For the first time in the history of the NASCAR Nationwide Series and the long history at Indianapolis Motor Speedway the Nationwide series will race at the track.
Since it will be the first time at the track for the Nationwide Series there is no strong, clear-cut favorite for Saturday’s race.
Because the drivers have never raced there, all the teams and drivers will be going/working from a clean notebook for the race. However, just because the Nationwide Series hasn’t raced here before, that doesn’t mean the some teams will be totally blind for the Indy 250.
Several of the teams can look to their Sprint Cup counterparts to try and string another strong run together.
A team to watch would be the Richard Childress Drivers of Elliott Sadler, Austin Dillon and Paul Menard. Sadler, is coming off a win last week at Chicago and he has experience at the historic two and a half mile rectangle.
From 1999-2010 Sadler raced several times at the Brickyard and captured a best finish of third in 2004. Coming off a win last week, and carrying over lessons from his previous stock car experience.
Another driver that can rely on not only his teams experience at the Brickyard, but also experience from the NSCS is Sadler’s teammate, Paul Menard.
Menard is the most recent NASCAR winner at the Brickyard, after stretching his fuel in the last fuel run last year, securing his first career victory, last August.
Dillon will be at Indianapolis for the first time in his career, but he will be reunited with his crew chief Danny Stockman after a two week absence that was forced because of penalties that came from the races at Kentucky and Daytona.
RCR isn’t the only organization that will have experience from the cup series at to bring into the NNS race on Saturday.
Other teams such as Penske, Kyle Busch Motorsports, Roush-Fenway Racing and Gibbs, but another team to keep an eye on is Jr. Motorsports.
It’ll be the first start ever for Cole Whitt, a lot of eyes will be on his partner, Danica Patrick, as she will be returning to a track that she had very good success with in the IndyCar series.
Like many other drivers, though, Patrick will be making her first ever start at Indianapolis in a stock car.
Why watch a team with two rookie drivers? Well the answer to that is because of the unofficial support that they get from the cup series.
Even though Jr. Motorsports is it’s own entity in the Nationwide Series, the team that it is most closely related to is Hendrick Motorsports.
In the Cup Series when it comes to Indy, there is no team that is better. Couple that with the few lessons that Patrick could carry over from the IndyCar series, and the two Jr. Motorsports entries could be a team to watch.
When it comes to the Indy 250, every driver, will be a rookie, in a sense, because the series has never raced there before.
Indy 250 entry list:
- Mike Wallace
- Kurt Busch
- Elliott Sadler
- Austin Dillon
- Jeremy Clements
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Danica Patrick
- Kyle Fowler
- Jeff Green
- Brian Scott
- Sam Hornish Jr.
- Eric McClure
- Scott Riggs
- Denny Hamlin
- Tayler Malsam
- Joey Logano
- Brad Keselowski
- Robert Richardson Jr.
- Kenny Wallace
- James Buescher
- Justin Allgaier
- Paul Menard
- Ryan Blaney
- Kasey Kahne
- Jeffery Earnhardt
- Erik Darnell
- Timmy Hill
- Josh Wise
- Michael Annett
- Mike Bliss
- Chase Miller
- Stephen Leicht
- T.J. Bell
- Ty Dillon
- Tim Schendel
- Kyle Busch
- Johanna Long
- Mike Harmon
- Jason Bowles
- Kevin Lepage
- Joe Nemechek
- Cole Whitt
- Morgan Shepherd
- Reed Sorenson
- Travis Pastrana
