Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography
By Aaron Bearden
After each NASCAR race weekend, Motorsports Beat will share a piece breaking down the stories and takeaways from the weekend. This is a report on the 2021 race weekend at Road America.
NASCAR Cup Series
Race: Jockey Made in America 250
Who Won?
Chase Elliott. You had to figure he’d start racking up more road course wins, right? Even a poor starting position couldn’t deny the defending Cup champ in Wisconsin.
Who Won the Stages?
William Byron and Tyler Reddick.
Top Stories
Familiar success, new celebrations
Chase Elliott felt all the pressure in the world at Road America… To do an extra burnout after his win, anyways.
“The amount of peer pressure I felt to do a burnout was, like, wow,” Elliott joked. “I don’t know that I’ve ever had that much peer pressure in my life to do a burnout.”
That quip came after Elliott’s second burnout of the afternoon, a unique celebration to accompany a win at the 4.048-mile Wisconsin road course. Elliott had just triumphed for the seventh time on a road course and third on a new road course for the modern tour — Cup cars hadn’t been to the facility since 1956 — overcoming a qualifying mishap with ease to drive through the field and dominate the laps that mattered most en route to his second win of 2021.
Winning on road courses has become commonplace for the sport’s most popular active driver.
Elliott’s first breakthroughs in the Camping World Truck Series and Cup Series came at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and Watkins Glen International. What then seemed like a surprise has quickly become an expectation. This is particularly true when the sport visits new road courses, as Elliott has triumphed in his first Cup races at Daytona International Speedway Road Course, Circuit of the Americas and Road America in the past 12 months.
Elliott is more than capable on ovals, too — he did win back-to-back oval races to claim the 2020 Cup championship, after all — but he’s quickly established himself as NASCAR’s modern road course ace, with a 63.6% winning percentage in the past 11 races on the circuits.
The latest win was unique in that it came on the Fourth of July, in front of a massive crowd of race fans reveling in one of the first truly “normal” weekends they’ve had. Road America was filled with happy spectators throughout the race weekend, creating an environment that felt akin to a state fair that also happened to have exciting races scheduled each day.
Those fans burst into raucous cheer after Elliott secured his latest road course triumph. So when he went to Turn 5 for his television interview after having already done one burnout in front of his pit crew on the front stretch, the second generation star was quick to feel the excitement and pressure to engage in a second one.
He was happy to oblige.
“I knew it was going to happen,” Elliott said. “NASCAR was yelling at me to make sure I went around the whole track. I did a burnout in the front stretch. I was out of tire. I knew they were going to blow out.
“I got down there in the interview, literally that place was packed. All these people are chanting ‘burnout’ at me. I wasn’t going to say no. So I did.
“Blew the back tires off of it, then ran out of gas, had to have a push. It was just a timely deal.”
Elliott’s burnouts and eventual festivities in front of a massive crowd in victory lane capped off a weekend that was as much a celebration of American motorsport as it was a standard NASCAR road course race.
Road America was put into a tricky spot, tasked with trying to find success with NASCAR fans on a weekend that’s historically belonged to Daytona and the race longtime fans still call the Firecracker 400. The event was moved off of its Independence Day weekend slot in 2020 to become a thrilling last-chance playoff opportunity as the regular season finale, giving up the holiday date to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
A lack of fans at that track didn’t help. But that race in Indiana didn’t carry a genuine holiday feel.
Road America did – not in the same way as Daytona, but in a manner that felt unique and special all its own. The race played to an underserved market for NASCAR on a special weekend and delivered an optical success.
“Racing up here is such a huge deal, always has been,” Hendrick Motorsports vice president of competition Chad Knaus, a native of the neighboring Illinois, said. “You can name hundreds of greats that came out of this area not only from the driver standpoint but from the mechanics, crew chiefs, all of that. Deep-rooted motorsports group up here.
“I think it’s awesome any time you go into a venue you see memorabilia on the walls, photographs, hoods, the beer signs with “Dale Jr.” on them. All that stuff is everywhere, right? People really love motorsports up here.
“It’s a lot of fun to come up here, man. It’s really good stuff.”
