Tag: Texas Motor Speedway

Byron muscles to Hendrick’s 300th win in late restart at Texas

Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron took the lead on a restart with six laps remaining and held off the field to claim Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 victory on a steamy-hot, highly-dramatic afternoon of NASCAR Cup Series Playoff …

Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron took the lead on a restart with six laps remaining and held off the field to claim Sunday’s AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 victory on a steamy-hot, highly-dramatic afternoon of NASCAR Cup Series Playoff action at Texas Motor Speedway.

It marks a historic 300th victory for the championship Hendrick Motorsports organization – the most in NASCAR history for a NASCAR Cup Series team — and is the series-best, personal-high single-season sixth victory of the year for the 25-year-old Charlotte native Byron. He came from third place on the final restart to ultimately drive away from the field and take a 1.863s victory ahead of Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain to claim an automatic berth in the Playoffs’ Round of 8 which starts in three weeks.

Those final six laps out front were the only laps Byron led all day. He turned in a fabulous final re-start in the race to pull ahead of 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who was out front on that start after leading a race-high, career-best 111 laps in his No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota. Wallace finished third, ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin. All five drivers among the 2023 Playoff contingent.

“I finally got a good re-start at the end, and number 300 for Hendrick Motorsports, but [teammate] Kyle [Larson] really deserved this one, I’ve got to say. Those guys were really fast all day and I hate it for them in the end,’’ Byron said, noting his teammate Larson’s crash while leading with 20 laps remaining.

“But man, it was awesome getting this car to the front. My car loved clean air. We just fought through traffic all day. My Liberty University Chevrolet was just tight back in traffic but had good pace. … It was a grind-it-out day and our team was there at the end and I’m really proud of this one. As hot as it was, it was tough. We’ll take it and go on to the next round.”

As for the historic 300th win for his team, Byron grinned, “I don’t know if I can even put it into words. I was such a Hendrick Motorsports fan growing up as a kid, watching Jimmie Johnson and became really fond of Jeff Gordon as I got to know him. Just thankful for all the men and women back at Hendrick Motorsports. … Appreciate all Rick Hendrick has done for me. This is awesome. We’re really going to enjoy this one.’’

Wallace, who turned in a career day in his first career Playoff stint, was obviously disappointed in the final outcome. He started from pole position and his triple-digit laps out front were a personal best.

“Just choked,’’ Wallace said. “My worst restart [of the day]. Hate it for my team, hate it for McDonald’s. We deserved to be in victory lane but nothing’s ever guaranteed. You have to go out and fight for it and not give it away and that’s what I did.

“We struggled a little in traffic but kept our heads in the game, made great strategy calls all day and had track position. So good points day.’’

Larson had been out front for 34 laps and was racing alongside Wallace when his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet got loose with 17 laps remaining and spun into the outside wall. He looked strong all day leading 99 laps himself as Wallace’s strongest competitor for most of the afternoon.

“We just went in there side-by-side and I lost it,’’ said the 2021 series champion Larson, who finished 31st. “Pretty bummed, but happy for William and Mr. H. (Hendrick). Three hundred Cup series wins is incredible and a great night overall for our organization.’’

Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, Roush Fenway Keselowski driver Brad Keselowski – also a Playoff driver — Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez, JTG Daugherty Racing’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and SHR’s Chase Briscoe rounded out the top 10.

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There were 11 caution periods on the day and multiple issues for the 12 Playoff drivers competing in this three-round series of races to decide which eight will advance to the next round. Byron’s victory is an automatic ticket. Several other Playoff drivers had impactful days – for the good and bad – as well.

Among the other Playoff competitors, RFK’s Chris Buescher finished 14th and JGR’s Martin Truex Jr. – the regular season champion – finished 17th. Defending race winner Tyler Reddick – Wallace’s 23XI Racing teammate – was 25th.

Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney (28th), Hendrick’s Larson (31st) and Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch (34th) all suffered DNFs – all involved in incidents.

