MINNEAPOLIS — The countdown has begun! NASCAR Arcade Rush revealed today will launch on Sept. 15, 2023, for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. Get your first look at the action with the new gameplay reveal trailer, showcasing heart-pumping competition, wildly reimagined spins on iconic, real-world tracks and high-speed NASCAR excitement like you’ve never seen before.
Experience the thrill of NASCAR racing in a completely new way with intense arcade races on iconic NASCAR tracks, totally reengineered with jaw-dropping twists, hair-raising turns, gravity-defying jumps, nitro boosts and other surprises. Customize your car and driver as you compete to take the top position across a variety of game modes, including the Career NASCAR Cup Series plus online and local multiplayer.
Key Features
Iconic Tracks, Wild Twists: Experience real-world NASCAR tracks like Talladega Superspeedway, Daytona International Speedway, Darlington Raceway, Martinsville Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway and more in all-new ways that will thrill your imagination and deliver a new level of playability within the vaunted NASCAR video game franchise.
Race Your Way: Choose from a full array of vehicles spanning 75 years of stock car racing history and horsepower. Customize your car and driver to suit your style with new paint schemes, rims, spoilers, visual effects, suits, helmets and more, with thousands of combinations to discover.
Robust Racing Modes: NASCAR Arcade Rush features expansive single-player modes, including the Career NASCAR Cup Series, Quick Race and Time Attack. Take on your friends in thrilling head-to-head local multiplayer*, or race rivals worldwide in 12-player online multiplayer.
NASCAR Arcade Rush is available to preorder now for $49.99 at major retailers.
Fans can also look forward to the NASCAR Project-X Bundlefor NASCAR Arcade Rush for $59.99. This digital exclusive will include not only the full base game but also comes loaded with extra NASCAR Project-X playable content featuring:
A hovercraft car model developed as part of Project-X
Project-X paint scheme, rims, wheels and spoiler
Project-X-themed drivers suit and helmet
Project-X team sponsorship option
Project-X vehicle FX package
A set of four additional in-game emojis to showcase your style
NASCAR Arcade Rush is published by GameMill Entertainment. For more information, visit NASCARArcadeRush.com
*Local multiplayer available only on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.
In back-to-back weeks, the NASCAR Cup Series is competing on a pair of the United States’ most historic racing venues. After a run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course last weekend, the best stock-car racers in the world will now test themselves on the iconic Watkins Glen International road course in upstate New York.
The bucolic countryside near the famed Finger Lakes, site of Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), has been a racing “go-to” for decades in various forms and fashions and is a most-fitting host during NASCAR’s celebrated 75th Anniversary season.
And the track’s place in NASCAR history is certainly not lost on its modern-day competitors.
“Watkins Glen is kind of a road-racing treasure in our country, just because of all the history and things that it has between the town and the track,” said 2006 Watkins Glen winner Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. “That venue has held some great races throughout the years, and our races up there during the last decade have been full of fans and a lot of fun to see how road racing has progressed through the years. It’s fun to go up there.”
A Pennsylvanian named Frank Griswold drove an Alfa Romeo to victory in the very first road race, an amateur event called the “Watkins Glen Grand Prix” in 1948 – an eight-lap affair on a 6.6-mile course made up of paved and dirt roads about town. Years later, engineering professors from nearby Cornell University helped develop a proper 2.3-mile road course on 550 acres that didn’t require sharing the actual city streets.
That relocation into the peaceful hillside hosted a one-off NASCAR race in 1957 won by Buck Baker – his margin of victory measured in distance, 0.46 miles over Fireball Roberts.
Soon upgrades were made to the facility, and it played host to the Formula One World Championship season finale in 1961 – a race won by Innes Ireland by a slight 4.3 seconds over American legend Dan Gurney and featured NASCAR Hall of Famer Roger Penske with an eighth-place showing that day.
The grand prix road course was so popular – both stateside and abroad – that Watkins Glen played host to F1 until 1980, boasting a winner’s list including Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi and Gilles Villeneuve.
During that time, NASCAR hosted another pair of races at The Glen, with Billy Wade (1964) and Marvin Panch (1965) hoisting trophies for America’s burgeoning and beloved stock-car series.
The NASCAR Cup Series returned to Watkins Glen to stay in 1986 and has been a steady and hugely popular sporting event ever since – for almost four decades, the track was one of only two annual road course events on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, compared to the half dozen road or street courses the series visits today.
