The racing season got started a little late this year in the Upper Midwest following an extra harsh winter. Race fans and tracks in North Dakota and Minnesota have been making up for lost time with plenty of events as the summer rolls around.
Alex Tagliani will be behind the wheel of the No. 22 Discount Tire Mustang for Team Penske in this weekend’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Road America. Tagliani, who has four career NNS starts, including three on the road course in Montreal, has a career best finish of second (Montreal in 2011) and won the pole in Montreal in 2012.
Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford team enter this weekend riding a three-race streak of top-three results. The strong results include two second-place finishes and one third-place finish that have moved Keselowski to within 47 points of the series point leader, Jeff Gordon, in the driver standings.
Marcos Ambrose, driver of the No. 9 Ford Fusion, heads into the first road course race of the season this weekend looking for his first win at Sonoma Raceway. Ambrose spoke about his success on road courses and more in the weekly NASCAR teleconference Wednesday.
For the first time fans will have the opportunity to watch driver introductions from the track prior to the Goody’s® Headache Relief Shot® 500 Powered by Kroger at Martinsville Speedway.
"As a group I think that all of us are excited to go to Sonoma. For me particularly I look forward to it based on our third place run last year and our really good road race efforts lately. My pit crew has been great and Jimmy Fennig has been calling great races, so all of that stuff will come into play at Sonoma.
“We are excited to go back to Road America with our Roush Performance Parts Mustang. We won there last year in the ARCA Series and I think that experience will help us get a great finish this weekend.”
“I’m looking forward to some road racing at Sonoma, something different this weekend. We tested a little while ago at VIR and also did some schooling out at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. The keys to Sonoma are staying on the race track, gas mileage, taking care of the brakes and transmission.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie Michael Annett and his Pilot Flying J Chevrolet SS team will venture to Sonoma Raceway in California this weekend for the first road course event of the 2014 season.