It was indicative of the afternoon with 10 Playoff drivers experiencing some sort of setback – from crashes, to pit road penalties, to pit road issues.

Bell had jack issues early. Hamlin had a pit road door-to-door collision with his JGR rookie teammate Ty Gibbs but was able to continue, while Gibbs’ Toyota suffered enough damage he had to retire early.

Busch’s No. 8 RCR Chevrolet slammed into the outside wall only a couple laps after the two-time series champion had radioed to his team that he thought he had a front tire going down. He stayed out on track and ultimately suffered a rear tire failure on lap 74 that slammed his Chevrolet hard into the wall. Busch drove it backwards all the way around the track and onto pit road, but the RCR team was unable to repair it.

“I was going to come to pit road and I second-guessed it and said, ‘I don’t think so. Something’s wrong, something’s not right, but it’s not a flat,’’’ Busch said. “Then all on its own, it just turned to the bottom of the race track in Turn 1. Just swapped ends on me.

“Hate it for everybody. For sure I thought our car was top five today.”

With the victory, Byron earned the automatic ticket to the next round. Hamlin now leads the points standings by 37 points on the ninth place elimination line. Buescher (+22), Bell (+20), Truex (+19), Chastain (+12), Keselowski (+8) and Larson (+2) round out the top eight.

Wallace is the first driver below the elimination line – two points behind Larson. Reddick is three points off the elimination line, followed by Blaney (-11) and Busch (-17) heading to the always unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway next week for the YallaWood 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Chase Elliott is the defending race winner.

RESULTS

Nemechek capitalizes late to claim Xfinity victory in Texas

John Hunter Nemechek made the winning pass with seven laps remaining in Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway to punch his ticket to the next round of the series Playoffs and increase his series-best …

John Hunter Nemechek made the winning pass with seven laps remaining in Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway to punch his ticket to the next round of the series Playoffs and increase his series-best and career-best single season total to seven victories.

His No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led only 38 of the day’s 200 laps, but managed to get around Big Machine Racing’s Parker Kligerman and race off to a 1.005s victory – his second at the 1.5-mile Texas track.

The winning move came after Kligerman and the day’s most dominant driver, Justin Allgaier, dueled side-by-side at the front of the field. Allgaier, who swept both stage victories and led a race best 133 laps, got loose in a door-to-door battle for the race lead with Kligerman and drifted up track following a restart with 10 laps remaining. Kligerman pushed forward but was unable to hold off Nemechek.

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Sammy Smith finished third followed by Kaulig Racing’s Chandler Smith. Allgaier recovered from the tight racing with Kligerman to finish fifth. The top eight finishing drivers at Texas – also including Cole Custer, Austin Hill and Sheldon Creed – are all Playoff contenders.

“I messed up that restart, but I knew I had to push hard and try to recover right there and man, hats off to this team, Joe Gibbs Racing. It’s been amazing what we’ve been able to accomplish this year and we’re not done yet,’’ said Nemechek.

“We’re preparing for the Round of 8,’’ he continued. “My goal coming into today was to lock ourselves into the next round. Our road courses haven’t been that great for myself. Joe Gibbs as an organization has been really good on road courses. But going into the [Charlotte] ROVAL and hot having to worry about that is definitely a relief.’’

Kligerman, who is racing in his first NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, was hugely disappointed on pit road despite tying a career best runner-up effort (also at Road America this summer) in the No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet. His work at Texas brought him to within a single point of the eight drivers who can advance to the next Playoff round following the Oct. 7 Charlotte ROVAL race – the elimination event of this round.

“Had a great run, got to him [Allgaier] and I don’t know how much we got squeezed or didn’t. I thought I could clear him super easily, but I got super loose,’’ he said. “Feels like I got choked; he says he gave a lot of room. I’ll have to look at it.

“I’m really disappointed right now,’’ Kligerman added. “I could see that one, I could feel it. That was the best restart I’ve ever had in my life, put us in perfect position and had the tire advantage, just choked. This one will hurt, but we’ll go make up for it next weekend.’’

