SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Indianapolis Motor Speedway has thrown William Byron plenty of curves ever since the road-course layout was introduced to NASCAR Cup Series competition. The latest hazard has the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver operating at a deficit before the green flag falls.
Byron will serve a pass-through penalty on Indy’s long pit road after the start of Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) after his car failed Friday’s pre-qualifying inspection three times. Byron was not permitted to qualify Saturday, and he’ll start last in the 39-car field — short his car chief and pit-stall selection.
The notification reached the 25-year-old driver as he was trying to satisfy his hunger.
“I was really excited to get here to the track and then got that message and had to regroup,” Byron said. “I was actually going to get some Jimmy John’s, so I was going through the drive-thru and wasn’t the happiest customer. But it is what it is. It’s life and things happen, and we move on.”
Byron was actually the pole winner for the Cup Series’ first race on the Indy road-course circuit back in 2021. Things have gone south since. His race results here the last two times out have been sub-30th finishes, both abbreviated by crashes, and last year’s race weekend had an ominous start with the No. 24 team’s hauler catching fire on load-in day, forcing the crew to scramble before practice and qualifying.
Byron found a slight silver lining with this year’s version of misfortune, noting how he’ll likely be running alone on the track, outside of the main pack after serving his penalty. “I think it’d be kind of peaceful, right? I mean, just feels like I’m in the lead, but I’m not,” he said with a laugh, adding that his team will do its best to adjust.
“It’s certainly not the circumstances that we wanted to have,” said Byron, who was ninth on Saturday’s practice speed chart. “We wanted to come in here, have a solid practice, qualifying, go into the race, but it is what’s happened and it’s unfortunate and we just have to try to be as efficient as we can to start the race, try to work our way through that, not make any mistakes on the on the pass-through, make sure we don’t speed on pit road or anything like that. Then I think the strategy and the overall pace of our car has been good, so we’ve just got to work the strategy to suit the pace of our car. … So, felt good about our car in practice. And like I said, it stinks the circumstances, but it’s what we got.”
The big-picture circumstances outside of the race weekend are more positive, as Byron continues to lead the Cup Series with four wins this season. It’s not the test of resilience that his team wanted, but Byron says he’s eager to see how the No. 24 group rebounds.
“I think our competitors look at us to see what we’re going to do in these situations. So I think it’s great. The spotlight’s on,” Byron said. “We’re going to go out there and try to overcome the adversity as best we can. I’m sure those guys, if we show up in the top five late, they’re probably going to be like, ‘How did they do that?’ “
“I fell down a flight of steps in Italy and had a stack of busted ribs for several weeks,” Harvick acknowledged Saturday to the surprise of the assembled media at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
So Harvick was driving with cracked ribs at Nashville and Chicago without making the news public—a very Earnhardt-like thing to do.
Now in his final season of NASCAR Cup racing, Harvick feels a special fondness for Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he won three times on the oval.
“My last race on the oval I won, so I feel pretty good about that,” said Harvick, who won the Brickyard 400 in 2003, 2019 and 2020. “It just kind of ended up that way.”
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Daniel Suárez had a pragmatic outlook on his playoff pursuit Friday, shortly after his arrival for NASCAR’s race weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. The driver of Trackhouse Racing’s No. 99 Chevrolet enters Sunday’s race just five points outside of the postseason field with three regular-season events left, insisting he wasn’t stressing the points margin even if “it’s impossible not to look.”
A day later, Suárez’s pole-winning outcome in Saturday’s qualifying session changed his tune slightly and could shift the Cup Series Playoffs picture if the results follow suit. Keeping close tabs on his fellow postseason hopefuls during the course of Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) doesn’t appear to be part of his plan.
“I don’t care. They have to worry about the 99,” said Suárez, who enjoyed a 29-point rise in the playoff standings after last week’s race at Michigan. “I mean, I say I don’t care, but in reality, I care like 0.5%, so I care very little.”
Suárez aims to sustain some of his momentum as the fight for the playoffs clicks down to its final three rounds. That path winds its way from Indianapolis to Watkins Glen and Daytona in the following weekends, presenting a closing stretch of two road courses and a superspeedway — venues where a driver’s good fortunes can turn sour in a snap.
