{"id":49935,"date":"2025-03-01T14:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T20:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=49935"},"modified":"2025-03-02T12:50:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T18:50:43","slug":"nascar-circuit-of-the-americas-weekend-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/nascar-circuit-of-the-americas-weekend-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Circuit of the Americas Weekend Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Tyler Reddick leads 23XI Racing sweep of front row at COTA<\/b><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Tex.\u2014Tyler Reddick led 23XI Racing to a front row lockout for Sunday\u2019s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Brandon Jones, driver of the #20 Menards\/Bali Toyota, and Ryan Sieg, driver of the #39 Sci Aps Ford, race during the NASCAR Xfinity Series Focused Health 250 at Circuit of The Americas on March 01, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Meg Oliphant\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Chased by teammate Bubba Wallace during the Group 2 session of time trials, Reddick turned a lap in 98.076 seconds (88.094 mph) in his No. 45 Toyota to top Wallace by 0.224 seconds for the top starting spot in the third NASCAR Cup Series race of the season.<\/p>\n

The Busch Light Pole Award was Reddick\u2019s second at COTA, his first of the season and the 10th of his career, four of which have come on road courses.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into (Turn) 1, I\u2019m like, \u2018Dang, I wish that he (Wallace) would have gapped himself a little bit more,\u2019 because I felt like I was messing his lap up, for sure,\u201d said Reddick, who won the 2023 Cup Series race at COTA and has an average finish of 5.0 at the track.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Tyler Reddick, driver of the #45 The Beast Toyota, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 01, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by James Gilbert\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cTalking to him after the fact, his focus was to go out and follow me and kind of see what I was going to do and try to mimic it. Certainly, he\u2019s on the path to getting better at the road courses.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s learning and if he keeps it up here soon, I\u2019ll be having to try to battle him head-to-head for these poles. It\u2019s been really nice to see his growth and him improve and embrace the way we have to do things\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase Elliott qualified third on his second lap at the 2.4-mile road course, which has been shortened this year, resulting in a race that will feature 95 laps instead of the 68 run last year.<\/p>\n

Carson Hocevar posted the fourth fastest lap, followed by fellow Chevrolet drivers Daniel Su\u00e1rez, Shane van Gisbergen, Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch and Ross Chastain. Todd Gilliland was 10th in the fastest Ford.<\/p>\n

Connor Zilisch qualified 14th in anticipation of his first NASCAR Cup Series start.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Shane Van Gisbergen, driver of the #88 WeatherTech Chevrolet, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas on March 01, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Meg Oliphant\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Great Expectations for Connor Zilisch\u2019s Cup Debut? Not on his part<\/b><\/p>\n

Connor Zilisch\u2019s logic was inescapable. He doesn\u2019t know what to expect from his NASCAR Cup Series debut on Sunday, so how can he have expectations?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it’s hard to set expectations when you haven’t done it before, right?\u201d said Zilisch, who will wheel the No. 87 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet at Circuit of the Americas in his maiden voyage in NASCAR\u2019s premier division.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe car is new. I’m racing against probably 25 drivers I’ve never raced against before. Yeah, there’s a lot of variables that I just don’t know. So for me, setting expectations is really tough, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want to set a goal of, you know, I want to go out and finish top five, and then I get a speeding penalty or my pit crew has a loose tire and I finish 15th because of something out of my doing, right? Because then I’ll be upset that I didn’t meet my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s not as if Zilisch is traveling into the complete unknown. In Friday\u2019s NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying on the newly configured 2.4-mile \u201cnational\u201d course at COTA, he won the pole.<\/p>\n

Ross Chastain and defending Cup race winner William Byron, both pulling double duty this weekend, were the only drivers within a second of Zilisch\u2019s pole-winning time.<\/p>\n

And though Zilisch won his first Xfinity Series race in his first start last year at Watkins Glen, he\u2019s taking a large step up in class on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, my expectation is I expect to be reasonably fast,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t want to say that I’m going to be really fast, but I do expect to not be way off on speed. But the biggest thing is going to be execution on Sunday and making the most of the race and not making mistakes. If the pit road speed is 50, expect me to be doing 48, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not going to be pushing the limit. I just want to take it easy and make sure I run all the laps and don’t get a penalty. That’s going to be the biggest thing when it comes to the race. But I feel like when it comes to speed, I feel confident in myself that I’ll be able to run fast enough laps to be at the front.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get to the front on Sunday, Zilisch will have to advance from the 14th starting position he earned during Saturday\u2019s time trials.<\/p>\n

After a strong start to the season, John Hunter Nemechek faces road course challenge<\/b><\/p>\n

In Sunday\u2019s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, John Hunter Nemechek will start to get the true measure of his performance.<\/p>\n

Nemechek and Ryan Blaney are the only two drivers to score top-10 finishes at both Daytona and Atlanta this season. Fifth in the Daytona 500 and 10th a week later, Nemechek is tied for sixth in the NASCAR Cup Series standings with Kyle Larson.<\/p>\n

Success on drafting tracks, however, doesn\u2019t always translate to speed at other venues, and Nemechek is eager to see how his No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota performs at COTA on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the first two races for us this year were about survival and putting ourselves in good spots to have good finishes and have shots to contend for a win,\u201d Nemechek said. \u201cI think that for us, coming into COTA, there\u2019s a lot of unknowns. I feel like last year, we really struggled at road courses. That\u2019s probably one of the areas that we lacked speed the most and the cars didn\u2019t drive very well, didn\u2019t have very much speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just wasn\u2019t very good for us. But, with the changes over the offseason (with new crew chief Travis Mack and major turnover on the crew), there\u2019s a lot of new personnel and a lot of new ideas. Different cars, I would say–hopefully, faster race cars than we had last year. I\u2019m looking forward to seeing where we stack up as far as the road course program goes and how much improvement and gains we\u2019ve made over the offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, Nemechek indulged in a sort of \u201cbranding\u201d different from typical sponsor relations. He went shopping for boots and burned his initials into the leather with a branding iron.<\/p>\n

He did the same with a pair he bought as a gift for wife Taylor.<\/p>\n

Nemechek must have a heavy foot on Sunday after qualifying 33rd for the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Tyler Reddick leads 23XI Racing sweep of front row at COTA AUSTIN, Tex.\u2014Tyler Reddick led 23XI Racing to a front row lockout for Sunday\u2019s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Chased by teammate Bubba Wallace during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":49941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,11],"tags":[39,16],"class_list":["post-49935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-circuit-of-the-americas","category-nascar","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-2202700372-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-cZp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49935"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49948,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49935\/revisions\/49948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}