For his part, Allgaier was equally as disappointed and frustrated. He approached Kligerman on pit road after the race to discuss the close racing and fallout from it. He had battled from the back after being squeezed out of the lead pack earlier in the race by Chandler Smith which forced him to take his last set of fresh tires earlier than his competitors. Nemechek and Kligerman were able to take new tires on their last stop during a caution with 20 laps remaining while Allgaier’s tires had 11 laps on them at that point and stayed out – in the lead – during that final caution.

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Kligerman and Nemechek made their way back toward Allgaier quickly on their fresh tires with Kligerman pulling forward to try and make the winning move in the final 10 laps.

“At that point, obviously we had a really fast Camaro all day,’’ said Allgaier, who already advanced to the next Playoff round by winning the round opener at Bristol last week.

“We put ourselves in good position. That last caution kind of hurt us because we didn’t have tires, but still thought we’d do a good job.

“Parker, when I went and I talked to him, said I squeezed him. I felt like I left him plenty of room there knowing he’d go to the bottom and he drove it in super, super deep into [Turn] 3. And he’s been around the sport long enough to know what’s going to happen. Just disappointed. Not only did it mess up battling for second it put us way up in the marbles.”

With a season-high 12 caution periods on Saturday, there was plenty of drama. Only 17 cars in the 38-car field managed to avoid any kind of accident involvement. And by mid-race, half of the 12-driver Playoff field had dealt with some incident.

JR Motorsports’ driver Sam Mayer, a two-time race winner this season and Playoff contender hit the wall on the opening lap doing enough damage to his No. 1 JRM Chevrolet he couldn’t continue and suffered a last place finish (38th).

He started the Texas race ranked 10th only 14 points behind Creed in the final cutoff position – but left the Lone Star State ranked last among the Playoff competitors, 34 points back and essentially needing a walk-off victory in the next Playoff race at the Charlotte ROVAL.

“We’re going to have to make something happen,” Mayer said, “our backs are up against the wall.’’

With one race remaining in this opening Playoff round, Nemechek and Allgaier have automatically secured their next round positions as has Custer, who clinched Saturday by virtue on points earned. The regular season champion Hill holds a 44-point edge on the Playoff elimination line. Chandler Smith and Sammy Smith are 32 and 18 points to the good, respectively. Creed takes a nine-point edge to the good into the Charlotte ROVAL race. Daniel Hemric – who finished 24th Saturday – holds a tenuous single-point edge over Kligerman, who is in the ninth position.

Jeb Burton (-19), Josh Berry (-27) and Mayer (-34) are behind Kligerman – all three involved in incidents at Texas.

Up next is the Oct. 7 Drive for the Cure 250 presented by BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina at the Charlotte ROVAL (3 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) – the final Playoff race of this round.

RESULTS

Texas is turning up the heat for the Cup Series’ Round of 12

As the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs heat up into the Round of 12, the weather is doing the same. While autumnal tones have fallen over most of the U.S. into late September, Texas Motor Speedway is scorching this weekend, with temperatures creeping …

As the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs heat up into the Round of 12, the weather is doing the same.

While autumnal tones have fallen over most of the U.S. into late September, Texas Motor Speedway is scorching this weekend, with temperatures creeping into the upper 90s ahead of the Cup Series’ Round of 12 opener, the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400.

Sunday’s race day forecast has temperatures as low as 81 degrees in the morning before climbing as high as 100 degrees in the afternoon, right around when the green flag is set to fly.

“It’s certainly going to be really hot,” William Byron said. “Last year was around 96 degrees. I was looking at that, for reference. But I do think it’s going to be tough.”

While drivers have multiple methods of staying cool, figuratively and literally, inside the race car, the effectiveness of cooling and airflow has been an ongoing process with the Next Gen car.

“These cars are really hot. We take a lot of measures to help cooling on our side, with the cool shirts and all those things. Hopefully all of that stuff works well and we can have a smooth day,” Byron said.