Veterans Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski have the potential to clinch playoff berths on the basis of points this weekend. Their cushion remains steady, and those two should join the 12 regular-season winners as locks in the playoff field of 16.
That leaves two spots up for grabs, with Bubba Wallace leading the group of drivers in contention, ranking 58 points above the provisional elimination line. He joked Saturday that he’s also rooting for 23XI Racing teammate Tyler Reddick — a road-course pro — to win the next two weekends, which would prevent a new winner from muddying the playoff picture and hurting his cause.
Wallace admits road racing is not his strongest suit, but that his best efforts at the discipline have come at Indianapolis. He’s also made a conscious effort to block out any of the pressures that could accompany his bid for his first playoff appearance.
“When you don’t give a damn about things that makes things fun, right?” Wallace said. “You start thinking and overthinking and that dials yourself right out and it’s not fun. So I’m a damn good person at overthinking things, especially when it comes to road-course racing and taking the fun right out of it. You just gotta go out and get back to the basics.”
Just behind Wallace is a thicket of challengers, with four drivers separated by 24 points. Rookie Ty Gibbs is now the provisional last driver in, clinging to the 16th spot by three points over Michael McDowell. Further back are Suárez (minus-5) and AJ Allmendinger (minus-24).
McDowell nearly matched his best qualifying effort of the season, and his mild frustration with landing the fourth starting spot speaks to how well his Front Row Motorsports No. 34 Ford team has performed of late. He enters this pivotal three-race stretch with his contract status secured for 2024 — both he and teammate Todd Gilliland will be back with FRM — and a plan to maximize the team’s Indy output.
“I feel like we need to run top five in all the stages and finish in the top five to have some points, and we’ll need a couple of those guys not to have a great run,” McDowell said. “Obviously, with Daniel starting on the pole, they’ll have a good shot at a lot of points tomorrow in especially that first stage. So I don’t know. We’ll see how it all plays out. I mean, the good news is we have the speed. We’ve just got to execute, stay in the fight and see what happens.”
Allmendinger was downbeat Saturday after an uncharacteristically subpar qualifying effort. The road-racing ace was asked what he was combating in his No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet and his answer was blunt: “Speed.” He’ll start 26th in Sunday’s 200-miler, and is a former winner at both Indy and Watkins Glen.
“Just fighting speed. I thought practice was a little bit better. We just completely missed the balance in qualifying there,” Allmendinger said. “With the field that we’ve got now, if you miss it a little bit, it’s not about making a top 10, top 12 out of it. You’re buried in the field.”
See where your favorite driver will pit during Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Verizon 200 at the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — NASCAR Cup Series regulars and their international guests in the field this weekend are bracing for each other. It’s still a relative novelty, but road-course weekends that have attracted standouts from far-flung places and other racing series across the globe are becoming a more regular occurrence.
There’s still something special, though, about the world-class feel of the build-up to Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Drivers from seven countries with championship pedigrees from Formula 1, IMSA, Australian V8 Supercars and the World Endurance Championship (WEC) will be on the Brickyard grid, blending in with the range of talent from NASCAR’s top level.
“More eyeballs on Indianapolis this weekend,” said Cup Series points leader Martin Truex Jr., “so it’s good for all of us.”
Chicago Street Race winner Shane van Gisbergen will be making a return trip to the stock-car scene one month after his stunning victorious debut. Garage 56 teammates Jenson Button and Mike Rockenfeller will be back on the Cup Series grid, and Brodie Kostecki and Kamui Kobayashi are set to make their series debut.
The Cup Series drivers who have convened at Indy this weekend as part of their season-long campaign have largely welcomed the additional competition and the extra attention from other parts of the world. But they’re also wary of their talent level, so the odds of SVG or another of his international peers contending shouldn’t come as a surprise. The new faces in the field should also keep the stock-car regulars on their toes.
