Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series at World Wide Technology Raceway… NASCAR returns to World Wide Technology Raceway this weekend for the Enjoy Illinois 300, race two of the three-race Round of 16 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Although this weekend marks only the fourth time that the NASCAR Cup Series has competed at the 1.25-mile paved oval located just outside of St. Louis, Missouri in Madison, Illinois, Richard Childress Racing has already built solid stats at the intermediate-style track, highlighted by a race win in 2023 with Kyle Busch from the pole position. In addition to Busch’s win and pole, RCR has earned two top-10 finishes in six Series starts. At least one of RCR’s two entries in the previous three races has finished the race inside the top-15. Austin Dillon led the RCR contingent in last year’s race with a strong sixth-place finish, while Busch retired from the race early following a Stage 2 crash. Both drivers are looking for strong performances this weekend.
RCR in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at World Wide Technology Raceway… The NASCAR Xfinity Series returns to World Wide Technology Raceway this weekend for the first time in more than 15 years. While the track is new to recent memory, RCR has a proven track record of success at WWTR, acquiring two wins, six top-five finishes and 11 top-10 finishes over the course of 20 starts from 2000-2009. RCR’s first win at the Madison, Illinois-based track came in the organization’s first start at the track in 2000 with driver Kevin Harvick. Harvick backed up the performance with a second Xfinity Series win for RCR at the track in 2001. This weekend marks RCR’s first race at WWTR since 2009.
The Cowboy Way… The Carolina Cowboys, a professional bull riding team in the PBR Teams league, an elite league featuring the world’s top bull riders competing in games throughout the country, return home on September 12-14 for their fourth annual Cowboy Days homestand at First Horizon Coliseum. Tickets for the event are on sale now, and start at $20, taxes and fees not included. They can be purchased online at TicketMaster.com and PBR.com, at the First Horizon Coliseum Box Office, or by calling PBR customer service at (800) 732-1727. For more information on Carolina Cowboys, and for updates on the upcoming PBR Cowboy Days, visit https://pbr.com/teams/carolina-cowboys, Carolina Cowboys on Facebook, @carolinacowboyspbr on Instagram, or @CARCowboysPBR on Twitter.
Saturday Tune In… The Nu Way 200 Sauced by Blues Hog at World Wide Technology Raceway will be televised live on Saturday, September 6 beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET on The CW Network. NASCAR Xfinity Series practice (5:05 p.m. Friday) and qualifying (3 p.m. Saturday) can be viewed on The CW App.
Catch the Action Sunday… The Enjoy Illinois 300 will be televised live on Sunday, September 7 beginning at 3 p.m. ET on USA and will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying on Saturday will be broadcast on truTV. Ride shotgun all season long with live, in-car camera feeds and scanner audio with a paid subscription to Max as part of their NASCAR driver cam experience during the race.
Austin Dillon and the No. 3 Dow DayGlo Chevrolet at World Wide Technology Raceway… Austin Dillon will compete at World Wide Technology Raceway for the fourth consecutive year. The Welcome, North Carolina driver has been a strong contender in each of his previous three starts at the Madison, Illinois-based track, led by a sixth-place finish one year ago. Dillon had a top-15 run going in 2023 until the team was involved in a crash late in the race. He finished 15th in 2022 after completing all 245 laps around the 1.25-mile oval.
Success Not Limited to the Cup Series… Dillon, the 2011 NASCAR Truck Series Champion, has one Truck Series start at World Wide Technology Raceway, finishing sixth after starting seventh in 2010.
Get to the Points… Dillon punched his ticket into the 2025 post season with a dominating performance and win at Richmond Raceway on Saturday night, August 16. After finishing 23rd at Darlington Raceway last week, Dillon enters of second of three races in the Round of 16 ranked 14th in the standings, just eight points below the cut line to advance into the Round of 12.
Dow brings a science and engineering crew who is driven by limitless curiosity to the RCR Team… Dillon and the RCR team are again supported by Dow’s materials science expertise and technologies this season. Backed by the power of data analysis and virtual modeling, Dow develops and manufactures high-performance components and materials custom-made for the No. 3 car. Dow and RCR’s partnership has expedited innovation and shortened testing time in the automotive industry by using one of the most extreme environments – the racetrack – as a real-time testbed. After 12 years of collaboration, Dow scientists and RCR engineers are continuing to work together to make the No. 3 car faster, safer, and more precise. Stay up to date with Dow’s exciting developments at www.dow.com/sports, and follow them on X (@DowSports) and LinkedIn (Dow Sports Marketing Solutions).
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Meet Dillon… Dillon is scheduled to sign merchandise at the RCR Merch Trailer in the World Wide Technology Raceway Fan Midway on Sunday at 10:10 a.m. Local Time. Stop by to meet the driver of the No. 3 Dow DayGlo Chevrolet and get new RCR gear.
AUSTIN DILLON QUOTES:
What are your thoughts leading into World Wide Technology Raceway. Is that a track you circle as one of the tracks you’ll be a threat at during the NASCAR Playoffs?
