NASCAR this week: Best mid-run teams and more from the 2025 Enjoy Illinois 300

John Hunter Nemechek got away unscathed time and time again where he enjoyed not just the 6th place finish Nascar Race, he also had an extended crack upfront as well in the No.42 Camry for Legacy MC.  

Same with his team-mate Erik Jones in the sister No.43 machinery when Josh Berry from Wood Brothers Racing almost sliced him into the wall. 

Although he struggled to achieve the kind of momentum that JHN has done when it comes to the team’s short and long run setups. 

Early track position gains do help more than just relying on strategy unless lots of people above him go off by crashing and burning early like the “big track” races at Daytona & Talladega.

Now there was a fast satellite Toyota car on hand actually with 23XI’s Bubba Wallace, who was front and centre at one point, following an outstanding Stage 2.

Credit to his pit crew members who were so quick to get the job done for him ahead of everybody & so does crew chief Charles Denike as always. Love how Charles studies these type of race tracks really well that got the best out of Bubba against everyone just like in Indianapolis & he won that race at the back end of July.

If it wasn’t for that odd wheel spin where he suddenly lost ground at the restart, he could’ve won right there with that rocket ship of a race car but happy to finish 8th.

His boss Denny Hamlin took over that spotlight by the way without any setbacks having lost the lead from pole. But he and crew chief Chris Gayle perfected their long-game structure beautifully at the right side during a long Stage 3 distance once Denny regained top spot and there goes Denny with the race win for Joe Gibbs Racing on has been Toyota’s 200th race win in Cup level history since 2007.

Chris Buescher always running well & showing up Top 10s post-race as power to him and his No.17 RFK Racing team representing the Ford Mustangs in 9th.

He would want a front row shot for sure to have a front row seat at stealing the race win when he couldn’t get into the Top 5-7 mark like team-mate Brad Keselowski did at one time but then Brad’s No.6 Mustang walked away with nothing down in 17th.

What he’s grateful for is his overall weekend performance where qualifying makes things count from just outside Top 10 to just inside Top 10 – not many could do that like Buescher but hey, he’s happy to take it.

Best mid-run Chevy goes to Michael McDowell in 14th for Spire Motorsports (No.71): he enjoyed running under green like Top 10s early in Stage 1 along with a huge rebound towards the finish there.

He just didn’t like the repeated yellow flag hole-ups every time he slipped away at restarts when others with the change of adjustments through these pit windows worked better than Michael and he couldn’t do anything to prevent it in between the end of Stage 1 and Stage 2. 

He can also imagine that Bubba Wallace scenario as if the race ran with less yellows minus Bubba’s overcooked wheelspin, Michael would also be right up there with good green flag speed all afternoon. Gotta take note of that.

Xfinity Series: Nu Way 200 Sauced by Blues Dog Saturday Night race

Easy to say with top honours to Connor Zilisch once again with both the Gateway night race win all along and the regular season Xfinity Series championship.

William Sawalich, meanwhile, was not far behind Connor where he gained a lot of spots particularly during a caution filled Stage 3 – despite the chances of a race win were quite out of reach.

Safe to say that Connor’s speed was just too good to land into victory lane as always much like Corey Heim in Trucks unless the repeated yellows, odd mistakes and race off pit road factor comes in play.

Better still, this is the kind of rivalry we can’t wait between now and the Championship 4 (if Sawalich can earn his good results there) plus the years to come.

Also nice to see Christian Eckes benefit from a long list of Stage 3 yellows into a P3 finish for Kaulig and best Ford goes to Harrison Burton in 22nd as gutted no doubt from starting 6th but still through to the opening Round of 12 playoffs.

So far Sam Mayer is the only Ford driver to have won an Xfinity race for 2025 last month at Iowa as Harrison hopes he can be as good as the other Fords. 

Now if he can post Top 7-10 consistently and still be in the hunt over the next 1-2 months, this can go a long, long way towards something special for AM Racing.

But for Eckes, there’s always another year after he couldn’t close in on both the Top 2 on time to get out of this must-win ultimatum. He did earn a couple of nice finishes so far in his rookie season following a fruitful number of years at Trucks that isn’t to do with Toyota’s cut-throat driver program on what has been his career best finish of P3 for the second time now since Pocono back in mid-June.

He may not be able to contend for the championship as Eckes would’ve liked but again, there’s a bit less pressure now for him to stamp his first career win sooner than later going into age 25 like H. Burton.

The next Xfinity Series race will be a night race once again but this time on a Friday night/Saturday morning here for the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

90% say Connor but you never know what the 10% would be should Connor walk away without an Xfinity Championship because he’s already confirmed to replace Daniel Suarez in 2026 at Cup level for Trackhouse Racing (also under Chevy).

Bring it on to start the first of the three Round of 12 Finals Series.

Supercars Championship: A NASCAR driver will officially be on his way to Adelaide

After all this time, it’s super cool to finally have a regular NASCAR Cup Series driver onboard for the Adelaide Street Final weekend at the end of November.

Happy for Austin Cindric to team up with Ford Australia’s frontline team by Tickford Racing in the wildcard No.5 Mustang entry as sure he will learn a good trick or two from Cam Waters (ran in Trucks once two months back) & Thomas Randle.

Would’ve loved to see Connor Zilisch stopping by or even Connor and SVG (coming back again, even if it’s a one-off) together – both stellar road course racers.

But here’s hoping more NASCAR people will fly here for a fun weekend of Supercars like Richard Childress did in Adelaide two years ago.

If you want to give Supercars a red hot go, there’s one coming up this weekend for the 1st Endurance events out of two at The Bend Motorsports Park in South Australia. 

Then Mount Panorama at Bathurst here we come going into next month for the annual Bathurst 1000 race (161 lap race to complete 1000km) just one week after the AFL (Australian Rules Football) and NRL (Rugby League) Grand Finals.

Also what’s breaking coming from Supercars is that they decided to keep Fox Sports (subscription) and Seven (free-to-air) onboard as their TV partners in another multi-year contract with very small changes to the sport’s content alignment last week. Fox continue to have everything while the same goes to Seven with just a few marquee events alongside everything else 60 minute highlights.

Wish someone else in charge would just sacrifice the support categories at the big event races that Seven is currently doing like Super 2 except Bathurst for every Supercars race live during either side of the weekend (preferably Sundays) each and every year when IndyCar shows how it’s done with thanks to Fox in the US.

IndyCar fans don’t really need to pay cable or streaming unless they want to watch through practice, qualifying, race replays and oh the Indy NXT junior series.

But oh well, top billing races go first followed by exclusive ad-free access second if you want everything Supercars.