NASCAR Xfinity Series: Brandon Hightower – 2018 Overton’s 300 highlights

Race Recap

When my father and I arrived at Brandon Hightower’s pit stall after qualifying, I immediately noticed the difference in budgets between JP Motorsports and the top Xfinity Series teams such as JR Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, etc.

JP Motorsports lacked a cool box. After Hightower made his first qualifying run, the car engine was hot. Without a cool box, his team could not cool down the engine to gain speed for a second qualifying run. As a result, he qualified in 37th place for the Overton’s 300.

Hightower said his Chicagoland Speedway race car was a composite body car, which weighs about 150 pounds less than a steel body car. In 2019, NASCAR will require composite body race cars for the whole season.

The team do not receive support from any top Xfinity Series team or manufacturer. The engine of the #55 Toyota is an Arrington Toyota engine, which is fast on superspeedways such as Daytona and Talladega. However, the car lacked the speed at Chicagoland Speedway. But Hightower was optimistic about the race speed in the car.

Before the race, I saw further differences between JP Motorsports and the top Xfinity Series teams. On one side of Brandon Hightower’s NASCAR pit stall was the #22 Team Penske Ford pit stall and on the other side was the #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota pit stall. Those two teams’ pit boxes had covers over the crew chief, all those crew members wore the same team uniforms, and they had a full allotment of brand new Goodyear tires.

Brandon Hightower drove the whole race on scuffed tires. Scuffed tires are tires another driver drove on in practice that get bought by another team, in this case JP Motorsports, afterward. At a track like Chicagoland where new tires are paramount, scuffed tires do not provide the speed to the car like brand new Goodyear tires do.

https://twitter.com/BHightowerb52/status/1013441313147113473

Furthermore, Hightower’s pit crew consisted of graduates from Xcalibur Pit School. Their uniforms ranged from an old Joe Gibbs Racing uniform to a generic Toyota uniform. Lastly, his pit box lacked high-tech equipment, such as a laptop, TV and radar. His crew chief, Chuck Herman, spent the whole race without much shade except for a few times when a fellow team member opened an umbrella to protect him from the sun.

Despite these challenges, Hightower accomplished a goal to finish the race with the car in one piece. Although he lost a lap every 20 laps or so, he stayed out of the way of the contenders. A late pit road penalty cost him a few laps, and he eventually finished in 26th place, 10 laps down.

Hightower mentioned that the tires from his last pit stop caused a vibration, but he wanted to finish the race. He was also grateful for his water. He finished his 100 ounces of water shortly before the checkered flag, but he was glad that he stayed hydrated throughout the heat of the afternoon.