuchart[+7]

NEW Championship Standings (After 10/85 Races): 1. Brad Sweet (1,400); 2. Carson Macedo (-20); 3. David Gravel (-22); 4. Sheldon Haudenschild (-46); 5. Giovanni Scelzi (-88); 6. James McFadden (-98); 7. Donny Schatz (-100); 8. Logan Schuchart (-104); 9. Cory Eliason (-106); 10. Spencer Bayston (-148).

The Centerville, PA driver held off Ross Bailes for his Fourth Career Series VictoryGAFFNEY, SC– March 27, 2022 – While a World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Feature win slipped through Max Blair’s fingers Friday night, he wouldn’t let his inexperience cost him another victory at Cherokee Speedway.  The Centerville, PA driver took what he learned Friday and used it to his advantage, leading the final 43 laps to win the second annual Rock Gault Memorial Saturday at Cherokee.  A few late-race restarts tested Blair again, as Ross Bailes challenged the Rookie of the Year contender for the win. Blair aced the final two restarts, keeping Bailes at bay for the $20,000 prize.   He had mixed emotions about the multiple yellow flags at the end.   “The first [caution] I was actually really happy about because it got you out of lap traffic and into clean air,” Blair said. “I’m very inexperienced in this type of racing, so being in clean air without those lap cars were a big deal. “The next couple that came out at the end I didn’t want to see. I just can’t believe we just won this race.”  While Blair led most of the race, a break fell his way on Lap 18 while running second to reigning Series champion Brandon Sheppard. The New Berlin, IL driver, pulled away from the field but spun after contact while trying to pass Brent Larson in Turn 4.  Blair seized his opportunity from that point forward but stated he didn’t have anything for Sheppard.  “I think [Sheppard] probably had us covered there,” Blair said. “We had some good fortune on our side there. I hate it for them guys.” Sheppard rebounded to finish 12th. The “Rocket Shepp” looked destined for his 78th career win before the contact dashed his hopes for victory. “The stars were aligned before we got to lap traffic,” Sheppard said. “The lap car in front of me got tight and started to push on the bottom, and I was kind of in the middle rolling around lap cars. When he started to push, I seen it, and I started to check up a little bit, and then he hit the little hole in Turns 3 and 4. I guess he jammed on his brakes, parked right in front of me, and I had nowhere to go.” Ross Bailes settled for second, missing out on the $20,000 payday in front of his home fans. However, while the Clover, SC driver, didn’t find Victory Lane, he did enough to win the Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar Series championship—scoring $15,000.  “We came here wanting to win the race, but obviously, the points deal was in the back of our minds,” Bailes said. I felt like [Blair’s] car either went away, or mine came to at the end. I wish it would’ve stayed green, and I could’ve pressured him a little more and see what would happen.” From Fayetteville, NC, Daulton Wilson finished third, his third consecutive World of Outlaws top-five at Cherokee. He continues to knock on the door for his first win on a national tour and is confident it’ll happen soon. “We’re up and coming, but we’ll keep our head down and keep working,” Wilson said. “If we keep running top three with this crowd, the wins will come.” Hudson O’Neal finished fourth, and North Augusta, SC driver Cla Knight rounded out the top five.  Dennis Erb Jr., who finished sixth, leaves Cherokee Speedway with the Series points lead—30 points ahead of Brandon Sheppard.  Max Blair took the lessons he learned from his heartbreak Friday at Cherokee Speedway and turned it into glory to end the weekend. The more experience he gets, the more of a factor he could be in determining this year’s World of Outlaws CASE Late Models Series Champion.  UP NEXT: The Most Powerful Late Models on the Planet travel to the Land of Lincoln for the Illini 100 at Farmer City Raceway April 1-2. For Tickets: CLICK HERE. If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision – either online or through the DIRTVision App. CASE Construction Feature (60 Laps): 1. 111V-Max Blair[3]; 2. 79-Ross Bailes[4]; 3. 18D-Daulton Wilson[1]; 4. 71-Hudson O’Neal[8]; 5. 42-Cla Knight[5]; 6. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[6]; 7. 57-Zack Mitchell[7]; 8. 19R-Ryan Gustin[14]; 9. 11H-Spencer Hughes[12]; 10. 69*-Carder Miller[10]; 11. 42S-Carson Ferguson[24]; 12. 1-Brandon Sheppard[2]; 13. 45-Kyle Hammer[9]; 14. 24D-Michael Brown[19]; 15. 421-Anthony Sanders[17]; 16. 16-Tyler Bruening[23]; 17. 16W-Ben Watkins[20]; 18. B1-Brent Larson[21]; 19. 81E-Tanner English[15]; 20. 11D-David Duke[18]; 21. 99B-Boom Briggs[27]; 22. 1R-Josh Richards[25]; 23. 11-Gordy Gundaker[13]; 24. 118-Matt Henderson[11]; 25. 121-Pearson Williams[22]; 26. 16E-Ethan Wilson[26]; 27. 1D-Brent Dixon[16] FOX FACTORY HARD CHARGER: Carson Ferguson [+13]

