JTG DAUGHERTY RACING
CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY ADVANCE
Event: Overton’s 400
Date/Time: Sunday, July 1 at 2:30pmET
TV Network/Radio: NBCSN | MRN Radio | SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90
AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 47 KROGER CLICKLIST CAMARO ZL1
RACING AT CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY: “Chicagoland Speedway is a challenging track because we only race at it one time during the year,” Allmendinger said. “With Chicago’s rough winters, the racetrack is always getting rougher through the offseason, more than some of the other tracks we go to. Over the last couple of years, the seams and the bumps in the racetrack are getting more noticeable, and the pavement is getting older, which changes how hard it uses the tires. I feel like we’ve made some gains, but that’s a place where we can almost hit the reset button because we haven’t been there in so long. It’ll also be a new challenge with the qualifying impound, enhanced race weekend schedule and racing there almost two months earlier in the season than we’re used to. But, there’s a lot of good opportunities too.”
INTERMEDIATE TRACK PROGRAM AT JTG DAUGHERTY RACING: “Chicagoland is a 1.5-mile track, so there’s a lot of similarities to other 1.5-mile tracks we go to, but there are some differences as well,” Allmendinger said. “We know we have more speed in our 1.5-mile program, which we’ve seen at similar tracks like Kansas Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway. We are focused on putting it all together and executing. Usually as the weekend goes on, it’s a place where you can run the bottom, middle, top, widens out and it’s just about trying to make the tires run well on long runs.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 KLEENEX CAMARO ZL1
RACING AT CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY: “Chicagoland Speedway is a little different as far as the 1.5-mile tracks go,” Buescher said. “There are definitely some bumps around that place, it’s one of the rougher tracks. You compare it to a track like Michigan (International Speedway) and how harsh their winters are and how well the track ages. Chicagoland hasn’t aged that same way through their harsh winters. It has aged the right way to make the track fun and give us some character. The aging in the track makes it where you have to search around for some smoother lines for more grip. With the shape of the track and the banking, you know you’re constantly turning there so it’s a little different from the other 1.5-mile tracks. I enjoy the kind of tracks where we are able to move around a bit and are not subject to one line or groove, and the curveball of the enhanced race weekend and impound qualifying should make it an interesting weekend.”
ONE RACE PER YEAR AT CHICAGOLAND: “Chicagoland is one of the rare 1.5-mile tracks that we only visit once a year,” Buescher said. “It’s something you have to prepare for as much as you can beforehand. We take notes from similar 1.5-mile tracks, where we know we have speed. We qualified really well and were set to have a strong run at Kansas (Speedway) before getting caught in a wreck that ended the night early. But we take what we learned there and we can still apply it to Chicagoland. The unique thing about Chicagoland this time around is we’re heading up there two months earlier than we have in years past. It really doesn’t change our initial approach, it just really means you don’t have a chance to come back and fine tune what you had the previous go around. In one way, it’s harder to be ready for the next year when you go race at the same tracks twice but at the same time, so many of these racetracks change and the weather conditions change in between the two races. Even if they are only two months apart, it changes so much that a lot of what we had the first time won’t carry over. It’s a balancing act on how much you can really learn from the first race.”
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CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY FAST FACTS
AJ ALLMENDINGER
Career Starts: 9
Career Wins: 0
Top-5 Finishes: 0
Top-10 Finishes: 0
Laps Led: 0
Average Start: 20.6
Average Finish: 21.0
CHRIS BUESCHER
Career Starts: 2
Career Wins: 0
Top-5 Finishes: 0
Top-10 Finishes: 0
Laps Led: 0
Average Start: 15.5
Average Finish: 27.5
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FAST FACTS – AJ ALLMENDINGER
Career Starts: 351
Wins: 1- 8/10/2014 Watkins Glen International
Top-fives: 10
Top-10s: 54
Pole Awards: 4
First Pole: 4/10/2010 ISM Raceway
Last Pole: 8/9/2015 Watkins Glen International
First Start: 3/25/2007 Bristol Motor Speedway
Best Start: 1st – 8/9/2015 Watkins Glen International (most recent)
Best Finish: 1st – 8/10/2014 Watkins Glen International
Driver DOB: 12/16/1981
Hometown: Los Gatos, CA
Crew Chief: Tristan Smith
FAST FACTS – CHRIS BUESCHER
Career Starts: 94
Wins: 1 – 8/1/2016 Pocono Raceway
Top-fives: 3
Top-10s: 7
Pole Awards: 0
First Start: 3/22/2015 Auto Club Speedway
Best Start: 9th – 6/25/2017 Sonoma Raceway
Best Finish: 1st – 8/1/2016 Pocono Raceway
Driver DOB: 10/29/1992
Hometown: Prosper, TX
Crew Chief: Trent Owens
