23-year-old Parker Kligerman will make his 45th career NASCAR Nationwide Series start in Saturday’s Kentucky 300 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta. Coming off an eighth-place finish at another mile-and-half venue last week at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., Kligerman and his No. 77 Camp Horsin’ Around Racing team enter the final stand-alone event of the season optimistic that they can challenge for the win in “The Bluegrass State.”
To compete for a win Saturday night, Kyle Busch Motorsports’ (KBM) Nationwide Series program will need to make their second visit to Kentucky less eventful than the first one. After positing the sixth fastest time in final practice, the team was only able to earn the 12th starting position when a tire punctured during Kligerman’s qualifying run. The team’s bad luck continued when shortly after pitting early in the race a caution flew before several cars had made their way down pit road. While many teams elected to take the wave around, the No. 77 bunch was forced to pit to replace a battery due to an issue with the alternator. After fighting their way back to the lead lap, the team was relegated to a 16th-place finish when torrential rains fell and the race ended before its scheduled distance.
While his first Nationwide Series event at Kentucky wasn’t as successful as it could have been, Kligerman has been very successful at the 1.5-mile oval in other series throughout his career. He led 58 laps en route to victory in the 2009 ARCA Racing Series event. In four NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts, he posted two runner-up finishes. In his first time in a truck at the 1.5-mile tri-oval he nearly ran down now-owner Kyle Busch but came up just short and in his last Truck Series race in “The Bluegrass State” finished second to 2012 Truck Series Champion James Buescher.
So far this season, only three Nationwide Series regulars have collected a victory. The final stand-alone event of the season will provide the opportunity for Kligerman and the other young starts of the Nationwide Series to mix it up with each other and compete for the victory. KBM’s colt is hoping that as the field gallops to the finish at Kentucky Saturday night, the horse that encompasses the logo on the hood of his Camp Horsin’ Around Camry will be the first to cross the stripe and his 45th career start will be a memorable one.
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