The late Tim Richmond won that 1986 race around the now 2.45-mile, 11-turn course that has presented a lot of compelling stock-car history.
NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace and the great road racer Ricky Rudd exchanged trophies for four consecutive years from 1987-90. Mark Martin was the first NASCAR driver to win three consecutive races there (1993-95) – a feat matched later (1997-99) by fellow NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon.
It is a NASCAR Hall of Famer who holds the all-time record for NASCAR Cup Series victories on the Watkins Glen road course. Tony Stewart has five wins – winning four times in a six-year span between 2002-07. Gordon is second on the all-time list with four victories.
If you add in achievement in the NASCAR Xfinity Series races – the all-time winningest NASCAR driver on the track is Australian Marcos Ambrose, who earned a total of six trophies with a pair of NASCAR Cup Series wins (2011-12) and four victories in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (2008-10 and 2014). Canadian Ron Fellows won three NASCAR Xfinity Series races at the track (1998, 2000-01) and twice (1999 and 2004) finished runner-up in the NASCAR Cup Series event.
Interesting in the track’s history is that it is one of the rare venues where seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and inaugural class Hall of Famer Richard Petty did not earn a trophy. The family name, however, is still a part of the laurels as his son Kyle Petty – now a popular broadcaster for NBC Sports – won in 1992.
Eight NASCAR Cup Series drivers who will be competing this weekend have won at the track – Harvick, Kyle Busch, AJ Allmendinger, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, current championship points leader Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.
Elliott won back-to-back races in 2018-19, and his Hendrick Motorsports teammate – and fellow NASCAR Cup Series champion – Larson has won the last two races (2021-22). Larson (2022) and Logano (2015) are the only drivers to sweep a NASCAR weekend, winning both Xfinity Series and NASCAR Cup Series races at Watkins Glen.
Watkins Glen – the fifth of six road courses on the schedule – is now one of the last two regular-season races on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, making this weekend’s event a potential “season-maker” for the race winner and leaving only next week’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway to firm up that 16-driver playoff field.
“[Watkins Glen] is a track where you can definitely play some strategy and do some things,” said Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Chase Briscoe, who still needs a win to secure a playoff position.
“I’m looking forward to it. I always feel like it’s always a beautiful weekend up there, so it should be good.”
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Michael McDowell woke up Sunday morning with a nervous feeling, an eggshell-walking vibe that spoke to how much potential he and his team had entering the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. It was also telling that McDowell was mildly disappointed the day before in qualifying fourth — one of his best starting spots of the year.
But his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford kept showing up atop the charts — both the single-lap speed and 10-lap averages in practice — and McDowell’s confidence grew. Hence, the apprehension on race-day morning.
“I think I have a race-winning car here,” McDowell recalled thinking, “and I’ve just got to go do my job and not look like an idiot.”
There was no Sunday afternoon idiocy and no late-race lunacy to derail his hunch. McDowell went to bed Sunday evening as a winner at the famed Brickyard, having driven the race of his life in the Verizon 200. He had led 54 of 82 laps — setting a personal best — and scored his second Cup Series victory to go along with his triumph in the 2021 Daytona 500.
This win felt different — for the journeyman driver who first broke into NASCAR’s big leagues in 2008; for Travis Peterson, the first-year crew chief who challenged his driver to buck the industry norm in hiring him; and for his Front Row Motorsports organization, which had achieved its three previous Cup Series wins by capitalizing on right-place, right-time scenarios but has gradually blossomed into a scrappy mid-major team capable of busting up postseason brackets.
McDowell’s victory was his first in 2 1/2 years but didn’t feel like an upset.
“To basically dominate the weekend is hardly a Cinderella story,” said Jerry Freeze, Front Row’s longtime general manager. “We’ve been fortunate. This is the fourth Cup win that Front Row Motorsports has had, and I think you could say that the first three, circumstances kind of played their way into being in the position to get the checkered flag at the end, but this one was just a real butt-kicking, and so I’m especially proud of this win.”
The triumph also helped reduce any stress about McDowell’s recent weeks on the bubble of the Cup Series Playoffs. The postseason appearance is the second in McDowell’s career and the third for Front Row, which joined NASCAR’s top series in 2005 and labored just to qualify and run full races in some of its earliest efforts.
But McDowell also dispelled the underdog narrative of Sunday’s win, touting the team’s road-course strength in the era of the Next Gen car with statistical proof.