Ryan Blaney is relying on his preparation in the week leading up to the race to ensure he’s comfortable come Sunday. “As drivers, we understand you are going to have days like this and hot race days and you just know that what you do and you rely on what you do as far as prep work, training and hydration, and that stuff is going to work no matter if it is 110 or 50 degrees,” he said. “I don’t change up what I do and I have never had an issue too much. I think it is tougher for the people watching the race outside in the heat and a little more difficult for them. For me personally, I think it is just part of the job.”

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With Sunday’s 400-miler being 100 miles shorter than last year’s race, which was also in the mid to upper 90s, Byron thinks it won’t be as brutal as it potentially could have been.

“It’s a bigger race track, so there’s a little bit more airflow and less work in the corners,” he said. “I feel like if you were at Bristol (Motor Speedway) and it was 100 degrees, you’d have guys really falling out. But here, I think it will be a little bit easier.”

Like any other professional athlete, when drivers are in “the zone,” Blaney says the heat isn’t really something that’s top of mind.

“Honestly it’s just a day at the office and the heat is turned on or the AC is broken. It is just one of those things,” he said. “You don’t think about it when you are racing. When it is green and you are running, you aren’t thinking about how hot it is or whatever.”

Rolling off second at his home track, Chris Buescher is prepared for the heat inside the race car, but thinks the higher temperatures will affect the track over the course of the afternoon.

“This is a very track-position-sensitive race track and with the heat this weekend I think it will be even more,” he said. “With that in mind, I guess this probably puts us in the non-preferred lane for the start but we will be watching this Xfinity race very closely and try to pull what we can out of it and see what we can learn for tomorrow.

“If you have a red flag and you are sitting there baking in an oven, then you are thinking about it. Or pre-race, you think about it being hot outside. But when you get in the car and in the mindset of competing, those things fade away and you focus on the job and just do your best.”

The AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 is scheduled to go green at 3:50 p.m. ET on Sunday. USA Network, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) will have live coverage of the event.

Wallace storms to second career Cup Series pole in Texas

Bubba Wallace laid down a 28.672s lap in qualifying at Texas Motor Speedway, good enough to earn him his second career Cup Series pole and first this season. “When it’s time to step up to the plate and deliver, this is what these (23XI Racing) guys …

Bubba Wallace laid down a 28.672s lap in qualifying at Texas Motor Speedway, good enough to earn him his second career Cup Series pole and first this season.

“When it’s time to step up to the plate and deliver, this is what these (23XI Racing) guys do,” Wallace told NBC Sports after his qualifying lap. The No. 23 was the 10th and final car in the final round of time trials.

Wallace entered last weekend’s Round of 16 cutoff race at Bristol Motor Speedway 19 points below the cut but made up that ground and then some to advance to the Round of 12 in his first ever postseason appearance. It was the second-largest deficit in playoff history to be made up in an elimination race.

His one other pole came last season at Michigan, where he led 22 laps and eventually finished second behind Kevin Harvick. This is also 23XI’s second pole this season (Tyler Reddick at Richmond).

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RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher (28.711s) and Brad Keselowski (28.740s) qualified second and third, with Ty Gibbs (28.760s) and Ross Chastain (28.769s) rounding out the top 5. AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Busch, Daniel Suarez, Christopher Bell (was going for four poles in a row) and Denny Hamlin (aborted his flying lap) complete the top 10 starters.

Playoff drivers who failed to advance to the second round of qualifying included Kyle Larson (11th), defending race winner Tyler Reddick (15th), Martin Truex Jr. (16th), William Byron (18th) and Ryan Blaney (23rd).

A piece of debris laid down by Todd Gilliland’s No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Ford was subsequently run over by Ty Dillon’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet on his lap.

Aric Almirola also scrubbed the wall with his right rear off Turn 2 and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun coming off the same corner on his warmup lap to bring out a brief yellow flag.

There are 36 drivers starting the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400. Green flag is slated to fly on Sunday at 3:50 p.m. ET on USA.

