This Week in Auto Racing June 19 - 21

Jun 19, 2015 - 7:22 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - While the Sprint Cup Series takes a break this Father's Day weekend, the Xfinity Series is competing at Chicagoland Speedway and the Camping World Truck Series is running at Iowa Speedway. Formula One is at Red Bull Ring for the Austrian Grand Prix.

NASCAR

Xfinity Series

Owens Corning AttiCat 300 - Chicagoland Speedway - Joliet, Illinois

Defending Xfinity Series champion Chase Elliott is hoping his second-place finish last weekend at Michigan International Speedway will give him the momentum he needs to win Saturday night's race at Chicagoland Speedway.

When the series ran its "stand-alone" race at Chicagoland last July, Elliott scored his third victory during his rookie season. He has not won an event since. His winless drought in the series now stands at 28 races.

Elliott finished 10th in the most recent Xfinity event at Chicagoland in September. The Sprint Cup Series competed there on the same weekend.

In the July race here, Elliott led 85 of the 200 laps, including the final 24. His victory allowed him to reclaim the lead in the point standings. Elliott stayed atop the rankings for the remainder of the 2014 season, as he became the youngest driver ever to win a championship in any one of NASCAR's three national touring series, doing so at age 18.

"We had some success (at Chicagoland) in July, which really gives me a confidence boost heading into the weekend," Elliott said. "I was able to pick up on a few tips through two races there last season that I can use to my advantage Saturday night."

Elliott, the driver of the No. 9 NAPA-sponsored Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, is currently third in Xfinity points. He is 35 points behind leader Chris Buescher, who already has two wins this season.

At Michigan, Elliott held the lead late in the race, but Kyle Busch passed him for the top position with four laps to go. Busch beat Elliott to the finish line by a half-second for his record-extending 71st career win in the series.

Elliott has finished in the runner-up spot twice this season. He placed second in the May 17 race at Iowa after leading the most laps there with 114.

"We are in this for the long haul and understand it's a lengthy season," he said. "My NAPA team and I are committed to getting better each time we go out and race. Last weekend in Michigan, we found success but came up just a bit short to Kyle."

Camping World Truck Series

American Ethanol 200 - Iowa Speedway - Newton, Iowa

Nineteen-year-old Erik Jones has a busy schedule in NASCAR this weekend.

Jones is pulling double duty, competing in Friday night's 200-lap Camping World Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway and then Saturday night's 300-mile Xfinity Series event at Chicagoland Speedway.

This year, Jones is running full-time in trucks, driving the No. 4 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports. He is currently fourth in the series point standings, 33 points behind leader and two-time defending champion Matt Crafton. Jones has yet to win a truck race this season, but he has led the most laps in three of the previous five events. Last Saturday at Gateway Motorsports Park, he started on the pole and ran in front for 84 of the 160 laps but suffered an electrical issue in the late going, which led to a season-worst 23rd-place finish.

Jones won last year's truck race at Iowa. In a dominating performance, he led 131 of 200 laps at this 0.875-mile track. The series competed here twice in 2013, with Jones finishing second and ninth in those races.

"Iowa has been a pretty fun place for me," Jones said. "It's a place that has been pretty good to me since I went there for the first time in 2013, when we ran second in the spring, and then we were able to get the win there last year.

"I'm looking forward to having another short-track race this weekend. We showed some good speed last week at Gateway, and we have a really good short- track program overall. I think we have a good shot at defending our title this weekend."

When the truck race at Iowa is completed, Jones will head to Chicagoland to drive the No. 54 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. This past weekend, Kyle Busch drove the No. 54 car to victory at Michigan International Speedway. It was Busch' first Xfinity race since he sustained a fractured right leg and left foot in the Feb. 21 season-opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Jones has made 12 Xfinity starts for JGR this season, posting one win (Texas in April), six top-five finishes and seven top-10s as well as three poles. Jones made his Xfinity debut at Chicagoland on July 19, 2014, starting fourth and finishing seventh.

"I'm looking forward to Chicagoland," he said. "It's a cool place, and that's where we made our Xfinity Series debut last year. So there are some things I can apply from there and take over with me this year. Obviously with the No. 54 team having some momentum from the Michigan win, that will be fun, to take it on into Chicago and see if we can have back-to-back wins. I know we'll have a fast car, and it will be fun to be back over with those No. 54 guys again."

Last month, Jones made his first career start in the Sprint Cup Series at Kansas Speedway. He drove the No. 18 car in place of Busch, who returned to racing the following week in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race.

FORMULA ONE

Austrian Grand Prix - Red Bull Ring - Spielberg, Styria, Austria

After running the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks ago, Formula One is back in Europe this weekend with the Austrian Grand Prix.

This is the second straight year F1 is competing in Austria after the racing circuit took a 10-year hiatus from that European country. Nico Rosberg from Mercedes won last year's Austrian GP, which was held on the 2.688-mile (4.326- kilometer), 9-turn Red Bull Ring for the first time.

In Friday's practice here, Rosberg led the way in the opening session with a lap in 1 minute, 10.401 seconds. Sebastian Vettel, in his first season with Ferrari, topped the time charts in the second session (1:09.600). Rosberg's best lap in P2 was only 0.011 seconds behind Vettel.

"In general, it was a decent practice day for me," Rosberg said. "It's a challenge to nail the setup for this track, but I felt comfortable in the car. The red cars (The Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel) are very strong here. They had very impressive pace - on higher fuel levels as well as low. They are our closest rivals, I think, but on this short track, the lap times are quicker and all the cars are closer together."

Raikkonen was third quickest in each of the two practice sessions.

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, the defending F1 world champion and winner of the June 7 Canadian GP, was second in P1, just 0.308 seconds behind Rosberg. In P2, Hamilton placed fifth (0.537 seconds in back of Vettel).

"It's been an ok start - not the best but not the worst either," Hamilton said. "I had a bit of oversteer here and there, but generally the car feels great and we definitely made improvements from P1 to P2. There's just not a lot of grip out there on track, and I didn't put a full lap together. I had some good sectors and was a few tenths (of a second) up on a couple of laps, so the pace is there."

Hamilton enters Sunday's 71-lap Austrian GP with a 17-point lead over Rosberg, his teammate, and a 43-point advantage over Vettel. Hamilton has four wins this season, compared to two for Rosberg and one for Vettel. They are the only drivers with victories this season.

"It was a great feeling to finally get back on top in Canada and add to the great memories I have there," said Hamilton, who won the Canadian GP for the fourth time. "Now, though, it's time to move on and put things right at a circuit I had a tough introduction to last year - Austria. Although I struggled in qualifying, starting down in ninth, it was actually a great race fighting back through the field. I think I was about fourth or fifth by the end of the first lap and then just kept chipping away to claw my way back to the podium, which was really good fun. Of course, I'll be working hard to have a clearer shot at the win on Sunday."

In the closing laps of last year's Austrian GP, Hamilton attempted to catch Rosberg for the lead, trailing by less than a second, but Rosberg went on to beat Hamilton by 1.9 seconds for his third win of the season.