“That’s the big thing. I’m gonna be asking probably, ‘Who’s in that thing?’ I’m gonna forget,” said Ryan Blaney, driver of Team Penske’s No. 12 Ford. “But no, I think it’s great. I think it’s fantastic that Shane’s back, Brodie’s racing, Kamui’s racing. I mean, that’s fantastic. I’ve been watching Kamui in F1 for a while, so that’s super cool, and Jenson’s back. So yeah, I don’t know if it necessarily feels bigger from my side. It’s cool to have a lot of different drivers from all different backgrounds and countries and stuff like that. That’s really, really cool for the sport. It brings a lot more, kind of different nations watching us, I think because maybe that’s your guy from where you’re from.”
Pole qualifying produced a mixed bag for the foreign dignitaries, with only van Gisbergen making the final round and clinching the eighth starting spot for his No. 91 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. Kostecki, a fellow Supercars competitor Down Under, qualified 11th but damaged his No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevy through Turns 11 and 12 during the session. Kobayashi (28th), Button (31st) and Rockenfeller (37th) will start further back.
While Cup Series regulars held their own in Saturday’s time trials, they still said to expect a challenge come Sunday. Van Gisbergen’s Chicago showing on a street layout that was new for everyone was remarkable, but the modest familiarity that NASCAR’s usual crowd has on Indy’s 2.439-mile road-race circuit may improve their footing.
“Just other drivers from other disciplines, jumping into these cars, and doing what they do is impressive, for sure,” said Tyler Reddick, who starts second Sunday in defense of last year’s Indy road course win. “What Shane did at Chicago certainly caught some by surprise, with his background, with the Australian V8 Supercars, and the street courses he’s run in his career, it was cool to see him come in there and show us how much learning we have to do when it comes to street-course racing. But when we go to Indy, it’s a track that we’ve raced at, and this will be our third time, so we have some experience for sure.”
That suggestion that the Cup Series field had catching-up to do after Chicago was a sentiment shared by former champ Kyle Larson post-race.
“I felt like we were pretty comfortable with Chicago, but obviously not to his level, so I still think he’s going to be super good here,” Larson said before qualifying sixth for Sunday’s race, a row up from SVG. “I would not be surprised if he’s even faster than all of us by more than it was in Chicago, just because it’s gonna be way easier for him to get around here than it probably was in Chicago, too. So yeah, he’s an extremely talented race car driver, so I’m glad that he’s able to come back because I think at the time, Chicago was the only one (he had) scheduled. Cool that they were able to get him back here in the field that’s got a lot of ringers in it this week. So that’s exciting, and I think all of us drivers enjoy racing with them, and I think the fans should enjoy having them as a part of the field as well.”
Part of their welcome will involve the close-quarters racing inherent to stock-car competition but also the full-contact effect of restarts — especially those that fall during the later laps. That’s what the international group is bracing for.
“Yeah, I was actually very scared after I found out I was doing this race,” Kostecki said. “I went back through the last two years and went to study pretty quickly how the race sort of played out and what it was like into Turn 1.”
New restart-zone procedures — implemented at the suggestion of the drivers — should help to mitigate some of the first-turn stacking that has thrown previous runnings of the event into disarray. But the nature of putting full-bodied cars through their paces on the tight course still has the newcomers’ defenses up.
“When I spoke to Jenson about NASCAR, he said these guys are fighting all of the way, and you have to be ready,” said Kobayashi. “… Still, I’m looking forward to this weekend, especially my first race in NASCAR. I’ve been definitely looking forward to it. I will do my best. It’s hard to say what that will be, but I think it will definitely be a challenging next two days.”
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Needing a strong performance on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course to bolster his playoff hopes, Daniel Suárez got off to the best possible start on Saturday.
Touring the 2.439-mile, 14-turn circuit in 87.968 seconds (99.814 mph) in his No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, Suárez earned the pole position for Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
Suárez beat defending race winner Tyler Reddick (99.649 mph) by a substantial margin — 0.145 seconds — to secure his first Busch Light Pole Award of the season, his first at the Indy Road Course and the third of his NASCAR Cup Series career.
With three races left before the playoff field is set, Suárez is 18th in the Cup Series standings, five points behind Ty Gibbs in 16th, the last playoff-eligible position. Gibbs qualified 10th on Saturday, last among those who advanced to the final round.