“I can’t wait to get the Dow Dayglo car on the track at World Wide Technology Raceway. It’s probably one of the brightest and coolest cars I’ve ever driven, and I know my daughter Blaize will be really excited about the bright colors on our Chevy. World Wide Technology Raceway is one of my favorite tracks that we go to. We had one of our best runs of the season in 2024 at the track and it’s a NASCAR Playoffs race, so I’m excited to get it out there and give it all we got.”
Is there anything from Richmond Raceway that you can transfer over to World Wide Technology Raceway?
“I think with World Wide Technology Raceway being in between a short track and a bigger track makes it interesting. It has long straightaways, but it has flatter corners. You’re in the corner for a long time. Turns 1 and 2 have a little bit more banking, similar to Richmond Raceway, but truthfully the pavement and asphalt are so different than Richmond that I don’t think everything will crossover. However, I feel good about what we’re bringing.”
What’s it going to take to transfer to the next round of the NASCAR Playoffs?
“I think the first round of the NASCAR Playoffs is all about execution. If we can be consistent in our performance the first three weeks, we’ll transfer to the next round. Darlington didn’t go the way we wanted to, but we’re still within striking distance.”
Kyle Busch and the No. 8 Rebel Bourbon Chevrolet at World Wide Technology Raceway… Kyle Busch will make his fourth World Wide Technology Raceway start in NASCAR Cup Series competition this weekend. The two-time Cup Series champion is a strong contender at the 1.25-mile oval, having won the 2023 race in dominating fashion. The driver of the Rebel Bourbon Chevrolet won the pole and led the most laps (121 of 243) on the way to scoring his third win of the 2023 season. His average running position in the race was a sizzling 1.96. Busch had a strong run going in last year’s race, leading 15 laps, before a crash in Stage 2 forced the No. 8 Rebel Bourbon team to retire from the race early. Busch owns two top-five and two top-10 finishes at the Madison, Illinois-based track, and has led 202 laps in his three outings at WWTR, the most of any driver, leading the second-place driver by 87 laps.
Success Not Limited to the Cup Series… In addition to his 2023 Cup Series win at WWTR, Busch won a NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the track in 2009.
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Meet Busch… Busch is scheduled to sign merchandise at the RCR Merch Trailer in the World Wide Technology Raceway Fan Midway on Sunday at 10:45 a.m. Local Time. Stop by to meet the driver of the No. 8 Rebel Bourbon Chevrolet and get new RCR gear.
KYLE BUSCH QUOTES:
World Wide Technology Raceway is the home of your last Cup Series win in 2023. What did it mean to you to get a win at a track that was new to the Cup Series?
“It was fantastic. I was oh so close to having it the first year but was able to repeat that success with RCR and to be able to get it there in 2023. It was a fun racetrack. I remember racing on it in the Xfinity Series back when and won some races there in the era of 2009-2010, and now being able to come back and run there again, I would certainly love to get back to Victory Lane in the Rebel Bourbon Chevrolet and put a one in the win column.”
You’re the only one that’s been able to stop the Penske Express there. Why do you think that group is so solid on those short, flatter tracks?
“I’m not sure exactly, but they certainly do have their short, flat track program going. I remember Logano talking about testing at North Wilkesboro and going through set up changes and things and how they ran 400 laps or whatever it was of just continually of evolving their set up and trying to figure something out. Maybe that had something to do with it, maybe the Indy car program has something to do with it. They’re always oh so strong with the Indy car stuff, so who knows?”
Last year you battled Kyle Larson and it’s always cool when the two Kyles are together because you are just two of the elites in the sport. What went wrong with that battle between the two of you, while you were fighting for, I think, seventh place?
“I would have to go back and watch it again, but from what I recall, Kyle caught me from a ways back and it’s hard to pass with these cars, obviously, so I guess he felt it when he got to me, he needed to nerf me a little bit and get me up out of the groove. I guess I just wasn’t too happy with that and crowded him a little bit getting into Turn 1, he lost his race car and we both ended up crashed. I guess that’s part of the course. I should have learned my lesson on how crowding somebody will crash somebody because my brother did that to me in 2007 at Charlotte. We both made mistakes in that race, but we certainly came out on the worst end of it.”
After Dover, your team owner Richard Childress, he comes over the radio and vows to change things. One of the things they’ve changed is bringing Jeff Curtis in, better known as Jazzy. Your brother considered him a secret weapon of sorts because of what he’s able to do. Have you seen any changes since two months ago at Dover?
“A little bit. I mean, I would say that Jazzy is a key component of that, Johnny Klausmeier is a key component of that, there’s a bunch of guys in the fab shop that are also. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to go out there and win races. It’s about putting all the pieces together and having the right setups. I feel like sometimes, we hit the racetrack with what we think we know is right because we see our other key partner friends that are running those setups and it just doesn’t work for us. It’s fine to run a key partner setup that’s good, that has proven itself, that wins races. Like Austin ran his same set up at Richmond from last year, ran really good with it, it won both times. We tried it on the 8 car as well, too, and I just burned the right rear tire off it. So there has to be a concession or a delta made for me to be able to race somebody else’s setups. Whether I’m too hard on the right rear or too hard on the right front, there’s got to be some different values within those setups that you can say, ‘okay, that’s our base setup, but we know Kyle needs X for right rear spring, so let’s rebuild the setup around that, and that’ll be good for what Kyle needs’. And I just don’t think we’ve scienced that out yet.”
