Rasmussen returns to form at WWTR after difficult run

Christian Rasmussen’s highwire act hadn’t been seen since early March on the Phoenix Raceway oval where the ECR driver thrilled fans until contact left the No. 21 Chevy in 14th place at the finish.

But the thrills were back under the lights on Sunday night as the Dane went on another passing spree to vault from 19th to third, earning his best result of an unrelentingly bad season, which stopped a trio of terrible runs to 24th, 27th, and 25th since May.

“We've had a tough start to the year, a tough month of May, for sure,” Rasmussen said after taking his first podium of 2026. “We've always been very strong on the short ovals. Coming back and doing what we did here today is a good feeling.”

The Indy NXT champion was mired down in 24th in the Drivers’ championship before the visit to World Wide Technology Raceway. Thanks to the great result, he improved to 22nd and is just a few points shy of cracking the top 20. He finished 13th in the standings for ECR last year while capturing six top 10s and his first victory at Milwaukee.

Improving in qualifying will be the first order of business to continue moving forward in the championship.

“Obviously we are not qualifying as well as we want to,” he acknowledged. “We're ever so slightly missing the balance in qualifying. We need to do some work to try and improve that so we don't have to make it that hard on ourselves every single time. But it's also good to know that when we are in this position, (when) we do have a tough qualifying, that we can still get away with these results.”