Tyler Reddick will lead the field to green on Sunday after winning the Busch Light Pole Award at Circuit of The Americas.
Reddick, who won the first two races of the season for 23XI Racing, seeks to become the first driver in NASCAR history to open the Cup Series season with three consecutive wins.
Trackhouse Racing driver and 2022 COTA winner Ross Chastain qualified second and will line up next to Reddick.
See the full lineup below.
The DuraMax Texas Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne is at 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday (FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Position
Car
Driver
1
45
Tyler Reddick
2
1
Ross Chastain
3
19
Chase Briscoe
4
12
Ryan Blaney
5
9
Chase Elliott
6
71
Michael McDowell
7
16
AJ Allmendinger
8
20
Christopher Bell
9
54
Ty Gibbs
10
24
William Byron
11
38
Zane Smith
12
77
Carson Hocevar
13
97
Shane van Gisbergen
14
17
Chris Buescher
15
5
Kyle Larson
16
48
Alex Bowman
17
34
Todd Gilliland
18
41
Cole Custer
19
11
Denny Hamlin
20
22
Joey Logano
21
10
Ty Dillon
22
21
Josh Berry
23
7
Daniel Suárez
24
23
Bubba Wallace
25
88
Connor Zilisch #
26
6
Brad Keselowski
27
33
Jesse Love(i)
28
2
Austin Cindric
29
60
Ryan Preece
30
8
Kyle Busch
31
42
John Hunter Nemechek
32
35
Riley Herbst
33
3
Austin Dillon
34
47
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
35
4
Noah Gragson
36
43
Erik Jones
37
51
Cody Ware
# denotes rookie
(i) denotes ineligible for points
AUSTIN, Texas — Before Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch arrived on the NASCAR scene and began to assert their superiority on road courses, AJ Allmendinger’s name invariably was the first one mentioned when handicapping circuits with right- and left-hand turns.
But Allmendinger hasn’t won a road-course race since 2023, when he triumphed at Circuit of The Americas in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and won at the Charlotte Roval in the Cup Series.
“The way we change that narrative is you go beat them, right?” Allmendinger said. “But for the most part, we didn’t do that at most of the road courses last year. It’s not frustrating to me. For me, the most frustrating thing was just, in general, we didn’t run great at the road courses last year.
“I put a lot of that on my shoulders. I think as Goodyear softens the tire, it gives the advantage to a guy like SVG (van Gisbergen) that really knows how to save the tires. It’s something that, whether it was setup-based or my own doing, I struggled with it last year of trying to be good on long runs.”
Allmendinger conceded his own performance has to improve if he plans to return to Victory Lane.
“I don’t really put stock in how good SVG is, in that sense. Like for me, it would be different if I ran second every weekend to him on the road courses and you can’t beat him, then that kind of gets frustrating.
“But we weren’t even in that ballpark, so I think it’s more focusing on myself. You try to learn from them; study it, try to figure out what makes them so good and try to go out there and be better. That’s kind of what I focus on. The only thing I get frustrated with is myself.”
On Saturday, however, Allmendinger qualified seventh for Sunday’s DuraMAX Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), and van Gisbergen was 13th fastest.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — In a thrilling final run to the checkered flag, Layne Riggs bobbed and weaved, saving just enough fuel to keep a pair of hard-charging fellow Ford drivers, Ty Majeski and Ben Rhodes, behind him — ultimately earning his first trophy of the season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series inaugural race on the streets of downtown St. Petersburg.
Riggs’ No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford crossed the line a 0.879 seconds ahead of Majeski for the sixth victory of his career in Saturday’s dramatic, high-action OnlyBulls Green Flag 150 at St. Petersburg.
Starting 28th in the 36-car field, Riggs turned in remarkable work moving forward from the drop of the green flag. He finished seventh in the opening 20-lap stage and won the second stage 20 laps later.
Riggs said the fuel light was flickering with about eight laps to go and that he was almost certain he wasn’t going to have enough to finish, “just didn’t know how long it was going to last.’’