STARTING LINEUP

McDowell leads playoff-heavy Cup speed charts in Texas practice

Michael McDowell (185.771mph, 29.715s) laid down the quickest lap in practice for Sunday’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. He turned 19 total laps in the session with his quickest one coming just two laps in. Joey Logano …

Michael McDowell (185.771mph, 29.715s) laid down the quickest lap in practice for Sunday’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.

He turned 19 total laps in the session with his quickest one coming just two laps in.

Joey Logano (185.764mph, 29.068s), Kyle Busch (185.592mph, 29.069s), Aric Almirola (185.305mph, 29.096s) and Kyle Larson (185.293mph, 29.141s) rounded out the top five speeds, while Erik Jones (185.236mph), William Byron (185.204mph), Denny Hamlin (185.140mph), AJ Allmendinger (185.083mph) and Ross Chastain (185.071mph) completed the top 10.

Larson topped the 10 lap average category (184.279mph), followed by Hamlin, Chastain, Allmendinger, Busch, Truex, Justin Haley, Ty Gibbs, Carson Hocevar, and Chase Elliott.

Larson was also fastest in 10, 15 and 20-lap averages, while Hamlin topped the 25-lap average. Chastain and Gibbs turned 27 laps, the most in the field.

As far as other playoff drivers that turned laps in the session, Chris Buescher ended up 11th, Ryan Blaney 13th, Bubba Wallace 14th, Brad Keselowski 15th, Martin Truex Jr. 17th, Tyler Reddick 21st and Christopher Bell 23rd.

Bell spun off Turn 2 with about five minutes remaining in Group A’s session, bringing out a brief stoppage. It was the only incident in the afternoon’s dual sessions.

There are 36 drivers entered for Sunday’s race (3:30 p.m. ET on USA).

Date conflicts throw Texas into doubt for IndyCar’s 2024 schedule

Texas Motor Speedway’s longstanding place on the IndyCar calendar is in doubt after struggles to find a suitable date for the NTT IndyCar Series event during the compressed 2024 schedule have come to light. With IndyCar’s television partner at NBC …

Texas Motor Speedway’s longstanding place on the IndyCar calendar is in doubt after struggles to find a suitable date for the NTT IndyCar Series event during the compressed 2024 schedule have come to light.

With IndyCar’s television partner at NBC set to host next year’s Summer Olympics, some of the traditional IndyCar events that would normally run during that period have been moved to new dates before or after the race broadcasting blackout, and as a result, IndyCar finds itself in a date conflict for its traditional visit to the 1.5-mile TMS oval.

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RACER understands three options have been outlined, with two weekends in early April floated as dates for IndyCar, and the other in September. With the April scenarios, the concept of a shared weekend with NASCAR is said to have been proposed but is considered unlikely. The idea of running the week after NASCAR is another possibility, but there appears to be limited interest in hosting two major events on consecutive weekends.

The September solution also has the look of something that could run into problems as IndyCar is expected to announce a schedule that already has August and much of September filled with events at Milwaukee, World Wide Technology Raceway, Portland, and Nashville.

RACER also understands the series and TMS will continue to try and find a positive outcome to give IndyCar a major oval race as a warmup to May’s Indianapolis 500, but with the announcement of the 2024 schedule due to be made on Monday, there’s limited time for resolutions to be made.

If TMS is not on the upcoming IndyCar calendar, the series would have Indianapolis as its lone superspeedway, with all of the remaining ovals falling within the 0.875- to 1.25-mile range.

Buescher eager to get started in round 2 of NASCAR’s playoffs

The first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was not as comfortable for Chris Buescher as he would have wanted, but now comes a stretch of tracks he can’t wait to get to. “I am excited for this round because I know we will be fast at all these …

The first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was not as comfortable for Chris Buescher as he would have wanted, but now comes a stretch of tracks he can’t wait to get to.

“I am excited for this round because I know we will be fast at all these racetracks,” Buescher said. “If we can control that part of it and take care of ourselves, then it shouldn’t be that stressful on us.”