The World of Outlaws Case Construction Equipment Late Model Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: Case Construction Equipment (Official Construction Equipment), DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); contingency sponsors include Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, Fox Factory (Hard Charger Award), MSD, Penske Racing Shocks, Quarter Master, Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award), Swift Springs, and Wrisco–Wieland Metal Services (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including Dirt Car Lift, Capital Race Cars, Behrent’s Performance Warehouse, FIREBULL, Integra Shocks, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, Racing Electronics, Reliable Painting, Rocket Chassis, and Sea Foam.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS® Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts World of Outlaws events over the Internet to fans around the world. Learn more about the World of Outlaws.

Braselton, GEORGIA – March 26, 2022 – Round 3 of the 2022 Trans Am presented by Pirelli Championship season was staged at a cool, fresh Road Atlanta circuit. The race went green around lunchtime and saw former Champion Cameron Lawrence maintain focus when many of the drivers in the TA2 Class were losing theirs. Driving the No. 6 Franklin Road Apparel Chevrolet Camaro, Lawrence came through the pack to finish in P4, lifting himself in the process one place up the drivers’ Championship table to P2. It was a good result for Showtime Motorsports as Lawrence delivered an exciting performance, climbing a dozen places over the course of the race from a grid position of P16 to P4 and just off the podium at the checkered flag. The 23 points Lawrence collected put him on 63 Championship points for the season and in a provisional P2 in the Championship table. We spoke to Cameron after the race and he was understandably pleased that his smooth drive had paid off, “It was a really good race. We just hung in there all weekend. This team just never quits. Same thing in the car: you just can’t ever give up!” He went on to praise the hard work and consistency of the car and team, “Consistency is paying off for us for sure. We’re happy being just one step off the podium. It just shows what this team’s got.” Of his climb up the standings to an impressive P2 of over 45 cars in the Championship, he added, “If we don’t have the fastest car then we just want to score the most points we can and that’s what we’re doing.” Cars were leaving the track at regular intervals at Atlanta but none of that phased Cameron. “We thought there’d be fewer yellow flags than at Charlotte. I didn’t know what to expect. Some of it helped out with cars going off and making some passes.” Next up for Showtime is the TA Class race where the team principal will bid to follow up his 2020 win at the track in the XGT Class. Fans can catch all the action live on the SVRA and Trans Am YouTube Channels. CBS Sports Network Air Times This weekend’s races from Road Atlanta will air on CBS Sports Network the week following the event. TA/XGT/SGT/GT will air on Saturday, April 2 at 6:00 p.m. ET, while TA2 will air on Sunday, April 3 at 5:30 p.m. ET. Fans can find the Franklin Road Apparel Trans Am clothing here: https://www.franklinroad.com/search/trans+am/ Visit the team’s website for Showtime Motorsports showtimemotorsports.net. Learn more about the Showtime Motorsports team partner, Road Apparel, at franklinroad.com and keep up to date with the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli at gotransam.com. #GoTransAm Check out the Showtime Motorsports Facebook page: facebook.com/showtimemotorsp/ and @ShowtimeMotorsp on Instagram. About Showtime Motorsports:The Showtime Motorsports brand includes Ken Thwaits’ racing team and racecars, and an outstanding classic Camaro collection. Showtime Motorsports brings together a dynamic staff who employ diverse talents and share a passion for cars, racing and caring for clients like they are our own family members.