It lasted long enough to take the win and allow for victory donuts around the crowded course as he celebrated the first road course victory of his career, leading a race-best 41 of the 80 laps.
“It was a lot of fun racing here at St. Pete, I think everybody heard street course and thought they weren’t going to be able to pass and there wouldn’t be great side-by-side racing, but this was one of the raciest tracks we’ve ever gone to, at least in the Truck Series in my time,’’ a smiling Riggs said. “It was a lot of fun.
“I call myself a road racer now,’’ he added with a smile, noting this was only his fifth career road-course race of any kind in his life. “It’s amazing to race so many well-known guys, going past some and knowing these guys are road-course ringers and we were faster today.”
Sunny skies and a scenic 1.8-mile 14-turn course along the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront provided a great scene for the series’ first-ever street-course event, and the truckers did not disappoint the large and enthusiastic crowd.
At one point late in the race, Riggs, 23, held a sizable, two-second-plus advantage on the field, but lapped traffic in the final 10 laps allowed Majeski and Rhodes to close in. With a lap to go, it looked like Majeski had put his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Ford in position to make a final challenge on Riggs, but he overshot Turn 13 (for the second time on the day) — recovering enough to hold onto second but still feeling he’d lost an opportunity.
He also climbed out of his Ford truck, similarly encouraged by the venue.
“It was probably the most fun I’ve had in a race car in a long time,’’ said the 2024 series champion Majeski. “A lot of fun. It’s a racey race track with three good passing zones and [it] rewards discipline.
“Just finding that balance between being aggressive and making mistakes and staying disciplined,’’ Majeski said of his day, which included two laps out front and that runner-up finish after starting 22nd. “Just made a little mistake into [Turn] 13, got a little wheel-hop and had to chase it and battle my way back. Hope everyone enjoyed the show. We passed a lot of trucks today.”
Rhodes, who led 23 laps early, similarly could not mount a challenge in the closing laps, having to save fuel himself.
“That’s all we had in the tank for our F-150 here, literally I was running out of gas those last two laps,” said Rhodes, who now has a pair of top-five finishes through the opening three races of the 2026 season. “Really proud of Ford Racing for bringing us a fast truck. Our truck’s in one piece, and a lot of these trucks aren’t. Very excited though. Brand new truck and a good showing for it.”
Former IndyCar stars — Dario Franchitti and James Hinchcliffe, as well as current IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship full-timer Colin Braun — added an extra element of intrigue to the field. Braun, who started 16th in Kaulig Racing’s No. 25 Ram truck, finished ninth – best among that trio.
The former Indy 500 polesitter and multi-race winner Hinchcliffe finished 10th in the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, and the three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Franchitti was officially scored 27th, his No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota pitting late in the race and losing a lap.
Fords swept the top four positions, with Riggs’ teammate Chandler Smith finishing fourth after leading seven laps. Tricon’s Kaden Honeycutt rounded out the top five in a Toyota.
Niece Motorsports teammates Landen Lewis and Andrés Pérez were sixth and seventh, with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Daniel Hemric, Braun and Hinch completing the top 10.
“I think the overall headliner is that a Bahamian, North Carolina boy won on a road course against some of the best in the world,” a grinning Riggs said. “It’s a testament to everyone at Front Row Motorsports and a shout-out to [sports car driver] Joey Hand, who did a lot of work with me.”
“It is an amazing place to come and I don’t know why we couldn’t come back next year … I couldn’t believe how packed the grandstands were and I thought it was one of the best road-course races the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has ever seen,” Riggs said of running the double-header weekend along with the NTT IndyCar Series, which races Sunday. “Thank you to all the fans for coming out.”
Smith now leads the Craftsman Truck Series championship standings by 34 points over the former two-time series champion Rhodes.
The series returns to action March 20 for Buckle Up South Carolina 200 at the historic Darlington Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The 2025 season champion Corey Heim is the defending winner.
Note: Inspection was completed in the Craftsman Truck Series garage with no issues, confirming Riggs as the winner.