If NASCAR’s looking for a new Fourth of July tradition, it may have found its location.
The next road course star?
Elliott has established himself as the de-facto favorite in Cup Series road course races, but there are a few drivers nipping at his heels. Kyle Larson’s been fast. Austin Cindric and AJ Allmendinger are threats when they’re in the field. Martin Truex Jr. can be a handful when he gets into a rhythm.
Perhaps Elliott’s greatest road course threat in the long-term might actually be a guy from the dirt racing world.
Daytona road course winner Christopher Bell was again a contender on Sunday at Road America, rising from seventh to second on the lengthy final stint and matching Elliott’s times in the closing laps. The Oklahoman had the sort of pace that could have given Elliott trouble, but never found the track position or late caution to make a run at him for the win.
“I think it was close, probably closer than anyone else was to (Elliott), so that was good,” Bell said. “At the end of the race, everyone was telling me that I was matching if not a little better lap times (than Elliott), so I never had track position to start up there with him and see what we had against him the whole run.”
This isn’t the first time Bell’s been such a force. He was in a similar position at Daytona and caught the necessary breaks to make a run to his first victory. Bell had pace at both Circuit of the Americas and Sonoma Raceway, but wound up swept into crashes.
If you’re surprised by Bell’s sudden road course prowess, don’t feel bad. He sort of is, too.
“I wouldn’t have expected my first Cup win to come at a road course, that’s for sure,” Bell said after Sunday’s race. “Last year in the Cup Series, the road course races were probably my best races speed-wise. I don’t know. I feel like we’ve just been bringing really great Camrys to the road courses and it’s definitely a good package for JGR right now.”
Known for his three Chili Bowl Nationals wins and numerous other triumphs on dirt, Bell has slowly worked his way up the NASCAR ladder, with a plethora of wins and a Truck Series championship along the way.
His first year in Cup was a quiet one, spent gaining experience in the No. 95 Toyota for Leavine Family Racing. But Bell quickly rose to prominence after moving over to Joe Gibbs Racing, winning in just his second start.
He’s admittedly struggled a bit on the ovals since that breakthrough road course win – particularly at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which lies next on the schedule. But the 26-year-old remains a threat whenever road courses come around.
Unlucky brake
The packed crowd in Wisconsin saw a late misstep from Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman in the closing stages of the Jockey Made in America 250.
It was a standout moment for the pair – if only because missteps have been so rare for any Hendrick driver and team over the past two months.
Bowman was attempting to chase Larson down in a top-10 battle when his brakes went soft rolling down into Turn 5, barreling into Larson with little control.
The Arizonian was so far back when it happened that Larson didn’t see the move coming. He spun in the left-hander, dropping down the running order for the first time in weeks.
Larson continued on, but wound up 16th at the finish. Bowman was no better, having to pit for repairs and coming home a distance 22nd.
Bowman was quick to apologize afterward, saying he was sorry over the radio. He later walked down to Larson on pit road after the race to apologize in person and tell him what had occurred.
Larson understood and any anger was quickly squashed.
“Obviously it’s not on purpose,” Larson said. “It’s hard to be upset with that. Disappointed I got spun, whatever. He just apologized and said his brake pedal was getting spongy halfway down, and I think he got in there hot.
“It’s my teammate,” he later continued. “I know it’s not on purpose. I’m not going to be angry at somebody. No hard feelings. We race really well together. I’ll honestly probably forget about it by the time we get to the airplane.”
The result marked Larson’s first finish outside of the top-10 since a 19th-place run at Kansas Speedway on May 2. The stretch between the two races included three wins and seven top-two finishes, with the lone other poor finish (ninth) coming after he smacked the wall at Pocono Raceway after blowing a tire from the lead on the final lap of the race.
Among those happy to see the incident was the first one to pass the crashing pair – Denny Hamlin. The three-time Daytona 500 champion has all-but lost a gap of nearly 150 points to Larson for the championship lead over the past two months, but left Road America with a three-point edge after Larson’s late spin.
That’s significant for Hamlin because he has yet to win this year. While Larson has four victories and 32 playoff points, Hamlin has just five for stage wins early in the season.