“Is it a Cinderella story from a lot of different aspects? Maybe,” McDowell said. “But off of pure performance, like, I feel like we’ve been nailing it and having a shot at it. But I also look at it as, like, we’re going up against some really big teams with a lot of resources, and to do what we did today is pretty awesome.”
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios
McDowell was quick to credit Peterson for his share in the team’s turnaround and for what he saw in the former RFK Racing engineer when he interviewed for the job in the offseason. The conversation over lunch between driver and crew chief was direct, and McDowell was honest in revealing who some of the other candidates were, including some with longer tenures atop the pit box. Peterson was matter-of-fact about why he deserved at least equal consideration.
“I can’t speak to how I convinced him, but I do remember making one comment to him about why do guys keep hiring experienced crew chiefs instead of taking a risk on a guy who knows what his potential could be,” Peterson said. “I do feel like that might have resonated with him because he liked that comment, and he felt that about himself at times throughout his career.”
McDowell recognized that passion in how the two interacted and in how Peterson reacted when tested. He needed an engineering-minded multi-tasker with a strong work ethic and believed he’d found one. Now two-thirds of the way through their first season together, they’ve continued to challenge each other in their approach.
“All I was doing was just to see if he had the fire because if you don’t have fire, you’ll never make it at Front Row Motorsports. You just won’t,” McDowell said. “You have to be a fighter because it’s hard. You’ve got to do a lot more stuff than most of the people around you have to do, and you’ve got to put in more hours, and you’ve got to be willing to do more with less. So I was just seeing if I could piss him off a little bit, and he was fiery, and that’s what I wanted. I wanted somebody that was fiery. I met with five or six guys, and I left that lunch like this is my guy. If I can get him, this is my guy. I just felt it in my gut, felt it in my heart. ”
The Bob Jenkins-owned team had won just three times before Sunday’s victory. Two were on superspeedways — McDowell’s Daytona win and the team’s breakthrough with David Ragan at Talladega Superspeedway in 2013 — and one came on a fog-shrouded day at Pocono Raceway in 2016 when Chris Buescher emerged as the victor of a weather-shortened event. He squeaked into the playoffs by reaching the top 30 of the points standings, an eligibility requirement at the time.
Front Row today is much better than the top 30 team of yesteryear. McDowell’s Indianapolis victory clinched the No. 34 group’s playoff ticket automatically, but the 38-year-old driver said they planned to still keep tabs on the team’s stature in the standings, using it as a measuring stick for how consistent the organization has been this season.
“We started off with a team that it was just an accomplishment to make the field for a race, and it’s just kind of grown from there, just incrementally,” Freeze said. “That’s what Bob Jenkins, he kind of challenged us with that from the start, let’s just get a little bit better from year to year to year, and I feel like we’ve accomplished that.”
So has McDowell, who enters the postseason field for the second time in a three-year span but as a greater threat to contend. The playoff pressure had taken a toll in recent weeks on the No. 34 team, which had slipped below the provisional elimination line with a strategy misfire at Richmond and front-end damage at Michigan. But McDowell said he saw opportunity in the moment.
“I wasn’t so much thinking about the must-win of the playoffs, I was thinking of the must-win of you might not ever get another chance like this where your car is that good. You’d better make it count,” McDowell said. “Like I said, I felt that this morning. I felt that pressure and that angst. Then the race started, and that angst went down, and I just got laser-focused on what I had to do and felt like I had all the things to do it.”
McDowell also has a distinctive claim now, visiting Victory Lane at Daytona and Indy — two long-revered venues in the motorsports world.
“You only get rings for certain races,” McDowell said. “I got the two best rings you can get.”
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — A Goodyear tire test is scheduled Monday and Tuesday on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval layout. Three Cup Series teams are set to participate, helping Goodyear and NASCAR officials evaluate the 2.5-mile Brickyard circuit for possible inclusion in future schedules.
The test comes after this weekend’s racing on the 2.439-mile Indianapolis road-course circuit, which the Cup Series has competed on since 2021. The series previously ran on the oval configuration for 27 annual events, starting with the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994.