Sheldon Creed Earns Hard-Fought Top-10 Finish in No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet at COTA

10th

6th

11th

“Considering everything this No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet team went through today, we finished well. We started fifth and planned to run up front all day, but it took a while to get going at the beginning of the race. We were having some brake issues, but the Whelen team did a great job addressing that during the race. It felt like once we got the brake issues figured out, we got our Chevy driving a little bit better and passed a lot of cars. Another car turned us in the final stage, and that didn’t do us any favors. We had a fast car at the end, but we needed a little bit more track position. We probably had top-five speed. It is what it is. On to next weekend.” -Sheldon Creed

Austin Hill Thrills with Second-Place Finish in the No. 21 Global Industrial Chevrolet

2nd

8th

6th

“Everyone at RCR did a heck of job building this No. 21 Global Industrial Chevrolet, and it means a lot to be able to show that with a second-place finish at COTA. I guess AJ Allmendinger was just a little bit better than I was, but today showed that we can run with him. We started the race eighth and we kept it clean all day. Andy Street did a really good job with the calls on pit road to gain the track position that we needed. It was a solid effort, but we’ll go back and debrief just to see where I can improve. There were certain spots that I thought AJ was better than us, but we’re still learning and we’ll get the job done next time. Thanks to everyone at Global Industrial for coming on board. I love road course racing.” -Austin Hill

March 26, 2022

Harrison Burton, aboard the No. 21 Freightliner Mustang, posted the fourth-best time in practice on Saturday at Circuit of the Americas, then qualified 19^th for Sunday’s EchoPark Texas Grand Prix.

Burton turned his best lap of practice, at 132.806 miles per hour, on the fifth of his six laps run. He followed that up with a lap at 133.263 mph in qualifying on the road course in Austin, Texas.

“I felt like we had a great practice going p4 but made some changes the car didn’t like for qualifying,” Burton said. “We just didn’t get back out in time to get another shot, but I feel like that was overall a good day and we showed some speed.”

Sunday’s 68-lap, 232-mile race is scheduled to start just after 2:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. Eastern Time) with TV coverage on FOX. Stage breaks are set for Laps 15 and 30.
 

Wood Brothers Racing

Wood Brothers Racing was formedin 1950 in Stuart, Va., by Hall of Famer Glenn Wood. Wood Brothers Racing is the oldest active team and one of the winningest teams in NASCAR history. Since its founding, the team won 99 races (including at least one race in every decade for the last seven decades) and 120 poles in NASCAR’s top-tier series. Fielding only Ford products for its entire history, the WoodBrothers own the longest association of any motorsports team with a single manufacturer. Glenn’s brother, Leonard, is known for inventing the modern pit stop. The team currently runs the Ford Mustang driven by Harrison Burton in the famous No. 21 racer.

NASCAR CUP SERIES CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS ECHO PARK AUTOMOTIVE GRAND PRIX TEAM CHEVY POST-QUALIFYING NOTES MARCH 26, 2022

FOUR CAMARO ZL1’S QUALIFY IN THE TOP-10 AT COTA

TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS:POS.   DRIVER2nd     DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 COMMSCOPE CAMARO ZL14th      TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 3CHI CAMARO ZL15th      ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL19th      JUSTIN HALEY, NO. 31 LEAFFILTER GUTTER PROTECTION CAMARO ZL1
TOP-FIVE UNOFFICIAL QUALIFYING RESULTS: POS.  DRIVER1st      Ryan Blaney (Ford)2nd     Daniel Suarez (Chevrolet)3rd      Cole Custer (Ford)                                                                4th      Tyler Reddick (Chevrolet)5th      Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
FOX will telecast the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas live at 3:30 p.m. ET tomorrow, Sunday, March 27. Live coverage can also be found on PRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

NASCAR CUP SERIES CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS ECHO PARK AUTOMOTIVE GRAND PRIX TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT MARCH 26, 2022

DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 COMMSCOPE CAMARO ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Circuit of The Americas. Press Conference Transcript:  DANIEL, TELL US WHAT YOU THINK YOUR CHANCES ARE THIS WEEKEND HERE AT COTA? “I think our chances are pretty high. I personally love road course racing. I think everyone knows that. I think that this new car is going to level the field a lot, when it comes to road course racing as well, just like we’ve seen on the ovals. It’s going to be fun. I’m really looking forward to that.
On top of the everything, as we know, Trackhouse Racing has a lot of momentum right now on our side. So, we have to take advantage of that and have fun. I think the last time we were here, in practice and qualifying, we were pretty strong; and then we broke in the race. But I feel like we’ll have good speed, so hopefully we can show that today and tomorrow.”
THIS RACE RAN LAST YEAR IN THE RAIN AND THIS YEAR, IT’S GOING TO BE EXPECTED TO BE SUNNY. WHAT TROUBLE AREAS OF THE TRACK DO YOU EXPECT WITH THE BETTER WEATHER CONDITIONS? IS IT THE SAME WITH THE HAIRPEN ON THE BACKSTRAIGHTAWAY OR DO YOU EXPECTED SOMETHING DIFFERENT?“I don’t think we can really compare the two because it’s completely different. In the rain, it was just too unpredictable. You don’t really know what to expect, you’re just trying to go as fast as you can and stay out of the trouble. But at one point, we had too much rain. 
Tomorrow is going to be more like a regular race. I see a good race happening in the Cup Series; even better than the previous races in Cup road course races. Exactly where the action is going to be, I don’t really know. We’re going to find out in practice. But I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a great race.”
NASCAR HAS SOLD QUITE A FEW TICKETS FOR THIS WEEKEND TO FANS FROM MEXICO. HOW DO YOU SEE THIS EVENT HERE AT COTA FOR THE FUTURE OF NASCAR’S GROWTH?“It’s amazing. This is one of the few races that my friends and family can actually come from home and drive here. So, it’s amazing to have a lot of Mexican fans in the stands and in the pits. Yesterday, we went to do an event with one of my sponsors, CommScope, to a couple of schools. I got the opportunity to spend some time with them and I was impressed with the amount of kids that were speaking to me in Spanish in the schools. That’s really amazing for me. That made me feel like home. I’m looking forward to seeing some Mexican flags in the grandstands on Sunday.”
WE’VE TALKED ABOUT YOUR ROAD COURSE RACING. BEING BROUGHT UP IN ROAD COURSE RACING IN MEXICO, WHAT IS IT ABOUT ROAD COURSES THAT MAKES YOU STRONG? “Honestly, I just love road course racing. I find it fascinating. I find it fun. I find it different. I grew up racing go-karts. I never actually raced big cars on road course tracks. A little in NASCAR in Mexico, but not much. But I just enjoy it a lot. I feel that I’ve always been strong at it, but I’ve never been super strong. I have a lot of faith that this car is going to make that difference. I’m excited for that. I’m excited to find that out and see where we can do it. 
Right now, I don’t think anyone is the favorite because everything is new. Here in a couple of hours, we’re going to find out a lot about who has the speed and who doesn’t.”
WHERE DO YOU FIND THE BETTER TACOS, CALIFORNIA OR TEXAS?“I personally found a great place not too far from here. It’s very, very good. I was impressed. I went to this place the last time I was here racing something else and I was impressed with the tacos. Probably one of the best tacos I’ve had in the United States. I came back a couple of days ago and they didn’t disappoint. I remember talking to Julia that there was a lady making the tortillas right there. You know you’re in a good taco place when they have somebody just specifically making tortillas there. It was a good time. Maybe we can go tonight again.”
IT’S NOT IF TRACKHOUSE RACING WILL WIN A CUP RACE, BUT WHEN. WHEN THAT MOMENT FINALLY COMES, WHETHER IT’S FOR YOU OR ROSS (CHASTAIN), WHAT’S THAT MOMENT GOING TO BE LIKE FOR JUSTIN (MARKS)?“So far, it’s been a really good start. Everybody has been working very hard at Trackhouse Racing and at Chevrolet. We have great equipment and great people. As we all know, great people is key in this sport. You have to have good people around you; not just at the racetrack, but at the shop as well building these cars. I think we have an amazing package right now. We have to keep working because we’re only a couple months into the season and everyone is working hard to either catch-up, get better or stay on top. I feel like we’ve been doing a good job, but there’s always room for improvement. I believe that we can be better than what we’ve been running. We just have to keep pushing. I think the wins are going to come. I personally feel like we have an amazing shot tomorrow, so hopefully we can have a good, clean race. No mistakes, no mechanical issues, and go out there and make a run for it.”
FIVE RACES INTO THIS YEAR, YOU ALREADY HAVE TWO TOP-FIVE’S AND THREE TOP-10’S. DO YOU THINK HAVING A TEAMMATE IN A SECOND CAR AT TRACKHOUSE RACING HAS HELPED OUT YOUR PERFORMANCE THIS YEAR?“I think it’s a combination of things. Definitely having a direct teammate helps. That’s part of the success. Having that information and sharing that information; knowing exactly what they’re going to do and what we’re going to do. But I think that probably the biggest improvement from last year was the people. Having our own people working towards the speed and having a lot of support from Chevrolet. I think that’s the combination. I feel very, very fortunate to be in this position. We have everything that is required to go out there and be successful. Now, it’s up to us to do the job.”

