Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
The NASCAR XFINITY Series heads to Iowa Speedway this weekend for their last race turning exclusively left before a two-week road course swing.
With most of the Sprint Cup Series drivers in the Poconos, the door will be opened for XFINITY Series regulars to score a win, and lock themselves into the 12-man Chase that starts at Chicagoland Speedway, but one Sprint Cup driver will try to spoil the party Saturday night.
2010 series champion Brad Keselowski will race at Iowa in search of his fourth win at the track in the No. 22 Discount Tire Ford for Team Penske. The No. 22 team, which has won the owner’s championship for the last three straight years, has struggled this year. Keselowski along with Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney have split time in the car this year, but all three have failed to get to victory lane. With only four top-three finishes this season, Penske’s been behind the Joe Gibbs Racing brigade all year, but with Keselowski as the only Cup driver in the field at one of his best tracks, look for the No. 22 to steal a win.
Matt Tifft was originally scheduled to race at Iowa, but the Hinckly, Ohio racer is still recovering from a recent surgery to remove a low-grade glioma brain tumor, so another young racer will get the opportunity of a lifetime to race in his place in a car that has won nine times this season. Dakoda Armstrong, who normally drives the No. 28 Winfield Toyota for JGL Racing, is on loan to Gibbs to bring his Winfield sponsorship to the No. 18 for a one-off race. Armstrong finds himself in race winning equipment for the first time in his NASCAR career, and plans to put it to good use. In 91 series starts, the New Castle, Indiana driver only has four top-10 finishes, but all of them came driving for Richard Petty Motorsports, a team whose equipment was less than stellar. Armstrong’s a three-time winner on the ARCA Racing Series circuit, so he does know how to park a car in victory lane.
Armstrong also has a pair of teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing who have already won this year. Erik Jones is locked in the Chase with two wins this year at Bristol Motor Speedway and Dover International Speedway, but the 20-year-old wouldn’t let that stand in the way of a third win. Iowa is a track that favors his driving, and is very similar to both Bristol and Dover. Jones knows how to get around Iowa as he’s also a two-time winner at the track in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. The other Gibbs car piloted by Daniel Suarez will be one to watch, too. Suarez won his first career race this year at Michigan International Speedway, and has been a model of consistency. After 18 races this year, Suarez has finished in the top-10 15 times, and has an average finish of 7.7. Even if Suarez doesn’t win, fans can bet he’ll probably wind up somewhere near the front.
Sam Hornish, Jr. enters the Iowa race weekend with a perfect record in the XFINITY Series this year. He won at Iowa in the spring for Joe Gibbs Racing, but the former IndyCar Series champion will be driving for a different team this weekend. Hornish will wheel the No. 2 Rheem Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. Although he’s in different equipment, look for Hornish, a two-time winner at Iowa, to run near the front.
Perhaps the biggest dark horse to win on Saturday night is short-track racer Josh Berry. Berry will be making his first start of the season this weekend for JR Motorsports in the No. 88 SunEnergy1 Chevrolet. For those that don’t know the story, Berry was discovered by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. while the two raced each other on the popular racing simulator, iRacing. Berry races on a regular basis for Earnhardt in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour where he’s won twice this year, and has an average finish of 2.4. In three XFINITY Series starts, Berry has best finish of seventh last year at Richmond International Raceway, but ran inside the top-five for most of the race. Although a lot of fans don’t know his name now, a strong run on Saturday could gain him some notoriety.
Suarez enters the race as the point leader, but second-place Elliott Sadler is only 14 points behind. Sadler’s consistency this year, much like Suarez, has him in the championship hunt. His win this season at Talladega SuperSpeedway also has Sadler already locked in the Chase, but the 2012 Iowa race winner could use another win to put him on equal footing with two-time 2016 winner Erik Jones when the Chase begins in September.
