O'Reilly Series

In his 13th overall NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) start, Roush Fenway Racing rookie Ryan Reed will make his first start at Darlington Raceway.

On Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway, Chase Elliott beat the likes of Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth to score his first career Nationwide Series win.

Chase Elliott is certainly not your average 18 year-old. Most kids his age are not racing full-time, let alone winning a race at the national level. Elliott’s competing on a week-to-week basis in the Nationwide Series with some of the best drivers in NASCAR and beating them on a consistent basis, making him one extraordinary teenager.

“We had a tire go down. It started getting really loose about lap 25 into the run. I don’t know if the tire was leaking the whole time or if it just wore really bad, but going through one and two about two or three laps before that happened I said, ‘The right rear feels really bad,’ and then the next two laps I said it again and again and then all of a sudden I lost it into three."

Harvick backed up that time in the following two rounds of qualifying to score the pole for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway. Harvick scored his first Texas Motor Speedway Nationwide Series pole with a lap of 29.195 seconds. It marks Harvick’s 25th career Nationwide Series pole.

Texas Motor Speedway is among the NASCAR trail’s fastest tracks, and that’s a plus for Jeffrey Earnhardt, who’ll drive the Flex Seal Chevrolet for JD Motorsports with Gary Keller in Friday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 Nationwide Series race at the 1.5-mile track.

Cassill, who is 14th in Nationwide Series driver points, will be looking for another solid finish in Friday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 300. In a bit of unusual scheduling, the TMS Nationwide race is being held on Friday night instead of Saturday to avoid conflict with the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament, which is scheduled in Dallas.

Richard Petty Motorsports Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series teams will adorn a decal for Autism Awareness for the month of April to support Gray, son of No. 43 Crew Chief Trent Owens. With April being Autism Awareness month and April 2 Global Autism Awareness Day, the team, led by NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty, will join the campaign to raise awareness for autism.

“Anytime that I get to go home and race is nice. I really like Texas Motor Speedway and have run thousands of laps around the smaller tracks there. I have one NNS race under my belt at Texas and think we can improve upon that run this weekend in our Roush Performance Mustang.”

With five Nationwide Series starts under his belt, Chase Elliott is off to a good start this year with JRM Motorsports as he has posted four top 10 finishes, highlighted by a fifth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.