You said last Saturday at Darlington that over the next 10 races, the only thing on your mind is winning. How do you get there, how do you achieve that?
“I mean I think just being able to put everything together, all pieces of the puzzle. Being able to have good cars when we go to the racetrack and maintain those good cars all through practice, all through the race, and try to qualify up front as well, too. We got burned at qualifying at Darlington a little bit with the Daytona crash that we had, being knocked out in the first stage and the metric that sets qualifying, so that wasn’t a benefit to us, but it happens.”
Jesse Love and the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet at World Wide Technology Raceway… This weekend’s Nu Way 200 sauced by Blues Hog will mark Jesse Love’s first career Xfinity Series start at World Wide Technology Raceway. Love, however, has experience at the 1.25-mile oval. The Menlo Park, California-native made his Truck Series debut at the track in 2023, qualifying 20th en route to a ninth-place finish. Prior to that race, Love raced in the ARCA Menards Series event at the Illinois track in 2020, starting from the 17th position and finishing in fifth-place.
Standings Update… Through 25 regular season events, Love currently holds the fourth position in the Xfinity Series driver championship point standings – 70 points behind third-place Sam Mayer and 120 points behind standings leader Conner Zilisch. Love leads the Xfinity Series with 17 top-10 finishes.
Rearview Mirror… Last weekend at Portland International Raceway, Love began the race tenth. Battling back after suffering mid-race damage, Love raced the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet to a tenth-place finish.
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JESSE LOVE QUOTE:
While this weekend will mark your first Xfinity Series Race at World Wide Technology Raceway, you are no stranger to the track. What can we expect from the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet?
“I’ve been to World Wide Technology Raceway twice. I made my first NASCAR Truck Series start there, I ran top-10, and I have a top-5 there in ARCA. I have some laps there, and I have had some decent runs, so I feel pretty confident about it. Nothing specific sticks out to me from the past races there, but this is going to be an important weekend to try to get as many playoff points and a race win before the playoffs start. I think we are going to have a really good car, and I hope we can be as good as we were in Iowa.
Austin Hill and the No. 21 Bennett Transportation & Logistics Chevrolet at World Wide Technology Raceway… Austin Hill will make his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at World Wide Technology Raceway on Saturday evening, but the Winston, Georgia native has raced in five career NASCAR Truck Series events at the Madison, Illinois facility. Hill claimed the pole position in 2021 – his most recent start at the track – and earned his best finish of third in 2020. At the 1.25-mile asphalt oval, Hill has completed 99.1 percent (796 of 803) of laps competed.
Regular Season Review… As the Xfinity Series regular season comes to a close this weekend, Hill has secured three wins, one pole, 11 top-five and 14 top-10 finishes in the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. The top-five statistic matches Hill’s season-ending total from 2024, and a total of 306 laps led surpasses the mark tallied one year ago. The 31-year-old currently holds the fifth position in the series driver championship point standings.
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Meet Hill… Fans have two opportunities to meet Hill prior to the green flag waving for the Xfinity Series regular season finale at World Wide Technology Raceway. On Saturday, September 6 at 12:00 p.m. Local Time, the veteran driver is scheduled to join his fellow competitors for a series autograph session in the Cup Series Garage. Later that day at 4:05 p.m. Local Time, Hill is scheduled to sign autographs at the RCR Merchandise Hauler in the WWTR Midway.
AUSTIN HILL QUOTES:
You haven’t raced at World Wide Technology Raceway in a Xfinity Series car, but you do have five Truck Series starts there. What do you expect from this weekend’s race?
“I haven’t been to World Wide Technology Raceway in a few years, since I joined the Xfinity Series full-time, but I remember earning a third-place finish in one of my last Truck Series starts. I have confidence going there even though I haven’t run a Xfinity car there before. After talking to some Cup drivers and teams, it seems the track has a ton of grip now after the repave. The track should be fast and I’m hopeful that passing is better than I’ve seen in the past. The one thing that I do like is you can move around and not be married to one line. You don’t have to only run the bottom on both ends, but you can move around and run the second lane. Almost a third lane came in during last year’s Cup race in Turns 3 and 4.”
Describe what you need from your No. 21 Chevrolet to run well at World Wide Technology Raceway.
“You’ll need to shift in Turns 1 and 2 to get the car turned well. A car that is really good will be overall neutral, maybe one number tight in Turns 1 and 2 and a little loose in Turns 3 and 4. Turns 3 and 4 are flatter and a longer corner, so you will most likely be on edge with the right rear tire. But you will need to have that balance at that end of the track to make speed in Turns 1 and 2 with how tight of a corner it is.”
