The NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) travels to Kentucky Speedway for their final stand-alone race of the season. Last year’s race produced a first-time winner in Ryan Blaney.
Saturday night’s race could see another driver tasting victory for the first time in NNS. The No. 22 team won last year’s race, but this time around with Michael McDowell behind the wheel. McDowell has been close on several occasions in NNS, with scoring three runner-up finishes in the series, most recently at Iowa when the team he’s driving for this weekend won the race with Brad Keselowski.
A driver sitting top 10 in points is Brian Scott. Three of the four RCR cars have scored victories this season, also producing two first-time winners in Brendan Gaughan and Ty Dillon. Scott came close last fall at Richmond by leading 239 laps and coming up short with a runner-up finish. The Idaho driver was sporty at Kentucky in June by posting some fast lap times in practice and coming home with a eighth-place finish. Saturday night could be Scott’s first trip to victory lane.
Scott’s teammate, Cale Conley, also returns to the series in the No. 33 Chevrolet and the team has a win with Paul Menard at Michigan in June. Conley showed speed at Chicagoland in July, but hasn’t scored a top-10 finish yet this season.
Although he’s won in the series before, Trevor Bayne is still winless in 2014. Bayne and Scott are the only two drivers in the top 10 in points without a victory on the season. The Roush-Fenway Racing driver scored two runner-up finishes at Dover in May and Chicagoland in July. Bayne is knocking on the door and will look to better his Kentucky finish from June.
Speaking of points, the championship battle is starting to heat up between JR Motorsports (JRM) teammates Chase Elliott and Regan Smith. JRM has out powered the competition in 2014, especially on tracks 1.5 mile or larger. Kevin Harvick won last weekend’s race at Chicagoland, but the other teams are starting to catch up. Kyle Busch led most of the race before taking four tires and being mired in traffic.
Busch isn’t in the No. 54 Toyota this weekend, but Kentucky will be the last scheduled start for Sam Hornish, Jr. this season. Hornish won earlier this season at Iowa in May and luck hasn’t been on his side in his last few starts in the No. 54. Busch led wire-to-wire at Richmond two weeks ago for Joe Gibbs Racing’s (JGR) first NNS win since Dover in May.
JGR will feature a driver making their NNS debut this weekend at Kentucky in Justin Boston. The ARCA driver will run double-duty at Kentucky with the ZLOOP 150 Friday night, then running the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 Saturday night. Boston will also run the NNS race at Dover next week.
Elliott Sadler has seen some success at Kentucky, leading laps and posting a runner-up finish in June 2013, but has to have a good race to get back into the title hunt.
Kentucky Speedway is a very bumpy race track and hasn’t been repaved since the track opened in 2000. This will be the second year in a row that NNS and ARCA will be on the same weekend.
The green flag for the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 will drop shortly after 7:30 p.m. ET and the race will be shown live on ESPNEWS.
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