Frontstretch Newsletter: July 19, 2024
Volume
XVIII, Edition CXXI |
What to Watch: July 19-21 |
- Today starts a busy weekend in Indianapolis as both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park will be busy. - For the NASCAR Xfinity Series, practice will be held today at 1 p.m. ET and will air live on
NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App. Qualifying will be held Saturday at Noon ET. The session will air live on USA
Network. Coverage of the Pennzoil 250 will start with Countdown to Green at 3 p.m. ET Saturday on USA Network. Race coverage will begin at 3:30 p.m. ET with the green flag around 3:45 p.m. ET. - NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teams have
a one-day show today at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Practice will get underway at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards. Coverage of the TSport 200 will start at 8:30 p.m. ET today on FOX Sports 1. The green flag is currently scheduled for 8:50 p.m. ET. The ARCA Menards Series has a combination race today at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park with ARCA Menards Series East. Practice is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET today. Qualifying will follow shortly afterwards. The sessions will not be televised. Coverage of the Circle City 200 is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. ET today. The race will air
live on FOX Sports 1, but will also be simulcast on FLORacing. - INDYCAR teams are in Canada
for their annual visit to Exhibition Place, the first of two doubleheader weekends this season. Today, teams get 75 minutes of practice starting at 3 p.m. ET. Tomorrow, there will be a second practice session at 10:30 a.m. ET on Peacock. Qualifying for the races will be at 2:45 p.m. ET Saturday and will air live on Peacock. Sunday will start with a warmup session that
will air live at 10 a.m. ET on Peacock. Coverage of the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto will start with INDYCAR Live at 1 p.m. ET Sunday afternoon. The race is scheduled to go green at 1:30 p.m. ET. on Peacock. This is one of two INDYCAR races on the schedule that are fully exclusive to the streaming services. - Formula 1 is making their 39th visit to the Hungaroring this weekend for the Grand Prix of Hungary. Friday's on-track activity is already complete. Saturday will start with Free Practice No. 3 at 6:25 a.m. ET. The session will air live on ESPN2. Qualifying will be at
9:55 a.m. ET on ESPN2. Coverage of the Grand Prix of Hungary will begin with Formula 1: Grand Prix Sunday at 7:30 a.m. ET on ESPN. Race coverage will begin at 8:55 a.m. ET with the formation lap starting at 9 a.m. ET sharp.
- SRO America is back in action this weekend after
a two-month break with a full weekend of activity at VIRginia International Raceway. Today is a practice day for all five series on the property. Race No. 1 will be on Saturday, while Race No. 2 will be Sunday. All races will be streamed on the GT World YouTube channel with most of them being simulcast on SpeedSport1. A full schedule of the events can be seen here. The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship wraps up their 2024 season with a doubleheader in London. Today, teams practiced on the temporary circuit.
Saturday is the second practice, then qualifying. London e-Prix No. 1 will air live on CBS at Noon ET. Race No. 2 will also air live on CBS at
Noon ET Sunday. Check your local listings to see if your local affiliate will air the event. If they don't, it will be available on The Roku Channel free streaming service. - World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series will be at Eldora Speedway this weekend for the Kings Royal. A decent number of the teams competing have already been at the half-mile oval for
the past couple of nights as part of the Kubota High Limit Sprint Car Series (see below). Tonight is the Knight Before the Kings Royal, while Saturday night is the biggie, the 40-lap Kings Royal for $175,000 to win. Coverage both nights will begin at 6:15 p.m. ET on DirtVision. FOLLOW THE FRONTSTRETCH THIS WEEKEND THROUGH
OUR COLLEAGUES: INDIANAPOLIS (Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park: TORONTO: HAMPTON (Larry King Law's Langley
Speedway): Also, don't forget to follow our Twitter page, @Frontstretch as well for updates from Indianapolis! |
Around the World in Motorsports: July 18 |
- As you're likely aware of, there is a massive IT breakdown going on worldwide at the moment. All three of the legacy airlines have been affected, in addition to government services (Ex: Your Newsletter Manager's full-time job is for the State of New York and he cannot get into his laptop today) and some TV networks. For instance, ESPN could not air SportsCenter this morning because of it. The
root of the issue comes from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, that rolled out an update overnight that caused chaos in Microsoft operations. They have a fix, but it's going to take a long time to get it onto every computer affected since it is unclear whether such a fix could be rolled out automatically. CrowdStrike was founded and is run by CEO George Kurtz. Kurtz is also a professional sports car racer. He was scheduled to race this weekend in SRO America's Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS and GT America powered by AWS.
