The Superstar Racing Experience invaded Nashville, Tennessee for a trip to the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on July 9, to kick off the second half of the six-race schedule.
In the end, it was Bobby Labonte who brought home the win. He is the fourth different winner in four Camping World SRX Series races this season.
His first career SRX win was dominant, but also not easy. He definitely had the best car all night, finishing third in heat one, fourth in heat two, starting on pole, and leading nearly every lap. He fought off challenges from drivers such as Marco Andretti (who finished second), Matt Kenseth (third) and Paul Tracy (fourth) to do so.
Labonte fought off several restarts in the last 20 laps, and finally returned to victory lane at the Fairgrounds — he won the 1996 Opryland 320 for his lone NASCAR Busch (now Xfinity) Series win of the season 26 years ago.
Andretti had to settle for second again, after losing out to Ryan Newman just one week ago at Stafford Motor Speedway. Kenseth meanwhile, impressed in his SRX debut (he will run the rest of this season) by rounding out the podium, after having rather disappointing heat races. The driver of the No. 5 (interesting number choice might I add, given his history with numbers such as 6, 17, 20 and 42) said he burned up the rear tires during the heats and ultimately ran out of time to go for the win.
Tracy had another solid day, coming home fourth and finishing top five in both heat races. After being what some considered the laughingstock of the SRX field, Tracy has caught fire the last two races.
Meanwhile, it was a relatively quiet night for previous race winners this season, Helio Castroneves and Newman, as they came home fifth and sixth, respectively. They were followed by Michael Waltrip, who had a solid feature race and came home seventh.
The local stars didn’t have the outcome they wanted in the race. IndyCar’s own Josef Newgarden competed in his hometown race, leading flag-to-flag in heat one en route to the win. But a rare mistake from Newgarden resulted in him looping the car with just 30 laps to go. He finished eighth in the 13-car field.
The other local guest star, Cole Williams, won heat two but wasn’t much of a factor the whole night, and he came home a disappointing 12th, beating out only Tony Kanaan.
SRX regulars Greg Biffle, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tony Stewart, wound up ninth, 10th and 11th, in that order, ahead of Williams but behind Newgarden.
As the series heads down…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Frontstretch…