The NASCAR Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series return to Circuit of The Americas this weekend, while the Craftsman Truck Series makes its debut on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.
Race day: Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information is available.
Tires: Seven sets (five new race sets plus one set transferred from qualifying). Teams will also have one set for practice and six sets of wet-weather tires, if needed.
Race day: Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on The CW. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information is available.
Tires: Five sets (four new race sets plus one set transferred from qualifying). Teams will also have one set for practice and four sets of wet-weather tires, if needed.
Race day: Saturday at Noon ET on FOX. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Tires: Five sets (four new race sets plus one set transferred from qualifying). Teams will also have one set for practice and four sets of wet-weather tires, if needed.
Note: Practice was shortened and qualifying was canceled due to inclement weather. The lineup will be set via the metric.
AUSTIN, Texas — They say everything is bigger in Texas, and that’s certainly true for the attention Carson Hocevar has received for his assertive racing style.
After ruffling fenders with multiple drivers in the closing laps at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway, the No. 77 Spire Motorsports driver kick-started Cup Series media availabilities early Saturday morning at Circuit of The Americas and addressed how his on-track style is drawing comparisons to that of “The Intimidator” Dale Earnhardt.
“I mean, everybody’s open to their own interpretation,” Hocevar said. “I feel like you’re always just going to be compared to somebody, whether they’re good or bad. You know, if I was really, really slow, there’s probably comparisons of guys that were really, really slow back in the day, too. I just go out and race, and I enjoy it. I take it as a massive compliment, you know, from Richard Petty, Kyle Petty, Dale Jr., all of them making comparisons. I’m appreciative of that. I would like to just have half the success any of those guys did.”
For one to earn comparisons to a 76-win, seven-time Cup Series titleholder, being consistently in contention for victories and running up front needs to be the norm.
That’s been the case for the start of 2026 for Hocevar.
The 23-year-old firecracker been within striking distance of his first career Cup win on the final lap at both Daytona and Atlanta, leading the bell lap in the “Great American Race” before being spun entering Turn 1. The speed has never been a question when discussing Hocevar, but rather his style that’s put him in precarious situations that either take him out of winning contention or take others out.
Hocevar will tell you there is no one driver he is trying to emulate.
“I think if you’re building a perfect race car driver, I think you want to be able to emulate a bit of this guy, a bit of this guy [and] a bit of this guy,” Hocevar said. “You know, you don’t want to just emulate one whole driver. I think you just want to be successful or be versatile in all areas. There’s not, like, a direct style. I just want the style of whatever it takes to succeed, whether it’s being aggressive in this spot or letting somebody else be aggressive for me and taking that spot. It’s just all circumstantial. You’re racing at different corners at different times. You’re playing different people, right? You know, it’s not like any other sport where you’re just playing the same guy over and over and over. You have one restart, and you have totally different guys than you’ve been racing around all day. You’re going to have to be able to change with them.”
In season No. 3 at the Cup level, Hocevar is sensing the narrative change for the entire Spire Motorsports organization as he creates waves up toward the front of the field now.
Going from a one-car team at select events to a borderline powerhouse with three cars in the stable, Hocevar says the rest of the Cup garage is taking note, and the gaps on track are only shrinking as Spire continues to climb the ladder.
“I feel like going into my rookie year, that [77] was 33rd in owners points when I got into it, right?,” Hocevar said. “So, I think from Spire Motorsports’ steps, I think every team that’s not the big three teams that are basically dominating, they’re all trying to emulate Spire’s progression. You saw 23XI [Racing], they’re super successful. Trackhouse Racing is super successful. But now, we’re on that. It’s a lot easier to say it and say you have a five-year plan, but it’s really hard to actually pull it off because when we get faster, the big teams see it, and they want to get faster. So it’s like, did you actually get faster or did everybody else just get faster with you? So if everybody else got faster, did you actually get faster?
“The field just keeps getting tighter. The floors are raising higher than the ceiling right now. We continue to keep adding people, parts and pieces and processes that I think it was known to all of us after the second year that it was expected to have won already, just because I think if we weren’t so fast, people would still think Spire is this little team. But there’s been a lot of times we’ve been in contention, and we’ve changed that narrative ourselves.”
