Toyota NASCAR Road America Advance

Toyota NASCAR Road America Advance
Week of August 21 – 27

On the Up and Up: Toyota’s Kyle Busch again made history by winning all three NASCAR national series races at Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway to record just the second-ever NASCAR race week sweep by a single driver – a feat the Toyota driver previously accomplished at the track in 2010. Busch captured wins in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS), NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) and Monster Energy Cup Series (MENCS), helping Toyota to dominate the weekend with sweeps of not just the race wins, but also the pole awards, race stages and runner-up results.

More than just Busch at Bristol: While Busch started on the pole in the NCWTS and NXS events, rookie Erik Jones placed his Camry first on the charts during MENCS qualifying, winning his first-career MENCS pole award on his way to a career-best, second-place finish in the race on Saturday night. Meanwhile, Matt Kenseth was the only driver aside from Busch to take home a stage win at Bristol, his third this season as he sits 15th in the playoff standings with two races to go. In the Cup race at Bristol, Camry drivers finished first through fourth – marking the second time in the last three weeks Toyota drivers have swept first through fourth in a MENCS event after claiming the same finishes at New York’s Watkins Glen International. To date, Toyota Cup drivers have led a season-high 3,516 laps (53 percent of all laps run) and claimed five wins in the last seven MENCS races. In those last seven races alone, Toyota drivers have accounted for 82 percent of the laps led and Toyota is now only six points behind first in the manufacturer standings.

Winding Ways at Road America: The XFINITY Series takes center stage this weekend as the only NASCAR national series scheduled to compete. Camry drivers Christopher Bell, James Davison and Matt Tifft will lead Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) as they compete in the final NXS road course event of the season. Tifft makes his first appearance at the track after finishing 13th at Watkins Glen and a career-best third at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the season’s prior road course races. Davison returns to JGR for his second Camry start to take on the 4.048-mile track after finishing fourth at Mid-Ohio behind Tifft. Of the three JGR drivers, Davison is the only with a previous start at Road America, where he finished 19th in his first career NXS start in 2016. While Davison and Tifft have both seen road course action in the XFINITY Series, full-time NCWTS driver Bell competes in the series for just the third time in his career (Charlotte, Iowa). Although Bell will make his first road course appearance in the NXS, he has one prior NASCAR national series road course start at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, where he finished fifth in the Truck Series in 2016.

Playoff Outlook: With three races left in the XFINITY Series regular season, two Toyota drivers have their sights set on the 2017 playoffs –Tifft (eighth) and Dakoda Armstrong (tenth). Both drivers are on track to make their first NXS playoff appearance as Tifft competes in his first full-time season for JGR and Armstrong just missed the 12-driver cutoff in 2016. JGL Racing’s Armstrong has had a career-best season so far, collecting two top-fives and three top-10s in 22 starts, while Tifft has five top-10 finishes on the season including a career-best third at Mid-Ohio just two weeks ago.

Staying Connected: You can follow Toyota Racing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and online at www.toyotaracing.com. For media images, please visit www.toyotaracingmedia.com.

Toyota at Road America – Notes & Numbers:
Toyota drivers have captured five wins in the last seven XFINITY Series events with Kyle Busch (four) and Ryan Preece (one) visiting victory lane. In 2017, Toyota has the most wins (nine) among manufacturers in the NXS.

Toyota 2017 Statistics: