The overcast conditions at Chicagoland
Speedway made setup for Sunday's NASCAR Nationwide series tricky for teams.
After practicing in the heat and humidity
Saturday afternoon, the teams made choices for the cars expecting 90-degree
temperatures at race time. But the clouds kept the temperatures in mid-80s and
drivers on their heels when the green flag dropped.
The sun didn't appear until 80 laps
remained in the race.
"I guess we needed to look at the
weather," Austin Dillon said. "We set up our car for the sun and it
didn't come out until way late in the race."
Dillon rode through the struggles with the
weather to a sixth-place finish, keeping his lead in the rookie standings.
Not his weekend: Brendan Gaughan did not
have a weekend to remember.
While leading the Camping World Truck
Series race on Saturday night, Gaughan spun his tires during a restart with
less than 20 laps to go.
During qualifying Sunday morning for the
Nationwide race, he smacked the wall on the first lap, damaging the rear end of
his car.
He followed that by knocking into the cone
at the entrance to pit road while trying to stop for fuel under caution.
Gaughan was forced to swerve into the cone to avoid running into the back end
of the car entering the pits ahead of him.
Gaughan's day ended early when he was
pushed into the wall by Kyle Busch with eight laps remaining. The crash brought
out the final caution of the day and forced a three-lap sprint for the
checkered flag.
Without a full-time car in any series, it
was not the showing that the 16-year veteran had hoped for as he attempts to
prove he can still compete each week.
"When you spend your whole life racing
every week, it is very odd to sit here and watch the races on television, or go
to the shop and know it is someone else's seat," Gaughan said.
Big payday: With his win Sunday, Elliott
Sadler earned $100,000 in the Nationwide Dash for Cash. Chicago was the second
week of the four-race series that awards a bonus to the top eligible driver in
each race.
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