Logan Riely | Getty Images
A Cup Series win is on the horizon for Hocevar, and when that time comes, the comparisons to Earnhardt are only going to grow larger.
They may continue to balloon heading into Sunday’s race at COTA (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as Hocevar debuts a new Chili’s scheme that emulates the iconic black livery that first earned Earnhardt “The Intimidator” moniker.
For now, Hocevar isn’t fully embracing a 2.0 version, but he won’t shy away from the influence and what his growing influence could be for future generations of drivers.
“I think we’ve been in position to win these races,” Hocevar said. “I don’t know if this week we’ll show that, but I think we have really good tracks coming up that we can do that. But for me, I’m just going in the merch hauler and signing [No.] 77 die casts. You know, that’s me. Maybe in 20-30 years, somebody’s hopefully making comparisons of myself to the next kid that was doing it and running good.
“So, yeah, I just think it was a compliment, but you know, I’m not hanging up No. 3 posters on my wall and trying to pretend to be anything I’m not.”
AUSTIN, Texas — One of the few things that wasn’t startling about Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Circuit of The Americas was Tyler Reddick’s run for the pole position.
Navigating the 2.4-mile road course in 97.760 seconds (88.380 mph) in the second qualifying group, Reddick claimed his third Busch Light Pole Award in six attempts at the track and will lead the field to green in Sunday’s DuraMax Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Of course, there’s more at stake for Reddick than simply a victory at COTA. In winning at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta last Sunday, the driver of the No. 45 Toyota became the sixth Cup competitor to start a season with two consecutive wins. No driver has ever won three straight to open a season.
The 23XI Racing driver acknowledged that the pole position, the 12th of his career, is a positive first step toward that goal.
“It helps the chances, certainly,” said Reddick, whose series-best average finish of 4.6 at COTA includes a victory in 2023. “I think starting up front is huge.”
Michael McDowell led the first qualifying group of 19 drivers with a lap at 88.031 mph, but fell to sixth soon after the second group took to the track. Ultimately, Ross Chastain posted the second-fastest lap at 88.256 mph and will start on the front row beside Reddick.
The shocker was not that Chastain, the 2022 COTA winner, fashioned an excellent lap. What was surprising was that his two Trackhouse Racing teammates, Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch — both vaunted road-course racers — failed to crack the top 10 in qualifying.
Van Gisbergen was 13th fastest on his third lap. Zilisch could do no better than 25th. Van Gisbergen is seeking his sixth straight road-course victory in the Cup Series, a mark that would tie NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon for most consecutive road-course wins.
Chase Briscoe (88.242 mph) will start third, followed by Ryan Blaney (88.179mph) and Chase Elliott (88.161 mph). Elliott leads active drivers with seven road-course victories.
Behind McDowell in sixth, AJ Allmendinger qualified seventh, followed by defending race winner Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs and William Byron.
“We’ll see how it gets going,” Reddick said. “Certainly, Ross, Shane, Ryan Blaney — there’s a number of good drivers who were really strong in practice today. We’ll try to understand what that all looks like and make our best decisions on the car and everything.”
AUSTIN, Texas – Tyler Reddick doesn’t declare himself to be a statistical wizard, but he understands history is on the line this Sunday at Circuit of The Americas (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
By winning the opening two races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season in dramatic fashion – a last-lap pass in the Daytona 500 and holding off the pack at EchoPark Speedway in double overtime – Reddick became the sixth driver ever to win the first two races of a single season. No driver has ever swept the first three events.
“It’s kind of fitting that we come here with that opportunity to be in position for that, and it’s going to be super important that the things we work on apply today and tomorrow,” Reddick said at the crack of dawn on Saturday during a media availability.