While the team has not released a statement, Kurtz has to focus on CrowdStrike and is likely out for the weekend. - Formula 1 teams have completed their on-track activity at the Hungaroring. The sessions were marked by track temperatures that reached as high as 60° Celsius (140° Fahrenheit). Free Practice No. 1 was led by Ferrari's Carlos Sainz Jr. with a lap at 124.493 mph. The lap was .276 seconds faster than Red Bull's Max Verstappen. Charles Leclerc was third, then Mercedes' George Russell. Zhou Guanyu was fifth. Free Practice No. 2 saw McLaren's Lando Norris top the charts with a lap at
125.973 mph. The lap was .243 seconds faster than Verstappen. Sainz was third, then Sergio Perez and Russell. The session was red-flagged 16 minutes in when Leclerc spun off-course into the wall after taking too much curb. Leclerc was ok, but his session was over. - Kubota High Limit Sprint Car Series teams finished up at Eldora Speedway with the Joker's Jackpot. Giovanni Scelzi, who won his Double Down Duel Wednesday night, dominated from the pole, then ended up rolling his car after leading the first 33 laps. Scelzi's crash gave the lead to World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series points leader David Gravel. He led the final seven laps to win the Joker's Jackpot and a check for $100,000.
Donny Schatz finished second, followed by Brad Sweet and Justin Peck. Rico Abreu was fifth. In the points, Sweet has an 81-point lead over Tyler Courtney. Brent Marks is third, then Abreu and Corey Day. George Kurtz picture is courtesy of our own Phil Allaway. |
Frontstretch Folio: Brickyard 400
by Phil Allaway
This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series makes their only trip of the year to the state of Indiana for the Brickyard 400, the first Cup race on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway since 2020. 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 green-flag affair. There was only one yellow for three laps in the opening laps of the race. The final 77 laps were
run under green. Front Row Motorsports took the lead on the restart from Daniel Suarez and dominated the action, leading 54 of 82 laps to take the victory. The margin of victory was .937 seconds over Chase Elliott. Suarez was third, then Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman. Among active drivers,
Jimmie Johnson has the most victories on Indianapolis Motor Speedway's oval with four. Kyle Busch has two, while Brad Keselowski has one. All-time, Jeff Gordon has the most with five, then Johnson, Kevin Harvick with three and three other drivers (Busch, Dale Jarrett and Tony Stewart) with two. Of the three Cup races held on the infield road course, all three were won by different drivers (AJ
Allmendinger, McDowell and Reddick). Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 2.5-mile oval, 160 laps (400 miles)
Banking: 9.2 degrees (9 degrees, 12 minutes) Straightaways: 3,300 ft., flat Chutes: 660 ft., flat Grandstand Seating: 235,000
Pit Road Speed: 55 mph
Pace Car Speed: 70 mph
Opened: 1909, first Cup race in 1994 Pre-Race Sessions: Practice: Friday, July 19, 2:30 - 3:25 p.m. ET on NBCSports.com Qualifying: Saturday, July 20, 1:05 p.m. ET on USA Network Say What?! "It’s for a number of different reasons, honestly. I think there was a window in time where we actually ran really
well at Indianapolis, but we always had issues. We got wrecked on pit road a few times, we had a brake rotor explode one year when we were really fast. The fastest car we had there was 2017 when Kyle Busch and I were racing for the lead on a restart and we definitely had a car we could have won with that day. We’ve definitely been close a few times, but for whatever reason, we haven’t been able to put a whole race together there. We’ve shown speed as a team and as a company there, so I think we
should have a great chance to run up front this weekend with our Auto-Owners Insurance Camry. Just like Pocono, you want to be able to qualify toward the front, keep your track position and put yourself in a spot where you can race for the win. That’s the plan for this weekend." - Martin Truex Jr. "It’s good to be back on the
oval. It’s a good change of pace. It’s the first time we’ll be on the oval with this version of the car. A couple of guys did the test there so they’ll probably have a little bit of an upper hand. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the oval but I know how challenging it can be. If we’re good at Pocono, we’ll probably be good at Indy." - Ross Chastain
"I’m obviously really excited to be here and be in the Cup Series, get to compete on Sunday in what is one of the most prestigious races that NASCAR’s always done, that we’ve missed the last couple years. So it definitely feels different
coming here to run the oval than it did the road course. I think just getting to take in the oval and just the history behind it is something that’s going to be really fun. So yeah, this is my first time up here, so I was checking things out a little bit, but it’s definitely exciting to be back on the oval and hopefully we can put on a good race Sunday. "It’s
definitely a unique scenario. It’s probably one of the only ovals that I haven’t been to yet that we go to. So, thankfully, I have an opportunity to race in the Xfinity race. I think that will be useful to get on track and practice in that and then obviously have that race under my belt by the time Sunday comes around so that hopefully I can get some needed experience in that race. Other than that, I feel like we’ve prepared the best we can, and having a 50-minute practice will help too. So, put
all those things together, it should be alright. I think that this place will race similarly to maybe Pocono or Michigan where we’ve had some pretty good cars. So hopefully everything goes to plan." - Josh Berry "It’s tough. It’s like the Tunnel Turn at Pocono, you’ve just got to be good with your timing. It’ll be different with all the horsepower and everything in the Cup cars. We ran the high-downforce, drag package where you drafted the whole time and pretty
much ran close to, if not wide open, all the way around there. Our speeds probably weren’t as high at the end of the straightaways, but definitely drafting and getting pretty tight behind guys, so some of that stuff might be applicable for this weekend. But it’s all about timing and getting around that racetrack and maximizing your corner speed." - Noah
Gragson 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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