16-year-old Corey Day is Youngest Runner-Up in World of Outlaws History

BAKERSFIELD, CA – March 25, 2022 – The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars returned to Bakersfield Speedway for the first time since 2018 on Friday night and offered an unpredictable share of chaos at the front and dramatic storylines at the end.

From a race-altering crash to a record-breaking run, The Greatest Show on Dirt quickly made up for four years of absent action from the California 1/3-mile.

Ultimately, Fresno’s Giovanni Scelzi topped the 35-lapper for his second victory over a span of two weeks in his home state. The KCP Racing #18 pilot used the “I’d rather be lucky than good” method to score his fifth career World of Outlaws win at 20 years old.

The kid they call Hot Sauce was running fourth early on when mayhem struck as top-three runners Spencer Bayston, David Gravel, and Rico Abreu were all collected in a turn-three crash with Sheldon Haudenschild on Lap 8. Scelzi narrowly missed joining the carnage and escaped to assume the lead, knowing he had to finish the job at that point.

“It’s one thing to be in the Dash and put yourself in the hunt, but when something that lucky happens with all three of those guys crashing you have to take advantage of it,” Scelzi said on the rare incident. “These races are hard enough to win as they are, so when you get the opportunity essentially thrown in your lap you have to seal the deal. I’m still baffled at how that happened. I’ve never had something go that far my way that quickly.”

Scelzi’s score didn’t come without an ironic challenge, though, as he was forced to battle Corey Day of Clovis, CA, who would’ve broken Giovanni’s own record for being the youngest winner in World of Outlaws history had he won. In his fourth-ever appearance and second-career start with the Series, Day timed in fourth, ran second in his Heat, made the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash, and capitalized when it mattered most.

The teenage prodigy of two-time World of Outlaws champion Jason Meyers officially led Lap 10 and hounded Scelzi for much of the race while battling off other champions like Brad Sweet & Donny Schatz. He ultimately finished second and joined his father Ronnie Day as a podium finisher with the Series.

At 16 years, 3 months, 27 drivers, Day became the youngest runner-up and podium finisher in the storied 45-year history of the World of Outlaws.

“It’s a dream to be here racing with the Outlaws,” Day said following a standing ovation. “My goal for the past five years or so has to one day beat Gio’s record for the youngest winner in history and this is a step in the right direction. Things definitely fell our way, but nonetheless, I think we proved we can compete with these guys tonight.”

Brad Sweet, 36, was the veteran mainstay keeping one extra young gun off the podium at Bakersfield. He charged from eight-to-third for a third-straight podium finish aboard the Kasey Kahne Racing, NAPA Auto Parts #49. Albeit winless, The Big Cat has used unrivaled consistency to take over the points lead for the first time this year as he vies for a fourth consecutive World of Outlaws championship in 2022.

“These kids are getting younger and younger, yet still doing better and better,” the Grass Valley, CA native spoke on the youth movement. “It’s cool to watch this next generation develop, you know I used to be these kids up here. As far as myself, a bit disappointed.  We need to figure a few things out be it car or driver and get back to our winning ways. We avoided a lot of carnage, though, so there’s always a positive.”

Rounding out the top-five on Friday night was Lemoore, CA’s Carson Macedo in fourth-place aboard the Jason Johnson Racing, Albaugh #41, and Australia’s James McFadden with his second KSE Hard Charger Award thanks to a huge 22nd-to-fifth run in the Roth Motorsports #83.

Closing out the top-10 at Bakersfield was Donny Schatz (Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing #15), Cory Eliason(Rudeen Racing #26), Logan Schuchart (Shark Racing #1S), Kerry Madsen (Roth Motorsports #83JR), and Jacob Allen (Shark Racing #1A).

