Clint Bowyer and Brad Keselowski did battle during the SRX season opener at Stafford Speedway. Drivers in the series were excited to kick off the six-week schedule on Thursday night. (Photo: Sam Draiss | The Podium Finish)
STAFFORD, Conn. – With the third season of Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) kicking off at Stafford Speedway, series regulars, as well as some part-time challengers, shared their excitement for the season ahead.
Defending champion Marco Andretti, fresh off his NASCAR Truck Series debut start, rolled into the Connecticut half-mile oval with his sights set on a repeat.
“We’ll give it our best shot,” Andretti said. “The competition has stepped up this year, but it’s going to be cool to be able to learn from those guys and take a page out of their books.”
In a series that was “supposed to be” dominated by stock car drivers, Andretti scored one for the open-wheel hot shoes with the 2022 championship and he said he has steadily gained confidence during his three years in the series, and he comes into 2023 looking to build on his successful 2022 venture.
“It was nice,” Andretti said of beating all the stock car veterans. “I actually thought that I led more laps than my stats even showed. We were almost a bridesmaid in every single race.”
For defending race winner Ryan Newman, who backed up his win with a second-place finish on Thursday, the draw to compete in SRX is easy to explain.
“It’s special,” Newman said. “This is a big deal. This is SRX and the best drivers in the world are here. Not all of them, but some of them.”
Newman hopes to pick up a few more wins this season after last year’s emotional win, which he said means even more to him in retrospect than it did in the moment.
“[Last year’s win] was no doubt special,” he said. “To experience it first hand, and then to experience it in retrospect. To see my girlfriend and my daughters and their emotion makes it even more special for me. I was emotional in the car in the moment, but in a different way afterward. It was an amazing experience to get back into victory lane after a rough couple of years and a little hospital stay.”
Paul Tracy, who ran SRX full-time in the series’ first two seasons, is back for another season in 2023.
“This is all bucket list stuff for me,” said Tracy. “I was retired for almost 10 years, and didn’t drive anything. I was in a TV booth talking about how I used to do it. Then to get the opportunity to now do this for my third year, and race current level guys who are still doing it and winning races, that’s cool for me.”
For first-year drivers like Clint Bowyer, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick, the draw to SRX was similar and the excitement was palpable at the question and answer session prior to Thursday’s race.
“It was an opportunity to race tracks I never drove on against drivers I’ve never raced against,” Bowyer said. “When you’re in the TV booth, you’re talking about your passion, but you don’t get the chance to get in a car and do it anymore. The first couple of years, it didn’t hit me at all. I was burnt out on racing — didn’t really want to race. It hit me this year. The itch started itching.”
Keselowski said that in addition to the unique competition, he feels like he isn’t spending much time in the car anymore, so this was an opportunity to spend even more time doing what he loves. He said NASCAR’s changes to limit practice time and keep Cup drivers from racing Xfinity and truck races created more free time. That made it an easy decision for him to accept the invitation to SRX.
“I’ve got all this time to do things, and I want to drive more,” Keselowski said. “So when this opportunity came I was like, ‘Hey, it’s a chance to drive more.’”
Hailie Deegan is among the eight drivers competing full-time for an SRX title in 2023. She kicked off the season with a fifth-place finish at Stafford Speedway on July 13.
Hailie Deegan has made the jump from a part-time competitor to full-time this season, and she said she is thrilled to be back in the series competing against legends of the sport.
“I love these SRX series races,” she said. “There aren’t many races I go to that are more fun than the SRX races. Just the people you get to hang around. Drivers I never thought I would be chilling in the motorhome with, and having conversations about racing with. Having such great relationships with drivers I never thought I would have is great, and I’ve learned so much from every one of these drivers.”
The SRX will stay right where they are for the second race of the season as the series returns to Stafford Speedway next Thursday due to a schedule change. SRX was originally supposed to race at Thunder Road Speed Bowl in Barre, Vermont, but the event got canceled due to historic flooding in the region.
After Stafford, the series will travel to Pulaski County Motorsports Park in Radford, Virginia on July 27, Berlin Raceway in Grand Rapids, Michigan on August 3 and Eldora Speedway in New Weston, Ohio on August 10 before closing out the season on August 17 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri.
