Frontstretch Newsletter: Aug. 11, 2023
Volume XVII, Edition CXXXVI |
What to Watch: Aug. 11-13 |
- NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series teams are scheduled to load into the garage at Indianapolis Motor Speedway later today. No
on-track action is scheduled for them today. - NASCAR Xfinity Series teams will practice Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. ET. Coverage will be streamed live on
NBCSports.com. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards. Coverage of the Pennzoil 150 Saturday starts with Countdown to Green at 5 p.m. ET on USA Network. Race coverage begins at
5:30 p.m. ET with the green flag around 5:45 p.m. ET. - ARCA Menards Series teams will race tonight at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Practice is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET this
afternoon with qualifying immediately afterwards. Coverage of the Reese's 200 is scheduled for 6 p.m. ET today and will air live on FOX Sports 1. - The
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is also at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Practice will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Qualifying will follow. Coverage of the TSport 200, the first race of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoffs, will start with NASCAR RaceDay - NCTS
Edition at 8 p.m. ET after the ARCA race. If the ARCA race runs long, then it would be delayed. Race coverage starts at 9 p.m. ET and the green will fly around 9:15 p.m. ET. - INDYCAR teams are in Indianapolis as part of a super weekend with NASCAR. The first practice session is already
complete. Qualifying is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET today on Peacock. A final 30-minute session is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET on Peacock. Coverage of the Gallagher Grand Prix will begin with INDYCAR Live at 2 p.m. ET on USA Network. The green flag will fall at
2:30 p.m. ET. - Preliminary action at the 62nd Annual NOS Energy Drink
Knoxville Nationals continues tonight with Hard Knox Night, the final preliminary night of action. Coverage starts at 6 p.m. ET with a pre-race show, followed by preliminary action. All of the action will be streamed live on DirtVision.com. Note that you will have to purchase the broadcast via internet pay-per-view even if you already subscribe to DirtVision on a monthly basis. Saturday night is the big show with $185,000 to the winner. Coverage
will start at 6 p.m. ET on DirtVision. FOLLOW THE FRONTSTRETCH THIS WEEKEND THROUGH OUR COLLEAGUES: LUCAS OIL IRP ONLY: BOTH
TRACKS: INDIANAPOLIS ONLY: Also, don't forget to follow our Twitter page, @Frontstretch as well for updates from
Indianapolis. |
| | Helio Castroneves Retiring From Full Time After 2023,
Tom Blomqvist to Drive in 2024 Meyer Shank Racing announced Friday that Helio Castroneves will retire from full-time INDYCAR racing at the end of 2023. Tom Blomqvist will move over from IMSA to
replace him. |
| | Jordan Anderson Returning to Xfinity at
Daytona Jordan Anderson Racing announced Wednesday that Jordan Anderson will return to the driver's seat at Daytona in a third JAR Chevrolet. It will be the first time
he's raced since suffering significant burns at Talladega last year. |
| | Tony Stewart Sweeps SRX Evening in
Eldora Tony Stewart was nearly untouchable Thursday night, winning everything that there was to win at Eldora Speedway, including the 75-lap SRX feature. Hailie Deegan
was second, then Ryan Newman, Bobby Labonte and Matt Kenseth. |
| | Hailie Deegan Nabs 2nd in Backup SRX Car After Huge
Crash at Eldora Hailie Deegan could have ended up on the sidelines after a big crash in the first heat. She was able to get a backup car and drove from the back to finish
second. |
| | Brent Crews Making ARCA Debut With
Venturini Venturini Motorsports announced Wednesday that Brent Crews, a young racer in TA2, will make his ARCA Menards Series debut at Watkins
Glen. |
Photos are courtesy of Matt Fraver of INDYCAR Media, Nigel Kinrade Photography and our own Anthony Damcott and Stephen Stumpf. Have news for Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us
at frontstretcheditors@googlegroups.com with a promising lead or tip. |
Around the World in Motorsports: Aug. 10-11 |
- In NTT IndyCar Series practice this morning at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Graham Rahal was quickest with a lap at 125.718 mph. The lap was .0846 seconds
faster than Felix Rosenqvist. Christian Lundgaard was third, then Alexander Rossi and Alex Palou.