Buescher had an average finish of 11.3 in the first round. The one blemish was a 27th-place finish at Kansas Speedway after blowing a tire with seven laps to go. It made the elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway much tighter than Buescher was expecting, with only a 13-point advantage.

A fourth-place finish Saturday night got the job done. It is the first time Buescher has advanced into the Round of 12 in two postseason appearances.

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There are three different types of racetracks in the second round: Texas Motor Speedway (intermediate), Talladega Superspeedway (superspeedway) and the Charlotte Roval (road course). All three tracks leave little room for error and can be unpredictable. There were 16 cautions in Texas last season, including for multiple playoff drivers encountering trouble, while Talladega isn’t always in a driver’s control, and by Buescher’s own admission, the Roval is tricky for a number of reasons.

“The way I see it, the superspeedway races always have a certain amount of unpredictability, but where I’m at is I know RFK (Racing) will be bringing fast Fords to that race,” Buescher said. “I know we will be in contention to win it, assuming we can survive the chaos. But I think we have seen that same chaos at a lot of different tracks throughout the year. Bristol last year was a train wreck when you talk about cars falling out and having issues. I promise you, after losing out on a bunch of points at Kansas, it was on my mind going into Bristol, knowing we would be fast but that there was an array of issues that popped up last year and took really good cars and ruined their days and their playoffs.

“I don’t know that any of these races coming up have me any more stressed out than the Bristol race had me going into it. If we can go to Texas and have a good day and have a rough Talladega, then yeah, the Roval will be more stressful. I don’t get too caught up in worrying about it. Martinsville can be very rough. Even Texas last year had a lot of issues, too. I don’t know that there is any one round that looks worse over another.”

RFK’s drivers like what they’ve been seeing at the superspeedway races lately. Nigel Kinrade/Motorsport Images

Buescher and teammate Brad Keselowski have been two of the fastest on the superspeedways. The duo swept the qualifying races in Daytona last season and Buescher won the regular-season finale in Daytona last month. His average finish at Talladega is 19.9.

Going by the numbers, these three races don’t look good for Buescher. In Texas, Buescher has an average finish of 23.3 and 12.8 at the Charlotte Roval. Buescher has finished in the top six in the last two Roval races.

But history doesn’t mean much with the progression Buescher and RFK Racing have made. This is why he’s not stressed about the second round but views it as an opportunity.

“I think that’s just it,” he said. “I think that’s what is going to make it maybe a little less stressful for us than some others. That can change in a heartbeat with one bad day before we get to the Roval, but as of right now, I am very excited for this round. I feel like all of the racetracks we are going to, out of all the racetracks in the playoffs, Darlington was the one that I felt like we needed the most improvement at, that was going to be tough, and we would have to work really hard to just survive. We went there and ran third on the day.

“I’m proud of what everyone has done to get us to this point and proud to say we will look at the racetracks coming up as opportunities at each and every one of them. I don’t have one coming up that has me stressed out or down about it or thinking we just have to get through it and get to the next one.”

Racing on TV, September 21-24

All times Eastern; live broadcasts unless noted. Thursday, September 21 Suzuka practice 1 10:25- 11:30pm Suzuka practice 1 10:25- 11:30pm Friday, September 22 Suzuka practice 2 1:55-3:00am Suzuka practice 2 1:55-3:00am Suzuka practice 3 10:25- …

All times Eastern; live broadcasts unless noted.