No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford with driver Chase Briscoe
No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with driver Alex Bowman
No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with driver Ty Gibbs
The 2024 NASCAR schedule release date has not been revealed, but Elton Sawyer — NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition — acknowledged “ongoing conversations” about which Indianapolis layout will be used. “I think it’s fair to say that it’s always on the table,” Sawyer said last week about the oval configuration, in remarks made to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
If the schedule reverts to the Indy oval, Goodyear officials will want to be ready, said Greg Stucker, the tiremaker’s director of race tire sales.
“We just feel like there’s enough discussion around potentially going back to the oval in the future, let’s go ahead and take the opportunity to get on that race track in the old configuration with the Next Gen car,” Stucker told SiriusXM. “We haven’t run the Next Gen car on the oval, we’ve only run the road course.”
Sawyer said that Monday and the first half of Tuesday will be used for tire testing and that the second half of Tuesday’s session will be allotted for NASCAR competition officials to evaluate aerodynamic components for possible inclusion in future Cup Series rules packages. Six teams tried out a new splitter and additional aero adjustments July 31-Aug. 1 at Richmond Raceway, and NASCAR officials plan to use the time at Indy to collect more data and feedback.
Bowman was the highest finisher of the test participants in Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard, placing fifth with Briscoe sixth and Gibbs rallying to take 12th. Of the three, only Bowman has raced a Cup Series car on the Indianapolis oval.
“I don’t know if a stock car around this place ever really feels natural, but it’s definitely going to be cool,” Bowman said, noting the venue’s role as the ancestral home of IndyCar racing. “So, excited for it. I haven’t really thought about it much, honestly. We were going to try to get some laps in the sim for it before we came here, and we kind of just decided to focus on the road-course stuff. So I don’t know what to expect, but hopefully we have a good test and learn as much as possible.”
Briscoe won the first NASCAR race on the Indy road course — the Xfinity Series’ 2020 inaugural — but the Indiana native has long held a certain reverence for the oval, which has origins dating back to 1909.
“It’s crazy to think that I’ll be one of three guys to drive this Next Gen car on the oval,” Briscoe said. “So, if we get a race on it, the significance of what the Brickyard 400 is, it’s a crown-jewel. There’s no other way to say it.”
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Daniel Suárez and Chase Elliott each had opportunities to sort through their playoff uncertainty Sunday, both with solid bids at kissing the bricks on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s main straight.
The post-race taste of masonry instead went to a dominant Michael McDowell, who roared away to his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season and one of the fleetingly few playoff berths remaining. Elliott finished second by 0.937 seconds, one spot short of a win that would have cured his postseason bubble ills. And Suárez, the fast-footed pole winner, ended up third after a pit-stop miscue cost him precious ground.
Elliott came closest to unseating McDowell’s No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, but the gains by his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet were smaller and more sporadic. He remains in must-win territory to secure a playoff position, 80 points below the provisional elimination line with two regular-season races left.
“Just needed to do a little better job,” said Elliott, who has missed seven races this year because of injury and suspension. “Michael did an outstanding job getting through traffic, and I didn’t. Gained a lot of time on him those last couple of laps. Just not quite enough.”
Elliott had a civil conversation post-race on pit road with German driver Mike Rockenfeller, who was making his first start on the season, subbing with Legacy Motor Club in place of the suspended and released Noah Gragson. Rockenfeller struck an apologetic tone, saying that he potentially slowed Elliott’s progress as he chased McDowell down the stretch.
Torey Fox | NASCAR Studios
“I had a word with Chase, and he was not super happy,” said Rockenfeller, who finished one lap down in 24th. “… I mean, I just did what I was told to. I tried really not to hold anybody up. Michael put the nose in; I let him go straight away. I was fighting with the 47 (of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) to be, if there’s a yellow, the one who gets a lap back. Anyway, yeah, I’m sorry for that and apologize if I cost him there, maybe a second in that race.”
Suárez’s downfall was more dramatic, owing to a lengthy final pit stop. He brought the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet to pit row when the other front-runners stopped in the 48th of 82 laps. When the jack dropped after left-side tires were changed, the left-front tire caught the air hose underneath, requiring the car to be lifted up again to free it.
“Those hoses are really thick and awkward and just had a little weird loop in it,” said No. 99 crew chief Travis Mack. “You know, there’s three guys involved — You’ve got Daniel stopping in the box, the tire changer who’s holding the hose, and then you’ve got a guy behind the wall throwing the hose. So it’s definitely a team thing, a team issue that we’ll work on this week. We’ll just look at the film and see what we could do better next time.”
Suárez had been in relatively close formation with McDowell, but the pit-lane mistake left him with a deficit of nearly 10 seconds for the final run to the checkered flag. Mack provided encouragement over the team communications, telling his driver to put his head down and focus: “We’re going to put it on your back today because you’re going to get it done.”
Suárez closed in small, steady measures but was 5.750 seconds behind at the finish.
“I think my car actually got better by the end,” Suárez said. “So yeah, I think we were gonna have a pretty good shot. It really was gonna be fun because I felt that the 9 was pretty good, and then he was falling off at the end of the run. And the 34 and myself, the 34 was pretty good in the middle part of the run, and I felt like I was pretty good in the end of the run, so it was gonna be a good fight. It was gonna be a good fight; disappointed that we didn’t get to see it.”
Suárez had entered the race with just a slight, five-point deficit below the provisional playoff cut but left Indianapolis minus-28 after McDowell snatched up one of the last handful of spots on the 16-driver postseason grid. Suárez has a mathematical path to the playoffs with two regular-season events remaining at Watkins Glen International next weekend and Daytona International Speedway in two weeks, but the possibility of another first-time winner would narrow that avenue.
“He has to win now,” said Trackhouse founder Justin Marks. “I mean, he did everything today. He performed today at the highest level that I’ve seen him perform. We had some problems in the pit stops, but his pace, his commitment, his fire was exactly why we pay him to do what he does, and he was awesome today. It changes the landscape with the 34 winning, so now we gotta go to Watkins Glen, we’ve got to try to win that race, and if we don’t, we’ve got to go to Daytona and try to win that race. It’s as simple as that now.”
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Running a race he knew he could win, Michael McDowell held off Chase Elliott in Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard and grabbed a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
The No. 34 Front Row Motorsports driver led 54 of 82 laps at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in a race that featured just one caution and ran under the green flag for the final 77 laps.
“My family comes to the races we think we can win,” said McDowell, who shared hugs with his wife and children after climbing from his Ford. “We thought we could win this one.”
McDowell’s second career victory was a convincing one. He passed pole winner Daniel Suárez for the lead after a Lap 6 restart and held it until he brought the No. 34 Mustang to pit road on Lap 17 for a green-flag stop.
After pitting for a second time on Lap 49, McDowell regained the top spot when Bubba Wallace pitted on Lap 53 and held it the rest of the way. Over the last 29 laps, Elliott — needing a victory to advance to the playoffs — narrowed McDowell’s four-second margin to 0.937 seconds at the finish, but that was as close as the 2020 series champion could get.
“I was really trying to pace myself,” McDowell said. “I figured there would be a late-race caution, and I didn’t want to burn my stuff up. I was just trying to maintain that gap.
“Then when I got into traffic, (Elliott) started closing, I had to push it, but I just can’t believe it.”
McDowell now has victories at Daytona (the 2021 Daytona 500) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, arguably the two most iconic venues in the sport. He put a Ford in Victory Lane at a road course for the first time since Ryan Blaney won the inaugural race at the Charlotte Roval in 2018.
“Winning the Daytona 500 was one of the coolest moments you could ever have,” said McDowell, one of the most accomplished road racers in the Cup Series. “But going to Victory Lane without your family, that was tough.
“So we cherry-pick. We come to the races we think we can win… Just so proud… You know, I thought we could point our way in (to the playoffs), but after the car that we had yesterday in practice, I thought, man, we’ve got a good shot at winning if we could just get track position and maintain it.”
That’s exactly what McDowell did. After Suárez beat McDowell off pit road on Lap 17, McDowell chased the No. 99 Chevrolet until they caught the cars of Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski at the end of Stage 2 on Lap 35.
Hamlin and Keselowski were on older tires, and McDowell surged past Keselowski and Suárez through the Turn 12 and 13 complex. When Hamlin and Keselowski finally came to pit road on Lap 36, McDowell was back in the lead.
Much of the race was a three-way battle between McDowell, Elliott and Suárez, but Suárez lost valuable time when his left-front tire landed on an air gun hose during the Lap 49 stop. The snafu cost Suárez six seconds and a chance to win.
“We win, and we lose as a team, and that’s all I can say,” said Suárez, who salvaged a third-place finish. “The guys brought a very fast race car. I felt that maybe we were one adjustment behind in the first run with the back of the car, but then we made it a little bit better.
