After a stop at Bristol Motor Speedway, the NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) returns to road course racing this week and driver Ray Black Jr. is ready to take on the challenge of the longest of the three courses at Road America. The driver of the No. 07 ScubaLife.com Chevrolet just earned his career-best NXS finish with a 14th place result from Bristol and looks to use this momentum to secure a solid finish at the four-mile track.
“Last weekend at Bristol was awesome for my team and I!” Black stated. “It feels great to have earned our best finish so far at one of the hardest tracks on the circuit. That finish gives us a lot of momentum this week even though we are visiting a road course we’ve never been to before. I’m really excited to see how we are able to come off last weekend and continue to improve this weekend.”
This week’s stop at Road America will be Black’s third road course race in the past four weeks and fourth road course race overall. While the style of racing is challenging, Black is ready to get back into the swing of things and feels that last week’s race at “The World’s Fastest Short Track” will only help him as he focuses on Road America.
“I’ve had a lot of fun racing these road courses over the past month,” he explained. “It’s nice to not have all three in a row and have Bristol in there to break things up to give us a chance to recoup. But at the same time, with Bristol being a short track it helps me stay in the mindset I need to be in for road course racing. The two actually have a lot in common. With both styles of racing you need to always be up on the wheel, always be focusing on everything you’re doing and always be driving hard.”
As with Watkins Glen and the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Black is doing all he can to prepare for the race before even arriving to the track. With a course as long as Road America, the need to know the layout is important to Black.
“I’m doing all I can to memorize the course before we get there,” Black said. “I’ve been watching old races there and running it on my simulator a lot. I want to know the course well before that first practice so that I don’t have to spend time learning it and can just focus on the car and what we can do to get it to where it needs to be for the race.”
Fans can tune into Black’s debut start in the Road America 180 Fired Up by Johnsonville at Road America on Saturday, August 27 at 3:00 p.m. ET. Live race coverage can be found on NBCSN or via MRN Radio.
Ray Black Jr. PR
