DILLON READY FOR IOWA: Austin Dillon and the No. 33 Rheem team head to Newton, Iowa for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Iowa Speedway. Sunday’s race will mark Dillon’s second start with the Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) team. The young driver made his first start in the No. 33 Chevrolet Impala in April at Nashville Superspeedway where he captured his career-best series qualifying effort with a third-place starting position. Dillon finished the event seventh.
IOWA SUCCESS: This weekend’s race will be Dillon’s second Nationwide Series start at the 0.875-mile facility. In 2009, he qualified 16th and finished in the 28th position. The 21-year-old is no stranger to success, however, at Iowa. In the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race last season, Dillon started from the pole and went on to lead a dominating 187 of 250 laps on his way to victory lane.
He’s also gained solid experience in other racing series at Iowa. The driver has two top-10 finishes in two starts (2009, 2008) in the K&N Pro Series East. In 2009, Dillon also competed in the ARCA Racing Series event at Iowa where he started in the 30th position and finished second.
CHASSIS HISTORY: The No. 33 Rheem team has prepared chassis No. 066 for this weekend’s event at Iowa Speedway. The KHI team has competed with this chassis in three events this season with top-10 results. KHI co-owner Kevin Harvick drove this chassis to a third-place finish at Phoenix International Raceway in February and to a sixth-place finish at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway back in March. Driver Paul Menard piloted this particular chassis to a second-place finish at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway on April 29.
PREVIOUS RACE RECAP: Clint Bowyer walked away unharmed from a wild late-race accident at Dover (Del.) International Speedway, which sent the No. 33 Rheem Chevrolet sliding on its side before making contact with the inside wall that separates the track from pit road. Rain caused NASCAR to set the field for the 200-lap event per the rule book, which determined the starting lineup according to practice speeds. Bowyer started the race from the third position and kept the No. 33 Rheem machine in the top-five for most of the event. The race went into overtime after an accident brought out the caution flag with two laps to go in the scheduled 200-lap window. The driver was in the third position as the lead cars approached the white flag on the second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish. The driver running in second place made contact with Bowyer which caused the wild accident and subsequently ended the race. The No. 33 was scored with a 14th-place finish.
THOUGHTS FROM DILLON ON IOWA:
What are your thoughts on racing at Iowa?
“Iowa is a track I’ve really adapted to. It’s far away from home, but it feels like home because I’ve been there so many times and the fans are always so supportive. The track has a lot of character. There is a little bump in turn one so you have to get your car working through there, and then in turns three and four, you drive all the way up to the wall. That contrast creates a really good racing environment, with two and three-wide racing.”