“I think the mentality on the 99 team hasn’t changed the last couple of months,” Suárez said. “We have to continue to focus on one race at a time, try to maximize the potential of the race car and try to win a race if it’s possible.
“The energy has been great. The guys have been working very hard. I’ve been working very hard, and it shows.”
Chase Elliott, 55 points below the elimination line and realistically needing a victory to advance, qualified third at 99.399 mph.
“These things can go all sorts of different ways, but it is nice to have good track position, always,” Elliott said. “As time has gone on, it’s getting tougher and tougher to pass the leader, especially late in the race.”
Michael McDowell, two points ahead of Suárez and 17th in the standings, will start fourth after a lap at 99.288 mph.
McDowell posted the fastest lap of the day at 99.881 mph in the first round.
“That’s what we needed to do — qualify in the top five and now race in the top five, score stage points and be there in the end to steal the win,” McDowell said. “Let’s see what happens. You don’t know until you get out there and get to race pace.
“Our long-run speed was good in practice — as long as you could run in 10 laps. But we’ll see what happens when we get into a 20-lap run, and we stack up. But I feel good where we are.”
Kyle Busch earned the fifth spot on the grid, followed by Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Chicago Street Course winner Shane van Gisbergen of New Zealand. Alex Bowman will start ninth on Sunday with a time identical to that of Gibbs — 88.606 seconds.
Australian Brodie Kostecki claimed the 11th starting position for his Cup debut, but he slid into the outside wall and damaged his No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Ford during a second attempt at a lap in the first round.
Michael McDowell fastest during practice
Front Row Motorsports led the field during the practice portion, with the No. 34 of McDowell setting the pace ahead of Kyle Larson, FRM teammate Todd Gilliland, Ty Gibbs and Alex Bowman. Christopher Bell, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suárez, William Byron and Martin Truex Jr. rounded out the top 10.
CLERMONT, Ind.—Ty Majeski’s timing was impeccable.
Winless this season before Friday night’s TSport 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Majseki put an old-fashioned beating on the rest of the field in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoff opener.
The driver of the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford cemented a spot in the Round of 8 in dominating fashion, leading 179 of 200 laps, sweeping the first two stages of the race and beating pole winner and runner-up Christian Eckes to the finish line by 3.422 seconds.
That was the smallest margin Majeski held at the end of any stage. He held a 3.904-second advantage over eventual eighth-place finisher Corey Heim at the finish of Stage 1. He was up by six seconds over Heim before the second stage ended under caution for Chris Hacker’s spin on the backstretch.
Clearly, the short-track ace was in his element at the 0.686-mile speedway.
“I’m proud of the effort, but this is just the start of our playoff run,” said Majeski, who failed to win with the fastest truck two weekends ago at Richmond.
In that race, Majeski sped on pit road, and his team failed to cover a late green-flag pit stop by race winner Carson Hocevar. In contrast, the effort of the entire No. 98 team was impeccable on Friday night.
“Mistakes really cost us (at Richmond),” Majeski said. “We learned from those. Obviously, tonight we were in a really similar situation, and we were able to execute on all fronts. The pit crew was great, (crew chief) Joe (Shear Jr.) made great calls, and I felt like I executed pretty good on the restarts.
“We put it all together as a race team tonight, and I’m pretty proud of that.”
Hocevar came home fourth behind non-playoff driver Layne Riggs. Reigning series champion Zane Smith was fifth after starting from the rear of the field because of unapproved adjustments to his No. 38 Ford.
William Sawalich was a career-best sixth in his fourth Truck Series start, followed by fellow non-playoff driver Rajah Caruth. Heim, in eighth, was penalized for too many men over the wall late in the race. Three-time series champion Matt Crafton and Matt DiBenedetto completed the top 10.
The race also was a triumph for another driver who never led a lap and finished 19th in the first car one lap down. Shane van Gisbergen, who took the NASCAR world by storm by winning the Chicago Street Race in his only Cup start, avoided all trouble and got plenty of seat time in his first trip around an oval.