Only David Pearson (1976), Jeff Gordon (1997) and Matt Kenseth (2009) have won the opening two races in NASCAR’s modern era. During the 1950s, Marvin Panch (1957) and Bob Welborn (1959) accomplished the same feat. After wins at Willow Spring Speedway – north of Los Angeles – and Concord Speedway, minutes away from NASCAR’s current hub of Charlotte, Panch placed third at Titusville-Cocoa Speedway in Florida. That was the closest a driver has ever come to scoring wins in the opening three races. Kenseth’s attempt went up in smoke – literally – at Lap 6, blowing an engine at Las Vegas Motor Speedway 17 years ago.
COTA is the perfect place for Reddick to get his chance, especially after the No. 45 driver won the pole for Sunday’s race. In his prior five starts at the famed road course, he is one of two drivers in the field who have never finished outside the top 10 (Alex Bowman). Reddick’s 4.6 average finish at COTA leads the league and is his personal best at any single venue.
“We’ve been strong when you look amongst the field at road courses, but I really like coming here and coming to these other road courses and contending for wins,” Reddick added. “I guess last time we were here, we were pretty close, but from pretty much this point on for the rest of last year, it was out of sight for us.
“I like Watkins Glen – it’s fast. Sonoma is fun, but this place, there is so much happening over the course of the lap. Whether it’s approaches, driving styles, how the corners are shaped – you can’t just have one approach and copy and paste it to the whole track. You have to have a different approach for the different sections and I’ve always enjoyed that about this place.”
In his first COTA attempt with 23XI Racing in 2023, Reddick won in grand fashion. The No. 45 Toyota led a race-high 41 laps from a front-row starting spot en route to his first victory with the organization.
Since the introduction of the Next Gen car in 2022, few drivers have performed better on road courses than Reddick. Three of his 10 career Cup triumphs have come on road courses, and he is tied with Chris Buescher for 17 top-10 finishes in 23 starts. Fourteen of those have come in the last 17 races overall.
Without a doubt, though, COTA is Reddick’s favorite road course.
“We will have to find a way to close the gap to Shane [van Gisbergen], and Connor [Zilisch] has been very strong on the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series side,” he added. “I wouldn’t be shocked if both of them are up there in the front of this thing.”
Since van Gisbergen burst onto the stage with immediate success, it has challenged the Cup Series field to improve. Reddick wouldn’t go as far as saying he has a chip on his shoulder to prove he can still excel at road courses, but he knows there is room to grow.
“I feel like I always need to show up and go as fast as I can,” he noted. “I don’t know if it’s necessarily to prove it to anybody else, but just go out there and run well and score a lot of points. When you look at it, [van Gisbergen has] done a good job of starting up front, having a clean race and making it hard for anyone to even challenge him. It adds to it, but it’s not anymore so than other weekends when it’s a race or track type that things have gotten away from us.”
Should Reddick, Bubba Wallace or Riley Herbst win on Sunday, 23XI Racing will become the third organization in Cup history to conquer the first three races of a single season (DePaolo Engineering, 1957 and Petty Enterprises, 1963).
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers will pit this weekend at Circuit of The Americas, as well as where your favorite NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series drivers will pit on the streets of St. Petersburg.
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Cup Series DuraMax Texas Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne on Sunday at Circuit of The Americas (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
OnlyBulls Green Flag 150 at St. Petersburg on Saturday at the St. Petersburg Street Course (noon ET, FOX, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The cloak of uncertainty that hangs on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series’ first street-circuit race just got a bit heavier — and wetter — to wear.
A challenging track, a festival atmosphere and precious little on-track time greeted the Truck Series in Friday’s prelude to Saturday’s OnlyBulls Green Flag 150 (noon ET, FOX, NASCAR Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, FOX One) on the streets of St. Petersburg. Rain dampened the 1.8-mile temporary road course barely 10 minutes into what was scheduled to be a 50-minute practice session with a qualifying chaser. Every driver in the field got on track, but none turned more than eight laps.
It’s another question mark for what’s in store for Saturday’s 80-lap, 144-mile matinee, the third race of the early Truck Series campaign.
