(Motorsport-Total.com) – Once once more extremely entertaining racing from the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX), this time in South Boston. In the second of six races of the second SRX season, there were thrilling duels for the lead and also one or two collisions and one or two crashes into the wall.
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Third SRX win and first of 2022 for defending champion Tony Stewart
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On the only 0.4 miles (644 meters) long South Boston Speedway, the main race (feature) on Saturday evening went over 100 laps. By the way: South Boston is not the southern part of the metropolis Boston in the state of Massachusetts, but a town with 8,000 inhabitants in the state of Virginia and thus in the middle of stock car country.
Appropriately, this time it was one of the former NASCAR stars who prevailed in the main race, namely SRX co-founder and defending champion Tony Stewart, himself a three-time NASCAR champion. At the SRX season opener a week ago in Pensacola (Florida), the IndyCar stars still dominated.
Marco Andretti started from pole following completing the two heats in P3 and P2. At the start, however, Tony Stewart immediately cornered Andretti on the outside lane and was thus the first leader. A little later Andretti took back the lead with a light touch. At the first restart, Stewart fought back and took command once more.
Marco Andretti spins in a three-way battle for the lead
Shortly following the second restart, Andretti regained the lead. A little later Stewart pushed past once more. The exciting duel had turned into a three-way battle because Greg Biffle, who had won the first heat, got involved. And that went straight wrong.
Andretti had just lost the lead back to Stewart and had also fallen behind Biffle. In an effort to counter Biffle on Turn 4, “The Biff” didn’t budge. Andretti spun on the inside lane and ultimately finished the race in P8 in this time field of twelve drivers.
Tony Stewart takes his third SRX victory
So Stewart was rid of his toughest opponent up to that point. In the person of Biffle, however, he immediately had a new opponent. But “Smoke” kept that in check. Stewart clinched his first win of the season and his third win overall in the racing series he and Ray Evernham founded.
Biffle finished second ahead of Bobby Labonte. Fourth through seventh went to Ryan Newman, season-opening winner Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan and Ernie Francis Jr. Guest starter Peyton Sellers, for whom South Boston Speedway is his home and yard track, made up behind the hapless Marco Andretti (8th) and behind Ryan Hunter-Reay (9th) completes the top 10.
Heat-Races: Helio Castroneves dreht Paul Tracy
In the two heat races, each lasting twelve minutes, first Greg Biffle and then Helio Castroneves prevailed. But the Heat 2 win came following a lot of drama.
In heat 1, Bobby Labonte started from the front thanks to the drawn grid, but lost the lead to Biffle in the first few meters. At a restart, Marco Andretti briefly took charge, but Biffle countered. The duel for P2 between Andretti and Tony Stewart was exciting. “Smoke” leaned into turn 3 of the last lap and pushed Andretti to P3.
In heat 2, Paul Tracy (P12 in heat 1) started from the front. The Canadian was in the lead for a long time but was turned around on Turn 1 in the final minutes. The contact that led to the spin was triggered by Helio Castroneves of all people. Tracy and Castroneves still disagree over who was the rightful winner of the Indy 500 20 years ago…
Tracy fell from the front to the back of the twelve-man field following Castroneves triggered the spin. While Castroneves clinched the Heat 2 victory in front of Marco Andretti and Ryan Newman, Tracy also ended the second heat in last place following contact with the wall in frustration.
Tracy and Castroneves weren’t the only ones who got in each other’s way in Heat 2. Also between Tony Stewart and Ernie Francis Jr. there were temporarily different views regarding a duel with paint replacement. Shortly therefollowing, however, the two joked together once more.
And Tracy? He also crashed into the wall in the final feature race. In this case, the crash was extremely unfortunate. Tracy didn’t have a chance to evade when Ryan Hunter-Reay got into trouble right in front of him in a duel with guest starter Peyton Sellers. Hunter-Reay drove on following a short check in the pit lane and a little later sent Michael Waltrip into the wall. Tracy was out on the spot following the unfortunate incident with Hunter-Reay.
The third of six races of the second SRX season takes place next Saturday evening in Stafford Springs (Connecticut). The first ever SRX race took place in June 2021 at the Stafford Motor Speedway, a 0.5-mile oval.