With an 85-point edge on third-place William Byron, the pair are both poised to lock up at least 10 additional playoff points. But the extra five for the regular season champion would mean much more to Hamlin right now than they would Larson.
“Really shooting for it,” Larson said of the regular season title. “You can tell he’s shooting for it. He was really aggressive today.”
A good day for Ganassi
It was a difficult week for Chip Ganassi Racing’s NASCAR branch. The organization found out in the middle of the week that the NASCAR teams were being sold to Trackhouse Racing, assets and all, at year’s end. Then employees were tasked with trying to shrug that aside and deliver results at a new track in Road America, all while Kurt Busch and Ross Chastain continually attempt to claw their way into the 2021 Cup playoffs.
Through it all, the company persevered and were rewarded with one of the group’s best race weekends in 2021.
Kurt Busch led the squad, consistently running in the top-10 and picking up a fourth-place result that tied his best run of the year. More importantly, the 2004 Cup champ scored 41 points including a haul of stage points, adding to his advantage on the playoff bubble.
“I really enjoyed Road America and just the whole challenge of running here; posting good laps early with fresh tires and then managing the tires on the long run,” Busch said. “I knew our strategy was to go for stage points, which, man, I was going to have to work hard today.
“I gave it everything I could.”
Ross Chastain didn’t quite have the pace of his playoff-contending teammate, but the Floridian put together a strong run in seventh to notch his fourth top-10 in the past seven races.
“Proud of the effort from all the men and women at Chip Ganassi Racing to bring two really fast hotrods,” Chastain said. “Kurt Busch was fast and we were, too. We were around each other all day and had speed passing a lot of cars.”
“We’re still going to bring fast cars. It’s been a crazy week,” he later continued. “We still race for Chip Ganassi and Team Chevy; and we’re going to keep pushing and keep trying to win.”
Notes
- Austin Dillon has still never scored a top-10 on a road course, but he came as close as ever on Sunday. The playoff hopeful finished 11th despite starting deep in the field due to untimely cautions in qualifying that nullified his runs.
- Dillon’s teammate, Tyler Reddick, did finish in the top-10, scoring an eighth-place result to set a new personal best mark for top-10s in one year with 10 to date. He also scored his first playoff point of the season with a Stage 2 victory.
- Getting run compete in a Cup race in his home state for the first time, Josh Bilicki showed out with a run of 23rd to tie his career-best result for Rick Ware Racing.
- Chase Briscoe’s difficult rookie season finally saw some relief at Road America. He finished sixth to tie the personal best result he managed at the other new road course, Circuit of the Americas. Briscoe now sits 23rd in the standings – the highest he’s been since the Daytona 500.
- A 10th-place run may have been a letdown for Matt DiBenedetto and Wood Brothers Racing given the short-run pace he had, but it was his first top-10 since Kansas Speedway in May, so that has to count for something.
- Aric Almirola still doesn’t have the pace he’s accustomed to, but he is starting to look more like himself again. The Floridian has finished 16th or better in each of the past four races, scoring more of the results consecutively than he’d managed overall in the first 16 races of the season.
- Tucked away amid the field was a debut for sports car ace and host of the popular “Dinner With Racers” podcast, Ryan Eversley. Driving for Rick Ware Racing, Eversley wound up 39th after a rear gear failure shortly before the halfway mark of the race.
- One driver Road America wasn’t kind to was Kevin Harvick. While his teammates showed a glimmer of promise, the normal Stewart-Haas Racing frontrunner finished a distance 27th, between Ty Dillon and James Davison.
- Daniel Suarez entered Road America with momentum and an outside shot at the layoffs if he could continue a recent run of good results. Instead he suffered early mechanical woes and fell multiple laps down. Trackhouse Racing helped Suarez get back out onto the track, but he only rose to 36th at race’s end and still ended up receiving just one point.
- Austin Cindric led laps early on and looked to be a contender in a rare start for Team Penske. But the Xfinity Series champ suffered a rear gear issue of his own and dropped out of the race in 38th after leading a pair of laps.
- Ryan Preece picked up his third top-10 of 2021 in the last race out at Pocono, but was bitten by poor luck and finished last in Road America due to early engine issues. Tough break.