“But I felt like I was always one step behind the No. 9 and the No. 34, and then at the end, I felt that when my car came alive again, we had that issue.
“Just a little bit heartbreaking, but that’s part of the sport. All we can do is continue to push, continue to build race cars like this, and I’ll keep on winning races.”
Elliott was gracious in his praise for McDowell, and he identified where his No. 9 Chevrolet needed to be stronger.
“Just to be a little better through the back half (of the course) over there and get off of (Turn) 14 a little better just to have myself in a better spot getting into (Turn) 1.
“Just really appreciate the effort, man. Our Napa Chevy was really good, really good. Just needed just a little bit more and came up a bit short. But congrats to Michael, man. He did a good job. Ran a great race and stayed mistake-free, and that’s what you’ve got to do to win.”
Tyler Reddick finished fourth, followed by Alex Bowman, Chase Briscoe, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell. Shane van Gisbergen, who won the Chicago Street Race in July, was 10th in his second NASCAR Cup start.
McDowell’s win reduces the number of available playoff spots to three. Keselowski and Kevin Harvick are comfortably situated on points — barring more different winners at Watkins Glen next Sunday (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) and Daytona — but Wallace’s hold on the final spot was reduced from 58 points pre-race to 28 over Suárez.
Note: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage concluded without issue, confirming McDowell as the race winner.
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — A dream and a deal for Kyle Larson to run the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day in 2024 came to light with an announcement back in January. “Right now it’s so far away, it still doesn’t quite seem real,” Larson said Sunday, with Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s famed pagoda as a backdrop and working on limited sleep after his victory last night in the Knoxville Nationals.
The plan for Larson and Hendrick Motorsports to run both crown-jewel races on Memorial Day weekend is indeed still 287 days away. But Sunday, another significant step in the partnership with the Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team inched the initiative closer to reality.
The cars that Larson will drive on May 26, 2024 were unveiled Sunday at the Brickyard, just hours before Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) for the NASCAR Cup Series at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Both racers had liberal use of Hendrick’s blue with splashes of McLaren orange — his Indy 500 ride carrying No. 17 alongside his traditional NASCAR No. 5.
Kurt Busch was the last NASCAR driver to compete in what’s been called “The Double” in 2014. Larson’s team has dubbed this attempt as the “Hendrick 1,100.”
“It’s been on my mind to do for a long time,” Larson said at Sunday’s reveal. “I just never felt like the timing was right. When I was younger, racing for Chip (Ganassi), I knew the opportunity was there. I just, I wanted to be able to fully commit to it and take the time that it needed to prep for it. And I feel like now I do have a lot of success in the NASCAR stuff, being with a team that’s consistently up front and making the playoffs. I feel like now I can maybe take a little bit of focus away from that and try and compete in the world’s biggest race.”
Several representatives from both series were on hand for Sunday’s presentation, and the group pictures and handshakes among those dignitaries illustrated a sense of renewed diplomacy between the two motorsports realms. NASCAR president Steve Phelps smiled for the camera alongside IndyCar president Jay Frye, and Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles shared the stage to welcome Charlotte Motor Speedway executive Greg Walter. Bridging both worlds was Roger Penske, who has long kept ownership interests in both stock cars and Indy’s open-wheeled racers, and who has the keys to the building at the historic IMS track.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Studios
The state of affairs seems ripe for a crossover, and team founder Rick Hendrick now has an ownership stake in both of Larson’s Memorial Day efforts next year. He said with enthusiasm Sunday that he plans to be along for the ride with Larson between Indy and Charlotte for both legs of the double attempt.
“It’s something that’s on the bucket list,” Hendrick said, “and to be able to just come participate in the Indy 500, that’s a dream. So Kyle’s got an awesome amount of talent. We’ve got Arrow McLaren, a great team to help us actually put the car together and do those things. So we’re excited.”
Preparations have been ongoing, and Larson has remarked how smoothly things have gone thus far, that including a seat fitting that took far less time than he envisioned. He’s already spent time in driving simulation, getting the feel of an Indy car on road courses and gaining a newfound respect for the talent and technique required to reach competitive speed. “That was very eye-opening,” he said, noting how far under the limit he was on applying brake pressure. “It is insane how good those guys are.”
The next phase will be a mandatory rookie orientation test in October, when Larson will try to work his way up to speed on the 2.5-mile oval. In his corner, he’ll have a former Indy 500 winner — 2013 champ Tony Kanaan, who signed on as a special advisor with Arrow McLaren six weeks ago.
