Rain Dampens On-Track Activities at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
All on-track activities at Indianapolis Motor Speedway came to a halt on Saturday as rain plagued area.
NASCAR drivers will not have the chance to practice before they strap into their cars for the races. All practices were canceled on Friday as well as qualifying on Saturday. The starting lineup will be set per the rule book in both races.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. was lucky to run quite a few laps during an earlier test. He told those gathered in the Media Center Saturday morning that he’s confident that the notes from that session will help his team for Sunday’s race.
“The guys are always looking at notes and trying to figure out how they’re going to unload our car to be the best that it can be,” he said. “We did get a lot of track time during the test, but we can’t do anything because of the rain and that’s a bummer.”
Both Stenhouse, Jr. and Jimmie Johnson said tire wear will play a big part of the race.
“I think one big obstacle the whole field will have to overcome is tire wear,” said Johnson. “Until the track rubbers in it’s notorious for high tire wear. So, I’m sure NASCAR is thinking about that. I would assume that we could have a competition caution – at least one and I would lobby for two pretty quick just to get some rubber down on the track so we don’t have any issues. In that first practice session, you can’t run more than five laps. Once Cup goes through then XFINITY goes through then we get back to a Cup practice then we can do a 20-25 lap run with no problem. So it’ll be that opening stint or two we’ll need to be careful.”
The NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Big Vodka 400 at the Brickyard (160 laps) is moved ahead an hour to 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 9 while the green flag for the NASCAR XFINITY Series race, the Lilly Diabetes 250 (100 laps) will fly on Monday, Sept. 10 at 10 a.m. ET. Kyle Busch will start from the pole position on Sunday’s race alongside Kevin Harvick. They are currently first and second in the standings. On Monday’s race, Ryan Blaney will start the race in the first position while Justin Allgaier will be on the outside pole.
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