Only Few Better at Road Courses Than Parker Kligerman (2024)

All of the hype entering this weekend’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race on the Chicago street course will be focused on a few select drivers.

But once you look past those drivers, there’s a very good argument that there’s nobody better on road courses in the series than Parker Kligerman.

Kligerman has done a very serviceable job since returning to full-time NASCAR racing last season, with an average finish of 13.68. He finished 10th in points last year and is currently ninth entering Chicago.

Compare that to the two years Big Machine Racing competed in prior to Kligerman coming in full-time. In 2021, they finished 24th in owner points, then followed it up with 16th in 2022 with a gaggle of drivers. Kligerman has brought stability and solid point scoring to this still young race team.

But where the New England driver has excelled the most in has been on road courses. He’s been no stranger to them, as he’s now a co-owner of the legendary Lime Rock Park. But he’s really started to break out on them in recent years.

In 2022, Kligerman won at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. It was a result peppered with some other great road course runs for Henderson Motorsports, and it served as a prequel for what has come in the years since.

In 2023 and 2024, Kligerman’s average finish on road courses in NXS competition is 9.1. This is four-and-a-half positions higher than his average finish across all races and second to only Sam Mayer among drivers to start all 11 races.

Limiting it to just the three road course races so far in 2024 spits out an average finish of 7.7, which is fourth among full-time drivers and ahead of both Shane van Gisbergen and AJ Allmendinger. This is also almost seven positions higher than his average finish on the year.

Kligerman, Cole Custer, and Mayer all lead the Xfinity field with most road course top-10 finishes in 2023 and 2024 with nine each. The No. 48 Chevrolet’s driver gets the gold star in this category, however, as all nine of his top-10 finishes have come in the last nine road course races.

But it’s also not just consistency. Kligerman has come very close to winning two road course races. He took the lead briefly on the final restart at Road America last season, but Mayer was able to get around him for the win as Kligerman had to settle for second.

At Watkins Glen International a couple of weeks later, Kligerman was able to finish third amidst a chaotic overtime restart in which he started from the fifth row.

What’s more is that Big Machine Racing is already bringing a lot of momentum into Chicago. After crashing out at Charlotte to start its summer, Kligerman has finished top 10 in three of the last five NXS races, with a worst finish of just 16th at Nashville Super Speedway last weekend.

It’s an impressive effort when you look at the point standings and realize this single-car operation that falls under the choking hazard age is ahead of not one but three well-funded JR Motorsports cars in points.

There will still be pressure on them this weekend, however. Because of how the schedule fell this year, Chicago is the second-to-last road course before the playoffs. Getting a win there would be crucial both for their season and for this team, as it would put them into the playoffs and on the map.

It would also be a big statement by Kligerman. As good as a driver can be with these smaller outfits, it’s never a guarantee that they will remain on the grid long term.

Few drivers will know this better than him anyway, as somebody who seemed slotted for a television pit road reporting job a few years ago instead of in a co*ckpit.

A NXS win anywhere would be a massive achievement, but a win at Chicago against a field of outstanding road course talent? It’s definitely an opportunity on the cards for Kligerman this weekend, one he may make the most of.