Last Thursday night, SRX traveled to Pulaski County Motorsports Park for fans’ weekly entertainment. Motor Mile Speedway turned 0.416 miles of asphalt into over 50 miles of wild racing. Drivers held back on their speed and aggressiveness during the heat races but brought it all to the Main Event.
Photographer: Andy Coffey, Pit Pass Network
Josef Newgarden was one of the part-time drivers making his first appearance in the series at Motor Mile Speedway. With the success of Marco Andretti last season, Indy drivers are often considered high potential winning drivers throughout the series. Pit Pass Network journalists Robert Hill, Jr & Casey Melvin correctly predicted Newgarden would disappoint fans with his performance. After starting on the pole for Heat 1, Newgarden fell back throughout the heat and ended up 7th. During Heat 2, Newgarden started 6th thanks to the inverted field but ended up finishing last. For the Main Event, Newgarden lined up in 12th position and hung there until the end of the race, stating his car was much tighter than he anticipated and he battled his car throughout the race. The only thing that kept Newgarden from finishing 12th was Paul Tracy once again wrecking other drivers. Tracy’s latest – and final – victim, Ken Schrader, finished 12th.
Photographer: Andy Coffey, Pit Pass Network
Kyle Busch joined the field in Pulaski to try his hand at SRX racing this year. He started Heat 1 in 5th but quickly battled his way up the running order. Busch fought past Bobby Labonte, Josef Newgarden, and Brad Keselowski throughout the Heat to take 2nd place on the final lap. During Heat 2, Busch worked on saving his tires and setting good lap times, starting and finishing Heat 2 in 11th position. For the Main Event, Busch lined up 6th. Within 5 laps, he had already moved up to 5th with an inside pass on Labonte. After a restack/restart at Lap 20, Busch got inside Helio Castroneves, securing 4th place after a strong battle. Keselowski was the next to fall to Busch’s driving, giving up 3rd place on Lap 30. Another Fun Flag shuffled the field a bit thanks to the “choose” option (no physical cone). Busch got up under Tony Stewart and slid him up the track a smidge, taking 2nd place from Stewart. At Lap 57, Busch gets Keselowski into some dirty air, Keselowski gets loose and spins up the track but saves it from the wall. When the field goes back to green a few laps later, Busch and Stewart are on the front line. Busch drives a hard race and keeps 1st place til the checkered flag waves.
In what was probably his best racing in several years, Clint Bowyer put the pedal to the metal and drove himself to a second place finish. With a few more laps, he may have given Busch a serious battle for first (which would have been great for my predictions since I had Bowyer as a long shot for the win). Things didn’t look great for Bowyer in Heat 1, however. He started off 11th in Heat 1, had a little tussle with Tracy, and ended up coasting across the finish line without power to finish Heat 1 in 12th thanks to a blown fuse. With the inverted field, Bowyer gets to start Heat 2 in 1st place and maintains that position throughout the heat. He starts the Main Event in 10th and continues his path of using the apron regularly. He’s the only driver to do so and is already up to 8th a quarter of the way through the main. Less than 10 laps later, Bowyer drives under Labonte to take 7th. He’s now up 5 positions since the main started. At the halfway mark, Bowyer and Helio Castroneves battle for 5th, with Bowyer using the apron to get past Castroneves and take the spot.
To increase the entertainment factor, Conor Daly is in the booth with Allen Bestwick, serving as a driver analyst for the race. Daly decides to call up Bowyer as he’s fighting Newman for 3rd place. Bowyer answers with “I’m busy!” but continues talking to Daly anyway. It works out well as Daly becomes an unintentional spotter for Bowyer and he takes 3rd from Newman during the conversation. With 30 laps to go, Bowyer battles his former boss, Tony Stewart, for 2nd place. A caution Fun Flag restacks the group with Bowyer choosing inside Lane 2 for the restart, putting Stewart back in 2nd. Stewart got a little squirrelly and Bowyer overtook him for 2nd. A wreck brought out the caution with 18 to go so Bowyer and Stewart once again fought for 2nd after racing resumed. Then, The Tracy Incident happened. Once racing resumes with 10 laps to go, Bowyer and Stewart again battle for 2nd. At this point, Stewart should honestly have just quit lining up outside Busch for restarts because Bowyer always took 2nd place from him. At 5 to go, Bowyer takes back his usual 2nd place spot, but then a caution with 3 to go lines them up once more Busch-Stewart-Bowyer. With 2 to go, Bowyer took 2nd for the 5th time in 30 laps. At the checkered flag, Bowyer found himself on the podium just below Busch.
Overall, the racing at the Motor Mile Speedway was everything race fans could want. We had battles for position, crazy spins and wrecks thanks to Paul Tracy, and a great fireworks show between heats. Pulaski County Motorsports Park gave us a great show.