“It was awesome,” said the New Zealander. “With 10 to go, I finally dropped off the lead lap. “I had a ball. It was awesome racing with people, a lot of fun… I’m living the dream, it was really cool, and everyone was respectful. It was awesome.”
Heim, the regular-season champion, retained the series lead by three points over Majeski.
After the next two races—at the Milwaukee Mile (Aug. 27) and Kansas Speedway (Sept. 8)—the playoff field will be cut from 10 drivers to eight. The two drivers currently below the cut line are Crafton and DiBenedetto, who trail eighth-place Nick Sanchez by two points and three points, respectively.
Note: Post-race technical inspection concluded without issue in the Craftsman Truck Series garage, confirming Majeski as the winner.
William Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet failed Friday’s pre-race inspection at the Indianapolis Road Course.
Due to failing three times, Byron will not be allowed to participate in Saturday’s qualifying session and will have to serve a pass-through penalty on pit road after completing the opening lap during Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). The No. 24 team also loses car chief Tyler Jones for the weekend and will not get pit selection for Sunday.
Byron leads all Cup Series drivers with four wins in the 2023 season and currently sits third in the points standings, 96 points behind Martin Truex Jr. in the battle for the coveted regular-season title that awards 15 playoff points to the winner.
Since winning at Atlanta last month, Byron has finished outside the top 10 in four consecutive races.
The NASCAR Cup Series playoff bubble is hotly contested with three races to go in the regular season. In a unique twist, road-course aces make up a large chunk of drivers still aiming to clinch a berth into the 16-driver field, including Michael McDowell, Daniel Suárez and AJ Allmendinger. The drama will surely intensify with the Indianapolis Road Course and Watkins Glen making up two of the final three races.
Entering Indy on Sunday, 12 drivers had locked themselves into the postseason with a victory, leaving four spots still up for grabs. When the field takes the green flag for the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), a handful of big names still have yet to solidify their playoff position. See who currently sits just above the elimination line, just below and on the outside looking in with stats provided by Racing Insights.
Indy outlook — Hit or Miss: As far as road courses go, Indianapolis might be Wallace’s best. He finished 13th in the inaugural event in 2021 and earned his first top-five finish on a road course last season. However, Wallace has finished 17th or worse in the last three road-course events.
TY GIBBS
Points above: 3
Trending: Mostly Cold
Indy outlook — Cold Start: Gibbs finished 17th in his first Cup start on the Indy road course, but he owns top 10s in two of the three road-course races this season. Don’t be surprised if he’s running up front on Sunday.
☣️ ON THE BUBBLE
MICHAEL MCDOWELL
Points below: 3
Trending: Cold
Indy outlook — Hit or Miss: McDowell fell below the top 16 after a 24th-place showing at Michigan. But a pair of road courses upcoming could easily put him back on the positive side of the elimination line. McDowell’s worst finish on a road course this season was 12th at Circuit of The Americas. Last season, McDowell finished eighth at Indy.
DANIEL SUÁREZ
Points below: 5
Trending: Michigan Snapped Cold Streak
Indy outlook — Ice Cold: Suárez was caught up in multiple incidents over the last two races on the Indy Road Course. He’s finished no better than 28th on the layout, and he only has a best finish of 22nd on a road course this season (Sonoma).
AJ ALLMENDINGER
Points below: 24
Trending: Cold
Indy outlook — Hot: Allmendinger was the inaugural winner of the Indianapolis Road Course race and finished seventh on the circuit last year. However, he has just one top-10 finish on a road course this year — Sonoma (sixth).
ALEX BOWMAN
Points below: 44
Trending: Cold
Indy outlook — Cold: What was looking like a great points day for Bowman was for naught as an incident in the final stage at Michigan forced the No. 48 Chevrolet to the garage. Bowman is likely in a must-win situation, but the Indy Road Course doesn’t trend in his favor with only a best finish of 17th in the inaugural event.
🚩 MUST-WIN SITUATION
AUSTIN CINDRIC
Points below: 53
Trending: Cold
Indy outlook — Hot: The next two weeks are going to be Cindric’s best chances to earn his way into the postseason. He was the runner-up at Indy last year and is just one of two drivers (Allmendinger) to own top 10s in the first two races on the road course.
