Blake Koch at Richmond International Raceway… Blake Koch has 11 previous starts in the NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) at Richmond International Raceway (RIR). He earned a track-best and career-best finish of eighth in this race last year after starting 16th. The last time Koch visited RIR in September 2016, he recorded a track-best start of fifth before finishing 15th.
Sounding Off- Blake Koch… “I’m so excited that this weekend is another short track, especially since we are carrying some momentum from Bristol last week. The first race at Richmond is usually a little cooler, so you can really focus on driving and not so much the conditions inside the car. I’m looking forward to this being another solid points weekend for us and hopefully getting our second top-10 finish of the season.”
Close to Home… Kaulig Racing crew chief and general manager, Chris Rice, calls RIR his home track. Rice grew up in South Boston, Va., just over 100 miles from Richmond. His mom, Cathy, runs South Boston Speedway, a racetrack in Rice’s hometown, and also sits on the NASCAR Appeals Board. When Rice was five years old, his dad, Allan, and uncle started their own race team. Rice immediately started working on the pit crew for his family’s team and worked his way up through the NASCAR ranks.
2017 Season… Koch is currently seventh in the NXS Championship standings after seven races. He earned his first top-10 finish of the season last week at Bristol Motor Speedway after starting 16th and avoiding several on-track incidents to finish ninth in the Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300.
Blake Koch NXS Career… Koch makes his 188th NXS start this weekend at RIR. To date, Koch has a career-best NXS starting position of second at Homestead-Miami Speedway (Nov. 2013), and a career-best NXS finish of eighth at RIR (April 2016), Bristol Motor Speedway (August 2016) and Phoenix International Raceway (November 2016).
Meet Blake…Koch will meet with fans and sign autographs at the LeafFilter Gutter Protection display in the RIR fan midway on Saturday, April 29th at 9:25 a.m.
Tune-In… The 250-lap NXS ToyotaCare 250 from RIR will be televised live Saturday, April 29th, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. ET on FS1 and will be broadcasted live on the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio channel 90.
Keeping up with Kaulig Racing… To receive up-to-date information on the No. 11 NXS team, follow @KauligRacing on Twitter as well as on the Kaulig Racing™ Facebook page, www.facebook.com/kauligracing, and the team’s website, www.kauligracing.com.
