NASCAR Xfinity Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Preview

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O'Reilly300_2011

NASCAR Xfinity Series

Next Race: O’Reilly Auto Parts 300

The Place: Texas Motor Speedway

The Date: Friday, April 10

The Time: 8:30 p.m. (ET)

TV: FOX Sports 1, 8 p.m. (ET)

Radio: PRN, Sirius XM Ch. 90

Distance: 300 miles (200 laps)

Texas Natives Buescher, Poole And Starr Are Ready To Put On A Show In The Lone Star State

Texas natives Chris Buescher (Prosper, Texas), Brennan Poole (The Woodlands, Texas) and David Starr (Houston, Texas) will give fans from the state of Texas lots to cheer for Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway

Currently, Roush Fenway Racing’s Chris Buescher sits second in the series standings, five points back from Richard Childress Racing’s Ty Dillon. Buescher’s consistency has been his strength thus far this season; in five starts he has three top-fives and an average finish of 7.8. Buescher’s season-to-date driver rating is 100.5 (fourth-best in the series). One might say Texas Motor Speedway is 22 year-old Buescher’s home track – his hometown, Prosper, Texas, is just a mere 40 miles northeast of the oval. Buescher has made three starts at Texas posting a best finish of 13th last fall. Buescher has a busy weekend on tap. Following the NASCAR Xfinity Series race Friday night, Buescher will stay and compete Saturday in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race driving the No. 34 Ford for Front Row Motorsports.

Keep your eye developmental driver Brennan Poole, who is stepping into the HScott Motorsports with Chip Ganassi No. 42 Chevrolet this weekend. It will be Poole’s third start of the season for HScott Motorsports. In his first two starts, he has posted one top-ten and an average finish of 17.5. Poole hails from The Woodlands (a suburb of Houston), Texas about 250 miles south of Texas Motor Speedway. Poole harnessed his skills racing for Venturini Motorsports in the ARCA Racing Series, before his moonlighting in the Xfinity Series. This will be his series track début at Texas this weekend.

David Starr is running his first full season in the Xfinity Series with TriStar Motorsports and car owner Mark Smith. Starr has competed part-time in the series for ten years, but this season in his full-time stint he sits ninth in the series standings; 51 points behind the standings lead. Starr has posted one top-ten (Daytona) and an average finish of 17.0 in 2015. Starr calls the big city of Houston, Texas his hometown. Texas Motor Speedway sits 275 miles north of Houston. In Starr’s ten starts at Texas he has posted an average finish of 25.9.

Chase Elliott Returns To Defend His Win At Texas

Last season, Chase Elliot joined an illustrious group of drivers (Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kurt Busch and Trevor Bayne) who posted their first career Xfinity Series victories at Texas Motor Speedway. If he defends his win this season, he will be the first of the four drivers who posted their first win at Texas to do so.

While the odds look long for Elliott, there have been 14 different series winners at Texas and five of the 14 have multiple wins. Kyle Busch leads the series in wins at Texas with seven; including five consecutive victories from the spring of 2008 to the spring of 2010. Three drivers have won back-to-back races at Texas – Mark Martin (1999, 2000); Kyle Busch (2008 sweep, 2009 sweep and spring of 2010) and Carl Edwards (fall of 2010 and spring of 2011). Kyle Busch is the only driver since the Xfinity Series started competing at Texas twice a year (since 2005) to win consecutive Texas spring events (2008, 2009 and 2010).

The defending series champion, Elliott, has regained his groove and is riding the momentum of his four consecutive top-ten finishes following his season-opening DNF at Daytona. In five starts in 2015, he has an average finish of 9.8, a driver rating of 100.0 (fifth-best in the series) and a percentage of laps run on the lead lap of 97 percent (second-best in the series).

Last season Elliott’s car came alive in the second half of the spring race at Texas. He traded the lead with his teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick in the last stretches of the event, but took the lead for the last time on lap 185 and went on to win the race. Elliott posted three wins last season; he is still looking for his first in 2015.

Sunoco Rookie Update: Wallace, Suarez, Chastain Are Rising To The Top

After the first five races of the season, Darrell Wallace Jr. leads the Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings by eight points over second-place Daniel Suarez and 11 points over third-place Ross Chastain.

Wallace has pulled ahead in the standings with his consistency this season; he hasn’t finished outside the top-15 in all five starts of 2015. His average finish is 11.4, and his season-to-date driver rating is 92.0 (eighth-best in the series). This will be Wallace’s first series start at Texas.

Just outside of Wallace sits Daniel Suarez who posted his fourth consecutive top-15 finish of the season at Auto Club Speedway a few weeks back. The Monterrey, Mexico native Suarez continues to improve each week, his average finish this season is 17.4 and his season-to-date driver rating is 78.4 (12th-best in the series).

Chastain continues to hold on to third in the rookie standings following his three top-20 finishes this season. Chastain kicked 2015 off red-hot with a top-ten at Daytona, but since then he hasn’t finished better than 17th. This weekend at Texas, Chastain will make his series track début at the 1.5-mile speedway.

Milestones Watch: Mike Bliss will be attempting to make his 350th Xfinity Series start this weekend at Texas. If Bliss makes the start, he will tie Kevin Lepage and Randy LaJoie for ninth on the Xfinity Series all-time list for series starts. Bliss will be in the No. 19 TriStar Motorsports Toyota with crew chief Paul Clapprood this weekend..

Jeff Green is attempting to make his 675th NASCAR national series start (Sprint Cup -, 269, Xfinity Series – 395 and Camping World Truck Series – ten) this weekend. Green is 35th on the NASCAR national series all-time starts list; six starts behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 34th 680). Green won the Xfinity Series championship in 2000 and has posted 16 wins, 87 top-fives, 127 top-tens and 23 poles in his Xfinity Series career. Green will be in the No. 10 TriStar Motorsports Toyota at Texas this weekend.

New Face In The Series: Brandon Gdovic will take the next step in his career when he competes in the No. 55 Viva Motorsports Chevrolet at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. Friday’s race marks the first start in the Xfinity Series for the 23-year-old Virginian. Gdovic began his career short-track racing throughout Virginia. Over the past four seasons, Gdovic has competed in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and recorded his first career series victory in 2013 at Greenville-Pickens.