Beyond the top-10, Spencer Bayston (16th), Rico Abreu (17th), and David Gravel (23rd) went from battling for the win to battling to make it out of the work area following their early-race crash. It was a heartbreak for all involved.

“I didn’t see how it started, but I was already committed and it was just too late,” Bayston, who was leading, said afterward. “You always think you could’ve done something different, but I don’t know if we could have avoided that. It’s just a bummer. One of these front-row starting spots is gonna pay off. We’re doing our part, that win is coming soon.”

“That’s the harsh reality of the World of Outlaws, really racing in general,” Gravel noted. “We just had nowhere to go. We’re really fast. I truly believe we’re the fastest car on tour right now. We’re doing our job, we’ve just been stuck with these two unfortunate events in a row. We’ll come back tomorrow just as prepared and keep fighting. It’s a long year.”

NOS NOTEBOOK (Bakersfield Speedway, 3/25/22)

Giovanni Scelzi’s fifth-career World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series victory brings him to 61st on the All-Time Win List alongside Danny Wood, Johnny Anderson, Brian Paulus, Brad Furr, Danny Dietrich, Brian Brown, and Christopher Bell.

Scelzi (20) and Day (16) made up the youngest 1-2 finish in World of Outlaws history. Any victory for Corey prior to September 18 would break Giovanni’s record (16 years, 10 months, 0 days) as the youngest winner in Series history.

Although not full-time members, Scelzi & KCP Racing are now tied for the most wins (2), have led the most laps (55), and currently sit sixth in the points (-74). Without platinum status, they forgo perks such as incentives, tow money, and points fund, while skipping a handful of races throughout the year.

California natives Chase Johnson (Penngrove) and D.J. Netto (Hanford) qualified for their first NOS Energy Drink Features of the 2022 season at Bakersfield.

David Gravel earned his 91st career Slick Woody’s QuickTime Award and second of the season by circling Bakersfield in 10.754 seconds. Gravel, Scelzi & Abreu also won NOS Energy Drink Heat Races. Bayston topped the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash to claim his second pole position of 2022.

UP NEXT (Sat) – The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series will conclude a five-race swing through California tomorrow on Saturday, March 26 with the SoCal Showdown at Perris Auto Speedway in Perris, CA. Fans can BUY TICKETS HERE or watch every lap LIVE on DIRTVision.

NOS Energy Drink Feature Results (35 Laps) – 1. 18-Giovanni Scelzi [3][$10,000]; 2. 14-Corey Day [6][$6,000]; 3. 49-Brad Sweet [8][$3,500]; 4. 41-Carson Macedo [9][$2,800]; 5. 83-James McFadden [22][$2,500]; 6. 15-Donny Schatz [12][$2,300]; 7. 26-Cory Eliason [11][$2,200]; 8. 1S-Logan Schuchart [10][$2,100]; 9. 83JR-Kerry Madsen [13][$2,050]; 10. 1A-Jacob Allen [5][$2,000]; 11. 17W-Shane Golobic [18][$1,600]; 12. 11K-Kraig Kinser [7][$1,400]; 13. 41S-Dominic Scelzi [17][$1,200]; 14. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild [14][$1,100]; 15. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [20][$1,050]; 16. 5-Spencer Bayston [1][$1,000]; 17. 24-Rico Abreu [4][$1,000]; 18. 20G-Noah Gass [21][$1,000]; 19. 88-Austin McCarl [15][$1,000]; 20. 19AZ-Tanner Thorson [16][$1,000]; 21. 21-Mitchell Faccinto [19][$1,000]; 22. 24X-Chase Johnson [24][$1,000]; 23. 2-David Gravel [2][$1,000]; 24. 88N-DJ Netto [23][$1,000]. Lap Leaders: Spencer Bayston 1-8; Giovanni Scelzi 9, 11-35; Corey Day 10. KSE Hard Charger Award: 83-James McFadden[+17]

NEW Championship Standings (After 9/85 Races): 1. Brad Sweet (1,258); 2. Carson Macedo (-22); 3. David Gravel (-30); 4. Sheldon Haudenschild (-44); 5. James McFadden (-62); 6. Giovanni Scelzi (-74); 7. Donny Schatz (-88); 8. Logan Schuchart (-88); 9. Cory Eliason (-96); 10. Spencer Bayston (-140).