Austin Dillon Finishes 16th in Ruud Chevrolet at Kansas Speedway

NASCAR XFINITY Series – Kansas Lottery 300
October 17, 2015 – Kansas Speedway – Kansas City, KS

Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon drove the No. 33 Ruud Chevrolet to a 16th-place finish in the Kansas Lottery 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Kansas Speedway on Saturday afternoon. The 2012 XFINITY Series Champion started the race from the ninth position and struggled with a loose-handling condition during the beginning half of the event. Despite the handling troubles, Dillon was one of the only drivers whose lap times did not fall off dramatically during the course of a run. Routine pit stops during caution periods allowed the Danny Stockman-led team to fine tune the handling of the Ruud Chevrolet with track bar, wedge and air pressure adjustments and, as the laps drew to a close, handling switched from loose to tight. Dillon was scored in the 10th spot when the caution flag was displayed with five laps remaining, bringing the race into overtime and setting the field for a green-white-checker finish. Dillon took the final green flag from the eighth position but fell back on the restart as he scrambled for fuel pickup in the final laps of the race, which extended four laps past its advertised distance. He ultimately secured a 16th-place finish. Dillon will drive the No. 33 Rheem Chevrolet in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday, November 7. The race is live on NBC at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

On that last restart the car sputtered like it was out of fuel, so I turned the steering wheel back and forth to try and get some additional fuel pickup. It caught up on the backstretch, but by then we were out of laps and ended up finishing 16th. Ruud had a big group here today and I want to thank them for coming out to support us. I was hoping to contend for another win for them this weekend. – Austin Dillon

Start – 9, Finish – 16, Laps Led – 0, Owner’s Points – 4