Jockey Made in America 250 Results
- Chase Elliott
- Christopher Bell
- Kyle Busch
- Kurt Busch
- Denny Hamlin
- Chase Briscoe
- Ross Chastain
- Tyler Reddick
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Austin Dillon
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Brad Keselowski
- Aric Almirola
- Joey Logano
- Kyle Larson
- Cole Custer
- Chris Buescher
- Erik Jones
- Ryan Blaney
- Corey LaJoie
- Alex Bowman
- Josh Bilicki
- Bubba Wallace
- Justin Haley
- Ty Dillon
- Kevin Harvick
- James Davison
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Michael McDowell
- Cody Ware
- Ryan Newman
- William Byron
- Quin Houff
- Kyle Tilley
- Daniel Suarez
- Anthony Alfredo
- Austin Cindric
- Ryan Eversley
- Ryan Preece
Stage 1
- William Byron
- AJ Allmendinger
- Kyle Larson
- Tyler Reddick
- Ross Chastain
- Denny Hamlin
- Christopher Bell
- Alex Bowman
- Kurt Busch
- Chase Elliott
Stage 2
- Tyler Reddick
- William Byron
- Matt Kenseth
- Kyle Larson
- Kurt Busch
- Joey Logano
- Kevin Harvick
- Bubba Wallace
- Justin Haley
- Kyle Busch
Next up: The Cup Series goes from a new venue to a classic one on the calendar, making its first scheduled summer trip to Atlanta Motor Speedway since 2014.
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Race: Henry 180
Who Won?
Kyle Busch. He outlasted the rest of the Xfinity Series field to prevail at the end of an eventful showdown at Road America.
Who Won the Stages?
AJ Allmendinger.
Top Stories
Rowdy does it again
The Xfinity Series regulars didn’t make it easy on him, but Kyle Busch’s first trip to Road America ended in his fourth victory in as many starts this year.
Driving with fresher tires in the final laps, Busch worked his way around AJ Allmendinger on Lap 41 of 45 and cruised to the victory from there, taking the checkered flag 3.522 seconds ahead of teammate Daniel Hemric.
The result was Busch’s 101st-career Xfinity Series victory, continuing his record-breaking tenure with the tour in what could be his final year doing so.
“When we did put our last set of tires on, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to get through that many cars,” Busch said. “I don’t know what happened on those last couple of restarts. I couldn’t really see what was happening. We were fortunate to get by that stuff and get through that stuff without any damage to our race car.”
Busch’s win was as much one of attrition as it was his usual dominance. The Nevadan’s biggest challengers were all knocked out of contention in various ways.
Allmendinger was on the wrong strategy. Ty Gibbs had transmission issues and stalled out on Lap 35. Austin Cindric and Justin Allgaier were caught up in a late wreck.
With them out of the way, Busch just had to take care of business up front. That proved to be no issue.
Stuck playing bridesmaid
Overshadowed by Busch’s win was yet another close call with victory for Daniel Hemric.
Despite suffering a late penalty for a crew member going over the wall too soon, Hemric maneuvered his way through the field and, with the smart strategy of saving a set of fresh tires for the end, the veteran drove his way from 10th to second in the final six laps.
It was a fantastic result for a driver that could be a championship threat this fall. But it was also the another close call with victory that ended one spot short for the ninth time in his Xfinity Series career.
“For whatever reason, the holes didn’t quite go the way I thought they were going to go and some of them closed, and I lost too much time to Kyle (Busch) there to make it up,” Hemric said. “I gave it all I had – tongue hanging out at the last six laps trying to get to the point where I at least had a shot at it.
“I’ve had a ton of fun racing with these guys this year, and they hate running second. No one hates it more than I do, especially as many times as it has happened. We are doing the right things. We just have to continue to execute, and we will have our day.”
Hemric is still in search of his first NASCAR national series win, despite numerous close calls in both the Xfinity and Truck tours. Asked for what needed to be improved to make a victory happen, he pointed to consistent execution.
“We just have to stop handicapping ourselves whenever that final stage is,” Hemric said. “I thought we got over that with our stage two. I thought we were setting ourselves up where we weren’t at least starting from the tail and then we had the penalty with the mistiming with jumping over the wall and we got a penalty.
