{"id":53756,"date":"2025-08-02T14:45:39","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T19:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=53756"},"modified":"2025-08-07T13:39:39","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T18:39:39","slug":"nascar-saturday-iowa-speedway-notebook-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/02\/nascar-saturday-iowa-speedway-notebook-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Iowa Speedway Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Will maturing asphalt change the racing at Iowa Speedway?<\/b><\/p>\n

NEWTON, Iowa\u2014The new pavement at Iowa Speedway has aged for only a year, but NASCAR Cup Series drivers can expect a different track when they line up for Sunday\u2019s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol (3:30 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

Strips of new asphalt in the corners provided more grip in last year\u2019s race, won by Ryan Blaney. But with a year of weathering, Blaney expects the advantage of the \u201cgrip strips\u201d to have dissipated to some degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe asphalt definitely looks a lot lighter than last year, like it\u2019s taken some wear,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cAnd in the Xfinity practice (on Saturday), it was nice. They were in the second groove immediately. So I think it\u2019s going to be pretty racy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, this race track was pretty racy last year when the second lane came in. It kind of had two-and-a-half, three lanes, really, at the end of the day. I\u2019m curious to see what the tire does.<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking to some Xfinity guys after practice, they thought it was a little less grip than what it was last year, and I think that\u2019s just going to get worse and worse as the weekend goes on and rubber gets laid down, and the track continues to lose a little grip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brenden \u201cButterbean\u201d Queen, winner of Friday\u2019s ARCA Menards Series race at Iowa, can attest to some of Blaney\u2019s suppositions. Queen picked the outside lane for restarts at the 0.875 short track, expecting to find more grip in the repaved strips.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes it really fun to drive, \u2018cause we like to be able to slip around and have to manage it,\u201d Queen said. \u201cThe thing that caught me off guard was I thought the top was going to be so dominant on a restart, and it was, if you could maintain into Turn 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem was, that long patch to the restart line I though was going to be extra grip, but it was kind of like a sandy dust, and I had a ton of wheel-spin issues, and even worse when I transitioned to the old pavement versus that patch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Violent crash in practice sends Kyle Busch to back of field<\/b><\/p>\n

Kyle Busch had just posted the second fastest lap in Group A in Saturday\u2019s NASCAR Cup Series practice at Iowa Speedway when calamity struck.<\/p>\n

On his 18th circuit of the session, Busch drove hard into Turn 1, but his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet lurched out of control and slammed nose-first into the outside wall.<\/p>\n

With the car destroyed, Busch will start Sunday\u2019s Iowa Corn 350 from the rear of the field in a backup car.<\/p>\n

Busch said he was trying to build more security into the rear of the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnywhere I would push it a little harder, I would feel rear chatter,\u201d Busch said. \u201cI felt really good about the changes that we made there, came out of Turn 4 really hot and heavy and hard on it and went off into Turn 1 with too much trust and chattered the right rear and wrecked it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not real sure how to find more trust when you feel something good in one corner, and it\u2019s not there in the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

In danger of missing the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for the second straight year, Busch almost certainly must win one of the next four races to qualify for the postseason. He\u2019s 81 points below the current elimination line.<\/p>\n

Bubba Wallace curtails celebration despite monumental victory<\/b><\/p>\n

Thanks to \u201cadvancing years\u201d and a young child, Bubba Wallace has learned that wild victory celebrations come with a price.<\/p>\n

Even though the driver of the No. 23 Toyota won the biggest race of his life last Sunday, the festivities after the Brickyard 400 were relatively subdued.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, I\u2019ll tell you, I did not go hard after the win,\u201d said the 31-year-old Wallace. \u201cGetting older and realizing that hangovers suck, and also having a kid (10-month-old Becks) who doesn\u2019t care if you\u2019re hung over, that made me stop after two beers, and I just enjoyed the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the team over, everybody got to celebrate together, and it was a fun night. The celebration continued on, obviously. You go to the shop and see everybody there. Just really, really cool to get the Brickyard 400, their first Crown Jewel.<\/p>\n

\u201cCelebrated Tuesday with the team, all while working\u2014you know work never stops. Then just got to relax with the family the rest of the week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallace had another good reason to relax. His victory at Indy almost certainly earned a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs\u2014the first time the 23XI Racing driver has scored a victory in the regular season.<\/p>\n

Kyle Larson very much in the hunt for regular-season championship<\/b><\/p>\n

Three Hendrick Motorsports drivers are 1-2-3 in the NASCAR Cup Series standings with four races left in the regular season\u2014the closest competition for the 15-Playoff-point bonus that goes to the regular-season winner since the current system was installed in 2017.<\/p>\n

Chase Elliott has a four-point lead over teammate William Byron in second, with Kyle Larson 15 points back in third.<\/p>\n

Byron finished second in last year\u2019s Iowa race, and Elliott ran third, but Larson, despite his 34th-place finish, arguably had the fastest car in the field.<\/p>\n

Larson won the pole for the inaugural Cup race at the 0.875-mile track and scored a stage win before contact from Daniel Suarez\u2019s Chevrolet spun Larson\u2019s No. 5 Camaro into the outside wall and ruined his race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like our team was really, really strong to start the year (this season),\u201d Larson said. \u201cWe had those five or six weeks where we had fallen off a bit, but these last two have gone well. We were competitive here at Iowa last year\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

In all probability, the teammates will battle for the regular-season title until the final regular-season race at Daytona. If there\u2019s a spoiler, it\u2019s likely to be Denny Hamlin, who trails Elliott by 20 points despite missing a race for the birth of his son.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to see Hendrick Motorsports atop the standings right now\u2014at least three of us are\u2014with just a few races left till the end of the regular season,\u201d Larson said. \u201cThat\u2019s something to be proud of, but there\u2019s still a lot of racing left, and the Playoffs can be crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Will maturing asphalt change the racing at Iowa Speedway? NEWTON, Iowa\u2014The new pavement at Iowa Speedway has aged for only a year, but NASCAR Cup Series drivers can expect a different track when they line up for Sunday\u2019s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol (3:30 p.m. ET on USA, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":53767,"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":[11],"tags":[456,16],"class_list":["post-53756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-iowa-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2228244961-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-dZ2","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53757,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53756\/revisions\/53757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}