“I’m not molding him or anything. He’s going to drive first and ask me questions later,” Kanaan said. “I don’t want to overwhelm him with any information that he might be anticipating something that I told him, that I don’t think that’s good. So, he doesn’t need teaching. He needs just time in the car, and what I want him to do is to feel comfortable. And if he has a question, I’m there.”
When analyzing road-course racing, you can typically make an educated guess on which teams are going to perform well before the weekend begins. Based on Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, we covered the bases earlier this week in Fastlane. However, there are a couple of late-week changes to consider.
Dustin Albino’s race-day lineup:
Starter 1: Tyler Reddick Starter 2: Michael McDowell Starter 3: Kyle Busch Starter 4: Chris Buescher Starter 5: Daniel Suárez Garage pick: Shane van Gisbergen
NEXT IN LINE: Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell.
RISING: Dating back to Suárez’s full-time days in the Xfinity Series, he’s always excelled on road courses. His lone Cup Series win came last season at Sonoma Raceway. The No. 99 team has found raw speed again as it won its first pole award since Trackhouse Racing began two-and-a-half years ago. This is the Mexico native’s first time leading the field to the green flag since 2019 at Kentucky Speedway. He also ranked eighth in single-lap practice speed and was pleased with his car in race trim.
Chase Elliott looked to have rekindled some of his road course dominance on Saturday at the same road course he hasn’t particularly stood out at in the past. The No. 9 team earned its best qualifying position of the season in third. One cause for concern — and the primary reason why I’m putting him as the first car outside of my lineup — is he ranked ninth out of the 12 cars to make a 10-lap run. It’s understandable if you elect to start him.
FALLING: Never did I think AJ Allmendinger wouldn’t make my lineup at a road course as an active Cup Series competitor. But he showed irritation with the speed of his No. 16 Chevrolet. He seemed flabbergasted at the lack of pace as he qualified 26th. He didn’t even think the team could pull strategy to get him to the front at some point on Sunday. This is on par with how Allmendinger performed at the Chicago Street Course as he was a non-factor there, too.
All season long on road courses, Austin Cindric and Team Penske have struggled to be among the frontrunners. That’s quite surprising for how Cindric’s skills mesh with road courses and his success as a rookie last year. The No. 2 team has a pair of top-10 finishes in the three road courses this season but hasn’t spent much time inside the top five. The bad news for this weekend is Cindric was frustrated with qualifying 20th. On the positive side, he felt better about his race pace.
FEATURED MATCHUPS:
Tyler Reddick vs. Chase Elliott: Having been stout on road courses for more than a year, Reddick seemed to take the throne of the best road-course racer in NASCAR. Elliott had that title before him, winning seven times when turning left and right. With a strong showing in qualifying, the gap has shrunk, but would still lean towards the No. 45 car, as Reddick looked to have a consistent car on the short and long runs.
Chris Buescher vs. Martin Truex Jr.: Neither driver made the final qualifying round, but both drivers were pleased with their cars. Truex said he typically starts between 12th to 18th on road courses before charging to the front. Meanwhile, Buescher based his opinions on having a fast race car last year at the Indianapolis road course and started just one position better. It wouldn’t be surprising to see either driver contend for the win, but I do think Buescher extends his top-10 streak on road courses. He’s the pick, though Truex won at Sonoma in June.
Shane van Gisbergen vs. Brodie Kostecki: Both Supercar drivers showed promise in qualifying, especially Kostecki, who was only able to run two laps in practice due to an issue with his throttle. When going out to attempt to break into the final round of qualifying, the No. 33 Chevrolet lost control in Turn 11 and wrecked. Van Gisbergen remained steady, heel-and-toeing his war around the course. He very well could be in contention for his second Cup win in as many tries on Sunday. Stick with the No. 91 car.
Justin Haley vs. Michael McDowell: Anything can happen in racing, but it’s going to be a tall order for Haley to outrun McDowell at the Indianapolis road course. Haley is a capable driver, finishing runner-up to van Gisbergen at Chicago last month, but the No. 34 car was fastest in practice and backed that up in the first round of qualifying. He was irritated to only turn the fourth-quickest speed in the final round. McDowell could also win on Sunday, and he might have to as Suárez, Elliott, Alex Bowman, and Ty Gibbs – all drivers near the elimination line – are starting inside the top 10.