CHASE ELLIOTT
Points below: 55
Trending: Cold
Indy outlook — Hit or Miss: A DNF in the first stage at Michigan has put the 2020 Cup champion in a must-win scenario for the final three weeks of the regular season. Luckily for Elliott, he’s one of the best Cup drivers on road courses with top fives on the last two road courses and seven career victories on left-and right-turn tracks.
Indy outlook — Hit or Miss: Haley nearly shocked the Cup Series field after leading late at Chicago before Shane van Gisbergen took control in the final laps. Haley owns a top-10 finish on the Indy Road Course, but he’ll need to find Victory Lane to make the postseason.
ARIC ALMIROLA
Points below: 81
Trending: Mostly Cold
Indy outlook — Cold: Almirola finished 38th (DNF) last year on the Indy Road Course and has 20 consecutive finishes of 12th or worse on road courses.
RYAN PREECE
Points below: 89
Trending: Mostly Cold
Indy outlook — Cold: Preece owns only one Cup start on the Indy Road Course, a 35th-place finish in 2021. He has nine straight finishes of 13th or worse on road courses.
Kamui Kobayashi hasn’t turned a lap yet in NASCAR Cup Series competition, but he’s already found a home with 23XI Racing. The Japanese endurance-racing star shadowed the team for the inaugural Chicago Street Race weekend and has already made multiple visits to the Mooresville, North Carolina, shop to become better acquainted with the stock-car operations.
But there was one finishing touch needed to help make him look the part. When asked in a video teleconference earlier this week how the team co-owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan and NASCAR veteran Denny Hamlin had made him feel welcome, Kobayashi turned the screen and lifted his feet into view, revealing a new release — the Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG in neutral ‘washed black’ hues.
Now properly shoed, Kobayashi is gearing up for his Cup Series debut in Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App). Drivers from seven countries will compete in this weekend’s event, and Kobayashi will be the first Japanese driver to wheel a Toyota in Cup Series competition, taking the reins of 23XI’s No. 67 TRD Camry.
The deal was announced in June at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports raced as the Garage 56 entrant, and where Kobayashi competed for the overall crown for Toyota Gazoo Racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) Hypercar class. The 36-year-old driver has experience in formula cars and is a WEC champion twice over, but the chance to drive in NASCAR’s top series has been a long-sought wish.
“I was asking so many times, like back three, four years ago,” Kobayashi said. “I asked to drive the simulator with NASCAR, and many times asked to get an opportunity. It was never really happening, but somehow this time, it’s now an opportunity. As you know, I think now many global drivers are trying NASCAR and they’ve been quite successful.”
Shane van Gisbergen showed how well standouts from international motorsports disciplines could fare, and the New Zealander dazzled the stock-car crowd in winning the Chicago race with Trackhouse Racing his first time out.
SVG’s return for Indy to join the likes of Jenson Button, Brodie Kostecki, Mike Rockenfeller and Kobayashi in the field has made this weekend’s event feel like a showcase. 23XI Racing team president Steve Lauletta said his organization is happy to contribute to the world-class feel, adding Kobayashi to its roster for the event alongside Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace.
“Well, it is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, right? One of, if not the most iconic race tracks in the world, certainly on that short list, so you would expect it to have that level of interest,” Lauletta told NASCAR.com. “Then when you throw some of these global motorsports stars into the mix, it definitely adds more interest, shines a brighter light on the sport, which we all want to see happen, and I think it’s great that we could be part of that.”
Chris Graythen | Getty Images
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Recent months have been busy for Kobayashi, ever since Toyota placed its first calls to 23XI to gauge the team’s interest. His participation in team activities in July at Chicago was in-depth — walking the track, sitting in on debriefs, adding his insights based on his experience with wet-weather driving and how to apply it to Cup Series cars.
The weekend after Chicago, Kobayashi made his way to Italy to lead the No. 7 Toyota team to victory in the WEC’s 6 Hours of Monza. He was back stateside soon thereafter to resume his NASCAR immersion. “That’s just been his dedication to do it the right way,” Lauletta says. “It’s been really fun to watch.”