“Honestly, I think that it’s probably the most fun I’ve had on a road course ever,” said Tricon Garage’s Kaden Honeycutt as he made the soggy walk from pit road to the Truck Series garage. He’ll start 19th Saturday. “I loved it. I don’t know, honestly there’s so many variables, especially now that we’re not gonna qualify, so many good guys will be in the back, some struggling guys are gonna start out front. So it’s just the way it works.”
Overcast skies Friday replaced the sun-splashed clear blue from Thursday’s load-in and orientation day, when IndyCar team personnel shared the circuit with the Truck Series’ early arrivals for a preliminary track walk. The tight nature of certain locations on the temporary course came into first view, as well as the realization that the well-worn barriers that form the lap layout already have plenty of character.
Three on-track incidents marked IndyCar’s opening practice, and a full 36-truck field may add more character marks in Saturday’s show, especially if the potential for lingering rain in the forecast prompts the installation of wet-weather Goodyear tires.
“I mean, we’ve just got to work through it,” said Daniel Hemric, who starts 34th for McAnally Hilgemann Racing. “Obviously, with the little bit of experience I got with Chicago in particular, the rain racing is different than rain racing in other places, just because the oils in the streets from regular cars. So it just adds another element. But yeah, it’s not completely out of the ordinary for what we’ve done in the past. We’ll just all adapt to it.”
David Jensen | Getty Images
The race weekend is the first of two consecutive meets where NASCAR will share the stage with IndyCar, which opens its 2026 season on the streets of St. Pete. Next weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series will be the main event at Phoenix Raceway, where IndyCar will join the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for a Saturday doubleheader.
The blend here has so far been a popular one, with a robust Friday turnout along the downtown waterfront circuit, where fans spilled out onto the grounds with drinks and food-truck fare in hand. IndyCar and Trucks make for a curious mix of motorsports cultures, and the Mazda MX-5 Cup and USF2000 series have added more variety for good measure.
“It’s very different from the NASCAR scene, and it’s cool that you get to have the fans kind of walk around here in the garage area,” says Front Row Motorsports driver Layne Riggs. “Had a lot of people say this is their first time seeing NASCAR in person, and that’s really cool for us to get some new eyes on our series. I think that we’re the gritty American series, we’re gonna put on some gritty American racing, and hopefully we put on a good show and we can come back in future years.”
Said Hemric: “I honestly didn’t grow up watching any IndyCar stuff, but over the last probably seven or eight years, became buddies with a couple of them over there. Scott McLaughlin, in particular, was somebody I actually called this week, like, ‘hey, all right, give me the scoop. Like, what’s the little nuances here and there?’ So yeah, it’s been fun to kind of be integrated with them, part of … I’d call it a doubleheader weekend, but there’s other series here as well, which is really cool to see fans from all over and they’re enjoying it. I’ve been to three different restaurants since I’ve been to town, and you walk in and people around you are talking about racing. It’s really, really cool to see. So it’s cool to be welcomed and hopefully put the show on that they deserve.”
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The four-time IndyCar Series Champion and 2011 IndyCar St. Pete Grand Prix winner Dario Franchitti is making his first NASCAR start since 2008 and competing in his first nationally sanctioned race of any kind since 2013.
That’s the power of his longtime friend, seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and NASCAR Cup Series Legacy Motor Club team owner Jimmie Johnson, who persuaded Franchitti to return to the driver’s seat this weekend to steer the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota on the streets of St. Pete.
“He’s worked hard at putting this whole thing together from the very first conversation,” Franchitti said of the NASCAR Hall of Famer Johnson, who has even committed to helping guide Franchitti during the race from atop the pit box.
“Jimmie is going to be there giving me advice. Even two nights ago he’s on the phone 11:00 at night and 7:00 the next morning talking about restarts. He’s fully into it (smiling).
“When you have a seven-time NASCAR champion with you there getting that information, I wish he’d been there in 2008 doing that job. It would have helped,” Franchitti joked of his NASCAR foray nearly 20 years ago.
“There’s no substitute for experience. He might be thinking at some point he wished he got in the truck and drove it here instead of me, depending on how I get on.”
