Event: World of Westgate 200, Race 18 of 23, 134 Laps – 30/30/74; 201 Miles
Location: Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway (1.5-mile tri-oval)
Date/Broadcast: Sept. 14, 2018 at 9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR 90
What You Need to Know
- Las Vegas native Riley Herbst will make the third NASCAR Camping World Series start of his career Friday night behind the wheel of the No. 46 Advance Auto Parts Tundra. Herbst finished eighth in his Truck Series debut driving the No. 51 for Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) at Gateway Motorsports Park in Collinsville, Ill., in June and finished 15th driving for DGR Crosley at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in August.
- Herbst began racing karts as a five-year-old and spent the 2013 and 2014 seasons driving Legends Cars at the Bullring at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway. In 2015, he raced weekly at Irwindale (Calif.) Speedway in Super Late Models as well as winning the track’s Speed Trucks championship. In 2016 and 2017 he combined to run 20 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and West races, recording eight top-five and 16 top-10 finishes. A third-generation racer, Herbst’s father and grandfather raced desert off-road racing trucks including the Baja 500 and Baja 1000.
- The 19-year-old driver has posted seven top-five and 12 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 8.5 across 17 ARCA Racing Series starts for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) this season and currently sits third in the championship standings with three races remaining. Herbst also finished sixth for JGR in his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut in June at Iowa Speedway in Newton.
- Advance Auto Parts will sponsor Herbst in both of his races with KBM in 2018. Founded in 1932 by Arthur Taubman and headquartered in Roanoke, Va., Advance Auto Parts, Inc. is a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider that serves both professional installer and do-it-yourself customers. As of April 21, 2018, Advance operated 5,044 stores and 131 Worldpac branches and employed approximately 71,000 Team Members in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The company also serves approximately 1,225 independently owned Carquest branded stores across these locations in addition to Mexico and the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Islands and Pacific Islands.
Riley Herbst, Driver Q&A
Are you excited to be racing in the Truck Series at your hometown track?
“I’m really excited to run for KBM in front of my hometown in Las Vegas. It’s going to be a dream come true running the big, mile-and-a-half track that I always drove by racing at The Bullring as a kid. It’s going to be awesome running with my teammate, Noah Gragson, we both grew up in Las Vegas and now we are going to be racing in front of all our friends and family.”
Do you have a favorite memory of racing at The Bullring?
“Yeah — like I said, me and Noah racing Legend Cars there together on Friday and Saturday nights. Racing and winning some Legend Car features was pretty fun.”
How have you prepared for your first Truck Series start on a mile-and-a-half track?
“It’s going to be a big challenge, but everybody here at KBM has really been helping me out. I’m going to watch a lot of film and look at a lot of the pre-race notes of what they’ve said in the past and in Las Vegas back in the spring time. Just going to try and figure it out lap by lap.”
Riley Herbst Career Highlights
- Named the 2017 ARCA Racing Rookie of the Year after posting one win, one pole, 203 laps led, six top-five and 10 top-10 finishes for Joe Gibbs Racing. The 18-year-old finished fifth in the ARCA championship standings despite missing the season-opening race at Daytona due to age restrictions.
- Picked us his first ARCA win last June at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., when he led a race-high 45 laps.
- The NASAR Next product competed full-time in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West in 2016 and finished seventh in the championship standings after recording seven top-five and 10 top-10 finishes across 14 starts.
Riley Herbst’s No. 46 Advance Auto Parts Tundra:
KBM-047: The No. 46 Advance Auto Parts team will unload KBM-047 for Friday night’s World of Westgate 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Noah Gragson qualified fifth, led 42 laps and won the First Stage with the same Tundra earlier this year at Las Vegas before a tire issue late in the race relegated him to a 12th-place finish. Christopher Bell led 64 laps and finished second with the Toyota at Las Vegas last September