- In Knoxville, Ia. Thursday night, a big crash for Daryn Pittman set a up a 10-lap sprint. On the restart, Carson Macedo was able to pull a slide job on Anthony Macri to take the lead. From there, Macedo was able to hold on to take the
victory. Kyle Larson was second, then Spencer Bayston, Macri and Rico Abreu. |
Frontstretch Folio: Verizon 200 at the Brickyard
by Phil Allaway
This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series makes their only trip of the year to the state of Indiana for the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard. Coverage begins Sunday with Countdown to Green at 2 p.m. ET on NBC. Race coverage starts at 2:30 p.m. ET. The green flag is scheduled to drop around 2:50 p.m. ET. The race can also be heard on IMS Radio and
SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90). Records and facts Last year's Verizon 200 at the Brickyard was a grand affair for Tyler Reddick. He started from
the pole, led early, then gravitated back towards the front in the final stage. Reddick took
the lead for good on lap 62 right before a bizarre crash in which Kyle Larson blasted into turn 1 at unabated speed due to apparently hitting the wrong pedal and smashing into Ty Dillon. From there, Reddick was able to hold on through a Green-White-Checker restart to win his second road course race of the year. Austin Cindric was second, then Harrison Burton in a career-best third. Todd Gilliland was fourth, while Bubba Wallace was fifth. There have only been two races for the NASCAR Cup Series on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. AJ Allmendinger won the 2021 race, while Reddick won last year. Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 2.439-mile road course, 82 laps (199.998 miles)
Banking: Variable Grandstand Seating: 235,000
Pit Road Speed: 45 mph
Pace Car Speed: 55 mph
Opened: Oval: 1909, first Cup race in 1994
Road Course: 2000, first Cup race in 2021 Website: http://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IndianapolisMotorSpeedway Twitter: http://twitter.com/IMS Pre-Race Sessions: Practice: Saturday, Aug. 12, 11:30 a.m. - 12:25 p.m. on NBCSports.com Qualifying: Saturday, Aug. 12, 12:30 p.m. ET on NBCSports.com Say What?! "I would say the challenges at the Indy Road Course are the visuals, especially braking visuals in traffic. It’s so flat and a lot of corners are so slow that when the track gets hot and it gets slick it really slows down a
lot. Trying to keep the tires on the car under braking and also under acceleration is a challenge. It’s really flat and you’re always trying to make sure that you can go as fast as you can, carry as much speed as you possibly can, but keep the brakes on the car because there’s a lot of heavy braking areas at the Indianapolis Road Course. "Restarts going into Turn 1 are
chaotic. The best way to protect yourself is to stay all the way to the inside to the right-side of the racetrack and not let anybody to your inside. You can be the guy that kind of forces everybody off into Turn 1 and puts them in the grass because if you’re on the outside and get put off in the grass then you’re losing spots. That happened to me last year, but hopefully moving the restart zone a little bit will kind of help that calamity and calm everything down." - Kyle Busch "Indy has been different the last couple of years since it’s now a road course, but still going to the track itself and having the chance to be there is always a lot of fun. Last year, we ended up being in a spin that cost us track position at the end of the day, and we didn’t come home with the finish we wanted. However, we still felt like it was an okay day with a decent car that got up there. Regardless of
that outcome, I feel like our road course performance has been improving. In Chicago, I believe we didn’t get the finish we deserved, but our car had a lot more speed than our previous attempts at road courses. So, I am excited to get there and hopefully secure a top 10 finish at a road course." - Erik Jones
"For me, I enjoy the road courses and I think they’re always another opportunity to win – for sure. I’ve always been a huge fan of the Brickyard and the oval, but I think the road racing can definitely kind of put a
variable in there that maybe we can squeeze one out. But it’s really just a special place, there’s so much history there on the oval, it’s special to be able to look back and say you’ve raced at a track like Indy. I think there’s some added confidence, too, knowing that I’ve had some decent finishes at road courses, and they’re so unpredictable." - Ryan
Preece Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade
Photography.
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