SRX hit the track for the second race of the season at Stafford Speedway, for the second time this season in place of the Thunder Road Speedbowl event.
Ryan Newman avenged his rain-shortened runner up finish from last week to take the checkered flag over Daniel Suarez and Marco Andretti.
The South Bend, Indiana native progressively worked his way up front throughout the night after finishing tenth in Heat 1 and third in Heat 2. With six to go in the main event, Newman passed Suarez in his series debut, using the inside lane to position himself for corner exit, where he claimed the lead, and never looked back.
Suarez had a strong car all night, but the experience of Newman, now in his second season, prevailed. Suarez ran a smart, and steady race, but that wasn’t enough to stop the rocket man.
The biggest issue of the night was overheating brake rotors– with three incidents surrounding them in the final 41 laps.
The first was with Stafford legend Ryan Preece, in his series debut, missing the corner while leading. Tony Kanaan assumed the lead, and shortly after, Preece blew a rotor, slammed the outside wall and ended a solid night.
The same could be said for Kanaan, who lost his brakes in turn one on a restart and slammed the outside wall, ending his best SRX run to date.
Marco Andretti rounded out the podium in third. 68-year-old Ken Schrader put up a solid run in fourth, and Greg Biffle, who crashed hard in the fist heat, rebounded to score fifth with a backup car.
Tonight was solid night for SRX. The addition of Darrell Waltrip in the booth, alongside Alan Bestwick provided a spark of energy to continue the broadcast quality after last week, with Joey Logano as the guest analyst.
Although the common trend of hot braking rotors leading to mechanical failures came about, that didn’t take away from the on-edge sequel to last week’s race. The understanding needs to be made that the simple art of hard and aggressive short track racing leads to these outcomes, as Joey Logano would say, “it’s short track racing.”
Up next for the SRX Series will be Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Virginia. Notable drivers joining the field will be four-time Indy 500 champion and 2022 Five Flags Speedway winner Helio Castroneves and two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch. Two-time IndyCar Champion Josef Newgarden will run his first race of the season while Clint Bowyer brings the excitement for the second time.
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The Slow Restart 