Thursday, September 21

Suzuka
practice 1		 10:25-
11:30pm

Suzuka
practice 1		 10:25-
11:30pm

Friday, September 22

Suzuka
practice 2		 1:55-3:00am

Suzuka
practice 2		 1:55-3:00am

Suzuka
practice 3		 10:25-
11:30pm

Suzuka
practice 3		 10:25-
11:30pm

Charlotte
qualifying 1
(SDD)		 10:30pm-
12:00am

Saturday, September 23

Suzuka
qualifying		 1:55-3:00am

Suzuka
qualifying		 1:55-3:00am

Texas practice/
qualifying		 10:30am-
12:00pm

Texas
practice/
qualifying		 12:30-2:30pm

Indianapolis 2:00-3:00pm
(D)

Texas 3:00-3:30pm
pre-race
3:30-7:00pm
race

Gateway 5:00-6:30pm
(SDD)

Los Angeles 10:00pm-
1:00am

Japanese GP 11:30pm-
12:55am
pre-race
12:55-3:00am
race

Japanese GP 11:30pm-
12:55am
pre-race
12:55-3:00am
race

Sunday, September 24

Charlotte
qualifying 2
(D)		 12:30-
2:00pm

Charlotte
finals		 2:00-5:00pm

India 2:30-4:00pm
(SDD)

Texas 3:00-3:30pm
pre-race
3:30-7:30pm
race

Key: SDD: Same day delay; D = delayed; R = Repeat/Replay

A variety of motor racing is available for streaming on demand at the following sites:

  • SRO-america.com
  • SCCA.com
  • SpeedSport1.com
  • Ferrari Challenge
  • The Trans Am Series airs in 60-minute highlight shows in primetime on the MAVTV Network. For those wishing to tune in live, the entire lineup of SpeedTour events will stream for free on the SpeedTour TV YouTube page. SpeedTour TV will also air non-stop activity on Saturday and Sunday (SVRA, IGT and Trans Am). You can also watch all Trans Am event activity on the Trans Am YouTube page and Facebook page.
  • All NTT IndyCar Series stream live on Peacock Premium.

Armstrong, Blomqvist pass IndyCar oval tests at Texas

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong and Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist spent Wednesday lapping Texas Motor Speedway where the duo passed their rookie test on the 1.5-mile oval. “It was quite fast,” said Armstrong, who turned 180 laps in the …

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong and Meyer Shank Racing’s Tom Blomqvist spent Wednesday lapping Texas Motor Speedway where the duo passed their rookie test on the 1.5-mile oval.

“It was quite fast,” said Armstrong, who turned 180 laps in the No. 11 Honda. “It was an awesome experience and I really enjoyed it. The first proper run in the morning was great. I was just smiling after that first run and even on the in-lap I had a different reaction to what I was expecting. It was a lot more natural than I anticipated and I felt at one with the car later in the day. I found that it was a lot easier to trust the car and the banking. Overall, it was a very positive experience and I’m very grateful that Dario [Franchitti], Scott [Dixon], Eric [Cowdin] and Blair [Julian] could help me out throughout the day.”

Armstrong kept busy during his season of road and street course racing as the New Zealander made trips to every oval to learn what he could while watching teammate Takuma Sato wheel the No. 11 at every event. For Blomqvist, who’s been busy racing full-time in IMSA, his run at TMS was more of a shock to the system as the Briton was immersed in 215mph lapping with no real knowledge of oval driving. His teammate, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, did his best to get the IMSA champion up to speed.

“Fast! It was pretty weird at first, not going to lie,” Blomqvist said after piloting the No. 60 Honda. “But it’s amazing how the mind and body adapt. I enjoyed going fast and by the end, it almost felt like it was in slow motion, relatively speaking. It was great to have Helio there to give me pointers throughout the day. It’s one thing driving around by yourself. Chuck 26 other cars out there and it’s a whole new ball game. Definitely a skill I’m going to need to develop but one I’m excited about.”

VIDEO: Capstone turbine powers Andretti Autosport hospitality

Andretti Autosport sponsor Capstone put its products to use at Texas Motor Speedway by powering the team’s massive hospitality complex as Jim Crouse tells RACER’s Marshall Pruett. Presented by: Through a steadfast commitment to honesty, unrivaled …

Andretti Autosport sponsor Capstone put its products to use at Texas Motor Speedway by powering the team’s massive hospitality complex as Jim Crouse tells RACER’s Marshall Pruett.

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