“We started the last two runs from the back and that’s the difference from being an extra row or two on the restart, the way things funneled in here. If you don’t get the pass done, it cost you a lap as crazy as that sounds and that is what happened.
“If I could have cleared those guys a lap or two sooner, that would have at least given me the opportunity to have a clean racetrack. We had newer tires than he did, it was just track position.”
A good day for Michael Annett
Michael Annett doesn’t celebrate top-fives.
But he could breathe a bit easier after a third-place run at Road America.
Annett led JR Motorsports and Chevrolet in Wisconsin, using his fresher tires and following the leading Joe Gibbs Racing pair in third at race’s end. It was his first top-five of 2021, coming in a race where he had the sole goal of keeping his No. 1 Chevrolet clean.
“It’s just typical Xfinity Series road-course racing,” he said afterward. “Everybody just beats and bangs. Usually if you just keep your nose clean, you’re going to be there at the end and get a bunch of spots.”
Annett has never been a big fan of road courses, though he is admittedly “having a lot more fun” at the circuits this season. But Road America may have brought a critical result for his playoff hopes.
The Iowan entered Saturday’s race in fear of a drop to the playoff bubble after a challenging regular season to date. But Annett’s strong run allowed him to build a 56-point advantage with nine races left in the regular season.
That’s not enough of a gap to be comfortable, but it at least gives Annett a little margin for error moving forward.
Notes
- Sports car competitor Spencer Pumpelly gave the Xfinity Series race a go, but wound up making a dramatic early exit when his brakes failed and left him climbing the tire barriers beyond Turn 1. Thankfully Pumpelly was alright, and even ran in a 10k the following morning.
- Sam Mayer was also involved in a hard crash, spinning into the concrete barrier at Road America after contact in the pack. He got a small measure of redemption later in the evening, claiming the day-ending Trans Am race at the same track.
- AJ Allmendinger was a top contender and won two stages at Road America. He just didn’t have the right tire strategy at the end, fading to fourth on his old rubber.
- Even after having to make late pit stops for significant damage, Austin Cindric rallied in the closing laps to salvage an eighth-place result. That will help him hold on to the massive 89-point advantage he has on Allmendinger in the standings for the regular season championship.
- The playoff battle did see things heat up a bit in Wisconsin, as Jeremy Clements was relegated to 28th by a litany of issues, allowing both Brandon Brown and Riley Herbst to gain ground with finishes of 11th and seventh, respectively. Brown sits 33 points behind Clements, with Herbst an additional 10 points back.
Race Results
- Kyle Busch
- Daniel Hemric
- Michael Annett
- AJ Allmendinger
- Harrison Burton
- Kevin Harvick
- Riley Herbst
- Austin Cindric
- Noah Gragson
- Justin Haley
- Brandon Brown
- Justin Allgaier
- Andy Lally
- Jeb Burton
- Tommy Joe Martins
- Preston Pardus
- Josh Williams
- Kaz Grala
- Brandon Jones
- Timmy Hill
- Alex Labbe
- Ryan Sieg
- Myatt Snider
- Cody Ware
- Kris Wright
- Stephen Leicht
- Landon Cassill
- Jeremy Clements
- Josh Bilicki
- Ryan Ellis
- Brett Moffitt
- Natalie Decker
- Ty Gibbs
- Jade Buford
- Sam Mayer
- Spencer Pumpelly
Stage 1
- AJ Allmendinger
- Austin Cindric
- Jeb Burton
- Justin Haley
- Noah Gragson
- Daniel Hemric
- Justin Allgaier
- Michael Annett
- Josh Bilicki
- Riley Herbst
Stage 2
- AJ Allmendinger
- Justin Allgaier
- Daniel Hemric
- Justin Haley
- Kyle Busch
- Brandon Jones
- Ty Gibbs
- Austin Cindric
- Harrison Burton
- Riley Herbst
Next up: The Xfinity Series ventures back to Atlanta Motor Speedway for a summer run in Hotlanta on July 10 at 3 p.m. ET. Coverage will be on NBCSN.