The preparation included a trip to Virginia International Raceway on July 19, when Kobayashi made his first Next Gen laps in a special test. Reddick, the defending Indy Road Course winner and his 23XI teammate, accompanied the team to provide feedback and pointers.
For Reddick, it was light-duty work.
“It didn’t take long at all,” Reddick told NASCAR.com, noting how soon Kobayashi found speed. “I was really impressed, just by how quickly he took to adjusting to the car. I mean, it was Lap 3 running pretty much what we thought the pace was going to be for the weekend, and then he just continued to shave seconds off that as we went. So just really impressed by his car control, his feel for the limit of this car, of the tire.”
Finding a rhythm with a heavier car is one aspect of Kobayashi’s learning curve, but another is the full-contact driving style that he can expect — especially on late-race restarts, and especially as the field funnels into the tight first turn with momentum from the main straightaway. Visiting drivers experienced that in March at Circuit of The Americas, and IMSA champion Jordan Taylor was among those who said “The aggression definitely caught me off guard. I think I had more contact today in one race than probably my entire career combined.”
Reddick was able to steer clear of the late-race chaos at COTA to score the win. Part of his work with Kobayashi has been to prepare him for the sometimes-bruising nature of NASCAR road-course racing. Kobayashi seems to grasp it, saying, “It’s big drama every time.”
“We’ve been going over that some, and that will continue to be a topic as we get closer,” Reddick said. “Certainly it’s a little bit more chaotic, drivers are just more aggressive, and there’s less penalty for contact over here in comparison to what he’s used to doing. These cars just don’t really take a lot of damage, when you have door-to-door, bumper-to-bumper contact. So just kind of walking him through that, getting him an understanding of that, will be important, but he kind of got to get a taste of how chaotic it can be in Chicago.”
The rest of the prep, Kobayashi says, boils down to studying the procedurals.
“Just, I need to do the best I can do,” he said. “It’s just small details which are different, like pit-lane speeds, obviously, the restarts — every little detail that might be a problem for me, but apart from that, I’m pretty confident.”
***
23XI Racing has fielded the No. 67 car in just one other race, placing action-sports dynamo Travis Pastrana in the seat for his year’s Daytona 500. Pastrana had just one full season of Xfinity Series competition 10 years ago but found his way to an 11th-place finish in his Cup Series debut.
The result was one positive aspect, but Lauletta said Pastrana’s participation brought a new audience to the NASCAR world. A similar expectation stems from Kobayashi’s first start, which he said has stirred up interest back in his home country.
David Wilson, Toyota Racing Development (TRD) USA president, said at the unveiling of the No. 67 effort at Le Mans that “we are absolutely open to using this as a platform to bring in other drivers on occasion.” He cautioned, however, that the challenge remained in doing it the right way. Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 initiative has taken a measured approach to highlighting international stars, and Sunday’s race will mark just its fourth start in two seasons — two for van Gisbergen and two for former F1 star Kimi Räikkönen. Lauletta said 23XI will also pick its spots where it makes the most sense.
“We think not only does it help us on the track because we’re learning things, particularly the races that we’re picking that will help our core programs of the 23 and the 45, it’s also helping us as a brand to kind of build our fan base and build our reach,” Lauletta says. “And so, when opportunities come up in the future, we don’t want to do it too often where we do start to take our eye off the ball of our two full-time championship-fighting efforts and race-winning efforts, but when an opportunity for those two things of on-track competition and learning and building our brand come about, we certainly now we’re comfortable enough that we have the infrastructure and the people that we can react.”
Having that support system in place is one matter; another is having the latest re-issue Air Jordan high-tops at the ready as a finishing touch.
“Just having gifts to welcome him to our team and have him feel like this is an important endeavor for us, we want them to feel like they’re part of the family,” Lauletta says. “So he’s been a joy, great to have around and just a professional in every way.”
That footwear bears Jordan’s name, but not his autograph. Not yet, anyway.
“I’m waiting for him to sign my shoes,” says Kobayashi, ready for his first meeting with his team co-owner and his first Cup Series start.
